Finding counties with a full 81 matrix

[+CheekyBrit]

Are there any counties that host caches covering all 81 combinations of terrain and difficulty (a full matrix)?

YES! Multnomah county in Oregon, for example. 

 

But finding them is tough. Is there a way to compare counties and see how much of the DT matrix each of them offer?

 

The fantastic

'Map DT Matrix' tool on project-gc gets you a pretty good idea if you run it with a newer account (I use my sister in law's who has 2 finds), but that tool stops after 1000 caches and doesn't show a full picture. This isnt what it was designed for after all.

 

But why? I'm curious mostly.

 Also, i'm trying to make the gameboard as good as possible, working to make my home county offer as much as possible. It is fun to try and build up our small town to offer more diversity than full cities.

(I make sure my caches are all accurately rated. If I have a terrain 5, it is a rappelling cache or equivalent.)

[+thebruce0]

Restricting common 'basic' challenges like the fizzy grid to counties is a good way to freshen up the challenge game.  SO many people have completed fizzy grids these days that a basic one is relatively easy (depending on your region's cache landscape of course).  But if you've got counties that have enough caches to complete full grids, or even jasmer variants (minis, eg), then that is allowable and also a good way to get people geocaching in those counties

Here's one of mine for instance - GC6JVBN

[+CheekyBrit]

I built some fizzy grid challenges in Bannock county as a part of some interactive geoart project GC8X0WP. I contemplated making them restricted to caches within Bannock county and waiting till I had built the remaining 4 missing spots on the fizzy grid but opted away from it. Until I showed up, the county was missing 20 or so spaces on the grid and for a lot of DT combinations there is only a single cache in Bannock county.

 

Restricting to areas is great but IMHO there should be several options on most spots in the fizzy grid. Im sure there are counties that fulfill that but in my area it'd have to be an Idaho wide challenge to be realistic. Our high terrain and difficulties are brutal.

[Keystone]

26 minutes ago, CheekyBrit said:

Restricting to areas is great but IMHO there should be several options on most spots in the fizzy grid. Im sure there are counties that fulfill that but in my area it'd have to be an Idaho wide challenge to be realistic. Our high terrain and difficulties are brutal.

 You are spot on with this observation.  One requirement for challenge caches is that there needs to be "plenty" of qualifying caches from which a finder can choose.  The definition of "plenty" can vary from one challenge to the next, but it's certainly more than 1 or 2 caches in any particular Fizzy Grid square.

 

Also, thank you for placing caches that aren't in the "normal" Fizzy Grid squares.

[+CheekyBrit]

You two are making me feel great. Love feedback especially when I did something right rather than messed up.

 

Though i'm still pondering how to compare counties to see how many in the fizzy grid each has. Any thoughts?

[+MNTA]

23 hours ago, CheekyBrit said:

Are there any counties that host caches covering all 81 combinations of terrain and difficulty (a full matrix)?

YES! Multnomah county in Oregon, for example. 

 

But finding them is tough. Is there a way to compare counties and see how much of the DT matrix each of them offer?

 

The fantastic

'Map DT Matrix' tool on project-gc gets you a pretty good idea if you run it with a newer account (I use my sister in law's who has 2 finds), but that tool stops after 1000 caches and doesn't show a full picture. This isnt what it was designed for after all.

 

But why? I'm curious mostly.

 Also, i'm trying to make the gameboard as good as possible, working to make my home county offer as much as possible. It is fun to try and build up our small town to offer more diversity than full cities.

(I make sure my caches are all accurately rated. If I have a terrain 5, it is a rappelling cache or equivalent.)

 

Hood River County the next county east of Multnomah has a few power trails though the forest roads that initially was designed to have all D/T combinations just be prepared for some rough roads and possibly climbing 30-40 feet up a tree for the high terrain ones. It's a beautiful drive in the summer now under a few feet of snow, I found a few of the ones I had wanted but aborted about half way around the mountain when the road really deteriorated beyond what I wanted to tackle.

 

Hope you try to do something similar always good to see different cache combinations.

 

 

[+thebruce0]

Yep, absolutely there need to be sufficient options for someone starting with nothing to complete the challenge. Checking over my local challenges there is one county fizzy near me that has a DT with no qualifying caches. Currently. There were when it was published, but no longer. Placing a county-restricted challenge the CO needs to be aware for any parameter that might be rare that it could end up impossible to qualify if a cache changes or gets archived.