Feature - Rejected Implement familiar training for the purse rat

I was going to train my purse rat today, in order to get it ready for some slime tubing, but upon opening the familiar trainer, and selecting "train base weight", I got a message "Don't know how to train a Purse Rat yet". Trying to use the other options in the familiar trainer give the same results. Switching to e.g. the organ grinder and trying to train it works, so this seems to be something which only affect the purse rat - I will admit that I only tried the one other familiar, though.

Having a look in Susie's Secret Bedroom, reveals that mafia knows about the purse rat's strengths and weaknesses, as they are presented on the wiki, so I would think that mafia would be able to figure out a strategy to train the purse rat, even if it is bad at everything (after all its opponents is also bad at some things, and it is higher level than some of them).

So what I am hoping is that someone will take on the work of implementing familiar training for the purse rat, as I would guess that people sometimes would want to level it in order to get that extra edge when attempting to do fast slime tubes.

I wonder where Susie's Secret Bedroom is getting that data from, when the data file doesn't have it.

ereinion said:

I was going to train my purse rat today, in order to get it ready for some slime tubing, but upon opening the familiar trainer, and selecting "train base weight", I got a message "Don't know how to train a Purse Rat yet". Trying to use the other options in the familiar trainer give the same results.

Click to expand...

That is because the purse rat, like certain other familiars, is rated 0 in every contest.

Switching to e.g. the organ grinder and trying to train it works, so this seems to be something which only affect the purse rat - I will admit that I only tried the one other familiar, though.

Click to expand...

Here are all the familiars that are rated 0/0/0/0:

There are 9 "April Fools" Familiars, which you can't actually have equipped.
There are some that you literally cannot train in the Cake Shaped Arena: the Reagnimated Gnome, for example.
There are some that we have not yet derived the arena parameters for, yet: The Fancypants Scarecrow or the Miniature Sword & Martini Guy. (I'm surprised about the first; I guess I'll try it out, by and by. The second one, I will do as soon as I get my 11th anniversary present in June.)
And then there are others that really do suck at every contest. You CAN train them, but it requires an entirely different algorithm. See below.

reveals that mafia knows about the purse rat's strengths and weaknesses, as they are presented on the wiki,

Click to expand...

A comment: we NEVER take arena parameters from the Wiki. We ALWAYS derive them ourself. At least, I do that; typically 12 trials per contest. I cannot tell you how many times I have done that, entered the parameters into KoLmafia's database, and, when I later looked at the Wiki, saw that the Wiki had incorrect parameters. (And before you ask, no I do not update the Wiki when I find that. My previous bad experiences with certain people when I've edited it in the past makes that a non-starter. At this point, I really don't care if the Wiki lags behind KoLmafia in presenting "correct" information, since we do not derive any data from it. It is not my problem.)

so I would think that mafia would be able to figure out a strategy to train the purse rat, even if it is bad at everything (after all its opponents is also bad at some things, and it is higher level than some of them).

Click to expand...

The strategy is this:

If your familiar sucks at all contests, ONLY enter a contest against a contestant who also sucks at a contest. If both contestants suck at the contest you enter, you have a 50% chance of winning, I believe, regardless of weight.

So what I am hoping is that someone will take on the work of implementing familiar training for the purse rat, as I would guess that people sometimes would want to level it in order to get that extra edge when attempting to do fast slime tubes.

Click to expand...

It is doable, except we'd want to distinguish between familiars that are 0/0/0/0 because we haven't derived the parameters, yet, those that are rated that way because they CAN'T be trained in the arena, and those that really are 0/0/0/0 and require this special training regime.

lostcalpolydude said:

Code:

109	Purse Rat	purserat.gif	none	designer handbag	tiny cell phone	0	0	0	0

I wonder where Susie's Secret Bedroom is getting that data from, when the data file doesn't have it.

Click to expand...

The data it is presenting for the purse rat is a red X - i.e., a 0 - for every contest. You can use that frame to force it into a contest against a similarly weak opponent, I believe, by clicking on the button.

Veracity said:

The strategy is this:

If your familiar sucks at all contests, ONLY enter a contest against a contestant who also sucks at a contest. If both contestants suck at the contest you enter, you have a 50% chance of winning, I believe, regardless of weight.

Click to expand...

That was what I expected to happen, although I wasn't aware that the win chance was 50%, regardless of weight. With this in mind the arena doesn't give all that good returns on training with "sucky" familiars, so implementing this request probably won't do much good.

Thanks a lot for your exhaustive reply, it was really interesting to hear a bit about the thinking which goes into creating and updating mafia

Well, it's probably not very effective at leveling familiars, but if you want to get the familiar items, the arena is a possibility. I collect (sort of) tiny busts of Pallas, since I like the Poe reference. Used to be, the only way to get those was in the Arena with a 0/0/0/0 familiar. However, ever since Clip Art came out, boxes of familiar jacks are a heck of a lot easier, 3 times a day.

As I said, we could do this, but I'm not feeling personally motivated to do it. :-/

Yeah, and since I am both unfamiliar with Java / the KoLmafia project, and my motivation for getting this implemented would be in order to level my purse rat, I am very fine with that To be totally honest I suppose I would have been kinda ok with you not catering to my every whim, even if I had a strong motivation for this feature to be implemented

Aside, leveling your purse rat is a lot easier by just boosting familiar experience (e.g. having at least 50 turns of Blue Swayed from pulled blue taffy) and fighting in a 100% combat zone.