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[Retro]

To summarize the same probability laws that we all know equally well by using a different example, I shall say "It is very unlikely that a very unlikely outcome occurs." If this actually happened without RNG broken-ness, congratulations on magically defying insanely low odds! If this happened due to the RNG messing up, congratulations! You can't tell the difference anyways!

Have a drink to celebrate.

[jugglervr]

There is a near-infinite number of worlds, but not all of them are habitable. Therefore there must be a finite number of habitable worlds.

sorry. i have to cry foul. There are an infinite number of real numbers, but not all of them are irrational, therefore there must be a finite number of irrational numbers.
This is analogous to what you said, (edit: except I'm not too sure what you meant by near-infinite) but is very very wrong. In fact, if you consider the set of all real numbers, and remove all *rational* numbers (an infinite number) from the set, your remaining set has the same cardinality (is the same "infinite size", as opposed to being a different infinite "size") as it had before. The rational numbers are such a small set that they're a drop in the bucket of the irrationals.

so.
the fact that there are (edit)near-(/edit)infinite uninhabitable worlds, mathematically, has no bearing on whether the number of habitable worlds is (edit)non-near-infinite(/edit) or not. Additionally, we have no information on the cardinality of each set. It's possible that the habitables outrank the uninhabitables by a fair bit, though if I were to guess, i'd say that they're of the same cardinality; it takes a LOT to shift cardinality of an infinite set.

[ed boy]

I have reason to believe that there are 10¹⁰ seeds possible. This would mean that each world gen has a 1 in 10¹⁰ chance to be the same as the one before.

Although it is certainly within the realms of possibility that of all the worlds generated by all the DF players there has been at least 1 identical pair, the impressive thing here is that they were generated by the same person, right after each other.

This can be confirmed if the OP still has the saves and can extrace the seeds from them.

[Bauglir]

-snip-

[Tarran]

Your point being?

The standard set of world gens is completely mostly different from one with a key generation setting changed (min vol, min sav, min temp, min rain etc), as a normal set of worlds is very unlikely to have a map completely made out of 20 min volcanism squares.

[NW_Kohaku]

The seed numbers I have are generally either 9 or low 10 digit numbers, so I would guess that the seed is a randomly generated number between 0 and 2^32-1.  Very roughly, that's a one-in-a-billion chance.

I'd say the simple answer is to try to generate a world using the same parameters again, because maybe you just accidentally re-used a seed without knowing it.

Otherwise, you just happened to be the lucky monkey who's just won the nobel prize in literature.  If such luck persists, I would suggest trying to play the lottery, while being very, very careful to stay inside during lightning storms, as the probabilities of those are mere 1 in several million.

[SkyRender]

The RNG generates a 4-byte number for each seed, meaning there are 0x100000000, or 4,294,967,296 possible results that can come up.  So he didn't get so much a one-in-a-million result as a one-in-four-billion result.

[NW_Kohaku]

The RNG generates a 4-byte number for each seed, meaning there are 0x100000000, or 4,294,967,296 possible results that can come up.  So he didn't get so much a one-in-a-million result as a one-in-four-billion result.

Uh, yeah, that's what I said... 0 to 2^32-1.

[SkyRender]

 Fair enough, but your analogy was slightly off as a result of your not posting the actual number.

 Also, I am painfully aware of how comparatively easy it is to get a computer to actually generate the same 4-byte value twice in a row, because as it so happens, digital randomizers are very very bad at being random.  A fact that has been driven home repeatedly for me any time I try to play any game where the randomizer is given an unhealthy-high level of control over the proceedings.

[Dendou]

aight, here's how it works.

Either you are going to be able to gen the same world twice in a row or you aren't.  Two possibilities.  ie. a 50% chance of either.

Now to find actual probability of this occurance I will make up some numbers; let's say there are 1 million DF players who each generate an average of 10 worlds a week.

Therefore the odds that at least one world will be a duplicate of the one before it is
(1-(.5^(10^7)))
or damn near 100%.  Expected value of course is .5*(10^7) or 5,000,000
I would go on to calculate standard deviation and perhaps even a proof of normality(though it's not necissary here). But its the weekend

And I just broke probability

[Blackburn]

Either you are going to be able to gen the same world twice in a row or you aren't.  Two possibilities.  ie. a 50% chance of either.

Um, no, I don't think that's 50% either way.

More or less 99.98% and 0.02%. Or somewhere close to that. There is only one combination that generates the same world; any different combination does not.

So when you look at every single possible combination, the likelihood of the EXACT SAME combination occurring a second time IMMEDIATELY is...really, really, really, really freaking small.

So yeah.

[Trigonous]

Well, I didn't use the "Generate new world with parameters" option, so it was just the seed that would have to be the same.

But yes, I do agree that it's more likely the RNG failed somehow than that it actually generated the same number twice.  With pseudo-random numbers, that should actually be impossible.

[silverskull39]

taking the results of this discussion out of context and to the extreme, at some point, somewhere else in the universe there will be a blue planet with intelligent life forms living on it who call themselves humans. these humans will create a massive network of machines and information and call it "the internet" on this "internet" there will be all sorts of things such as articles, science stuff, and games. One such game will be called dwarf fort. this game will have a forum. forumites of this game will discuss the probability of generating two worlds exactly alike in a row on a pseudo-random world generator.

[Blackburn]

taking the results of this discussion out of context and to the extreme, at some point, somewhere else in the universe there will be a blue planet with intelligent life forms living on it who call themselves humans. these humans will create a massive network of machines and information and call it "the internet" on this "internet" there will be all sorts of things such as articles, science stuff, and games. One such game will be called dwarf fort. this game will have a forum. forumites of this game will discuss the probability of generating two worlds exactly alike in a row on a pseudo-random world generator.

Building on this, I have a question.

In which world will Dwarf Fortress be "finished" first?

[Trigonous]

The one that doesn't end in 2012.