CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netlistrandomprobability
Tsproggy
Tsproggy

Reputation: 103

Influenced randomization

I'm really sorry, I would search my question but I don't know how to word it correctly, I have a big problem with mental math and I've been trying to think of a solution. I'm trying to build a program for my guild that will add names to a list. This list has a parallel struct for each entry that holds the person's name and number of donations to a raffle.

I want to randomize through all the names and have the results positively influenced by the amount of donations people have put in. likes 1 or 1% increase in possibility * number of donations. I've done randomization before but I've never had to influence the odds slightly. help me please? I would post code but I don't have ANY randomization at the time. I can give you some other stuff though:

I made a struct to hold each user's entry:

    public struct pEntry
    {
        public string Name;
        public int Entries;
    }

I made a list to hold all the entries:

    public List<pEntry> lEntries = new List<pEntry>();

I want my randomization to be positively influenced by the number of entries(donations) they've made. This has no cap on how high it can go but if I need to maybe I can make it like.. 255.After it randomizes it will pick display a message saying that, that user has won and it will remove that entry from the list and pick a few more. This program will be used for multiple raffles and things like it but all use the same system.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 181

Answers (1)

StarPilot
StarPilot

Reputation: 2272

You need to know how much donations increase the chance of winning. Does 1 = 1 more chance than someone that hasn't donated? Once you have a base and a bonus, you can just generate a "chart", see what your top number is, and generate a random number. After that, you can remove that person or reset their chances by whatever fraction you want, regenerate your chance list, and generate a new number.

For instance, if you want 1 donation unit to give 10% more chance for that person, then you could generate a list of all the guild, and each person gets 10 "lots" + 1 lot per donation unit. So if you had 3 people, where:

  • Ann gave 5 donation units
  • Tom gave 2 donation units
  • Bob didn't give any

The resulting list would be:

  1. Ann lot count: 10 (base) + 5 (donations) = 15 lots
  2. Tom lot count: 10 (base) + 2 (donations) = 12 lots
  3. Bob lot count: 10 (base) + 0 (no donations) = 10 lots

Then you generate a number between 1 and 37 (15 + 12 + 10) to determine the winner.

Figure out what each donation should improve their odds (increases in their lots) and then you can start building your ranges and generate your numbers.

Upvotes: 2

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