Fastest Challenge Fizzy - thought experiment

[+CheekyBrit]

This is a total bookkeeping task purely for curiosity and competition.

Within project-gc.com under profile stats is the challenge tab (for profiles of paying members). On there is a D/T grid of challenge caches (challenge grid) and it's an awesome goal to work towards since it is a goal of goals (challenges). It took me 2384 geocaches to finish the challenge grid https://project-gc.com/Statistics/ProfileStats?profile_name=CheekyBrit&getprofile=Get+profile#Challenges and it got me thinking how few it could be done in.
How few total geocaches could someone finish their challenge grid? As secondary goals, trying to complete it in a short space of time and with minimal travel (so not just constant back to back caches in different continents). I recon someone could do it in less than 500 but it'd be cool if it could be done in less than 100 total.

[+JL_HSTRE]

If there doesn't yet exist a power trail of 81 caches with 81 unique D/T combinations (deserved or not) I would be surprised. It's obviously wrong, but technically not prohibited and would be reluctantly published by a Reviewer.

 

I know there exists such a piece of geoart, albeit with the catch that the art is made from Traditionals and located in a forest. 

[+MartyBartfast]

2 hours ago, JL_HSTRE said:

If there doesn't yet exist a power trail of 81 caches with 81 unique D/T combinations (deserved or not) I would be surprised

There are, I've seen several, but I think the OP is talking about Challenge caches with 81 unique D/T combos, and what's the minimum numbe of finds which could fill that grid. I.E. you would need the 81 challenges, plus all the qualifying caches for each of those challlenges, so the number is going to be way higher than 81. It's not as simple as just adding up the number of qualyfing caches for each challenge, as some caches might help qualify for more than 1 challenge.

 

[+Hügh]

29 minutes ago, MartyBartfast said:

There are, I've seen several, but I think the OP is talking about Challenge caches with 81 unique D/T combos, and what's the minimum numbe of finds which could fill that grid. I.E. you would need the 81 challenges, plus all the qualifying caches for each of those challlenges, so the number is going to be way higher than 81. It's not as simple as just adding up the number of qualyfing caches for each challenge, as some caches might help qualify for more than 1 challenge.

 

A cache owner could maliciously construct 81 challenges to fill a D/T grid:

 

CHALLENGE (1/1): Find at least 1 cache, at some point (possibly in the future).

CHALLENGE (1/1.5): Find at least 1 Mystery cache.

CHALLENGE (1/2): Find at least 1 cache with the Wheelchair accessible attribute.

CHALLENGE (1/2.5): Fill at least 1/27th of your D/T grid.

CHALLENGE (1/3): Find at least 1 cache in {country and/or state in which this powertrail is located}.

...

Edited November 7, 2022 by Hügh

[+MartyBartfast]

37 minutes ago, Hügh said:

CHALLENGE (1/1): Find at least 1 cache, at some point (possibly in the future).

Haha, so 81 it is then! When I saw your post I initialliy wondered if challenges with such trivial qualifications would be allowed, and I can see that they are/were.

[+The Leprechauns]

I've never focused on filling this grid because a 1/1 challenge, a 1/1.5 challenge, etc. don't feel like a challenge to me - more like a "minor inconvenience."  The 410 challenge caches I've found have filled in 65 of the 81 D/T grids.  If the rest fill in naturally, then yay for that, but I won't make a point of it.

 

The minimum number of caches needed to fill in a challenge cache Fizzy grid is 162 finds - 81 for the challenge caches and 81 for the single cache required to be found in order to qualify for the challenge cache.  Or even fewer than that, if finding one challenge cache qualifies the finder for another challenge cache, daisy-chain style.  Meh.

Edited November 7, 2022 by The Leprechauns

[+thebruce0]

4 hours ago, The Leprechauns said:

The minimum number of caches needed to fill in a challenge cache Fizzy grid is 162 finds - 81 for the challenge caches and 81 for the single cache required to be found in order to qualify for the challenge cache.

 

I was about to give this a two thumbs up - then remembered that prior found challenge caches can be used for future challenge qualifications. Theoretically, all it might take is 1 non-challenge find to qualify for all the 81 challenges. But one would be hard pressed to come up with 81 challenge variants contained within one single qualifying find. However one could more easily come up with another 80 challenges based on finding 1+(n-1) caches. Perhaps find a 5/5, to qualify for a 5/5 challenge, then 5/1 challenge could be to find a 5/5 and a 1T challenge, for example... As long as the requirements increase by no more than one additional find including prior challenge finds, and a person finds and signs each challenge in order to qualify for the next, you could complete it with 82 finds. In theory.
(ie: #1 = non-challenge find; #2 = non-challenge+challenge, #3 = non+challenge+challenge, etc, at most by find count, any combination of 1 non-challenge + found challenges)

 

Also keep in mind that T can be irrelevant to the challenge and only relevant to the challenge cache container, so you're really only coming up with 9 different "difficulty" levels of challenges (but 9 challenges for each terrain).

 

It's definitely an interesting thought experiment!

Edited November 7, 2022 by thebruce0

[+niraD]

Since we're playing this silly thought experiment...

 

37 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

Theoretically, all it might take is 1 non-challenge find to qualify for all the 81 challenges.

And maybe not even that. If you find several relatively easy challenge caches on the same day, then there is no way to tell in what order you found each one. You could use various combinations of those caches to qualify for other caches you found on the same day. On the second day, you could find several more challenge caches, qualifying for them based on the caches from the first day and the caches from the second day. And so on.

[+thebruce0]

36 minutes ago, niraD said:

And maybe not even that. If you find several relatively easy challenge caches on the same day, then there is no way to tell in what order you found each one.

True, but then you'd be willingly entering into shady territory  Legitimately, (by post-moratorium guidelines) you need to find a cache before qualifying and signing, so it couldn't be less than 1+81. But yeah, if you were to log at least one challenge cache found, and by doing so qualify for at least one for which the checker will work, then you could swing 81 finds assuming all other challenges are qualified by those prior challenge cache finds.

[+Hügh]

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Theoretically, all it might take is 1 non-challenge find to qualify for all the 81 challenges.

 

The first Challenge could be trivial. In a similar spirit to the one I linked above, "have at least 0 caches found" would work. It's certainly vacuous and the Reviewer will definitely poke you but it doesn't violate any guidelines.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Hügh

[+niraD]

33 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

True, but then you'd be willingly entering into shady territory  Legitimately, (by post-moratorium guidelines) you need to find a cache before qualifying and signing

I thought the current guideline was that you could sign anytime, and that you could log once you qualified. If you log all at once (e.g., via an API-partner app), or if you log on the same day (which looks the same to everyone viewing your logs), then I don't see how that violates the letter or the spirit of the current guideline.

 

I don't play that way (I don't sign until I qualify), but that's a different question.

[+mustakorppi]

The first challenge could be ”have 1 souvenir”.  The souvenir from GIFF 2021 was obtainable without a find. Or the Mars rover one…

Edited November 7, 2022 by mustakorppi

[+thebruce0]

21 minutes ago, Hügh said:

The first Challenge could be trivial. In a similar spirit to the one I linked above, "have at least 0 caches found" would work. The Reviewer might poke you but it certainly doesn't violate any guidelines.

I don't think that would be published. At least not in Ontario. It's not a challenge if you qualify with zero finds. It's just a cache. The guidelines may not be detailed enough to say that's not allowed, but I think it's assuming that a challenge must actually require the person doing something.  Would be interesting to ask reviewers if they'd publish such a challenge cache though.

 

14 minutes ago, niraD said:

I thought the current guideline was that you could sign anytime, and that you could log once you qualified. If you log all at once (e.g., via an API-partner app), or if you log on the same day (which looks the same to everyone viewing your logs), then I don't see how that violates the letter or the spirit of the current guideline.

Yes you can sign before you qualify, but you're technically not able to log it online until you qualify. If you log all at once, chronologically you're still logging it online before you qualify with finds (which is the basis of the statistical checker). So ya, it'd be grey area if you log it before qualifying and before the CO verifies the qualification, then a followup log provides the qualification. 

 

Now, you might not get much kickback if say you found a circular qualification set; such as, sign challenge #1, #2, and #3, where #2 qualifies for #1, #3 for #2, and #1 for #3 - and then log each of them found online. Running a checker for each would show qualification for each. But IMO it's getting questionably legitimate, lol, when really the intended order of challenges is to qualify, provide proof with the checker, then be permitted* to log it found online (passively, since the CO reserves the right to delete unqualified logs or leave them, after they're posted) - regardless of date, which is a technicality, since it may only work in batch and not one by one.

 

Sort of like date-restricted challenges, but now its implicit that the "must be found before" is as of the Find log date  otherwise, may as well log a challenge found, then a week later qualify, since a week later the checker will show green.  It's the implied order of challenge caches that's important.

 

ETA: I see now you meant that it's within guidelines to log a challenge found along with the qualifying caches if all found/logged on the same date. I can see how that could be allowed, but again it'd need to be a circular qualification, since the qualifying caches also need to have qualifiers, which brings us back to the circular qualification grey area; but it may only be grey for people who don't take issue with not following a strict order of qualify then log. /shrug/

Edited November 7, 2022 by thebruce0

[+thebruce0]

4 minutes ago, mustakorppi said:

The first challenge could be ”have 1 souvenir”.  The souvenir from GIFF 2021 was obtainable without a find. Or the Mars rover one…

 

Heeeey... while I think the GIFF souvenir required an Attended log, there are travelbug logs and stats that could be used for a challenge. Any non-cache statistic that's available to checkers could be used to qualify for cache #1 (or all 81 for that matter).

And in that case, we've hit a legitimate 81 find minimum...!

Good call @mustakorppi

Edited November 7, 2022 by thebruce0

[+mustakorppi]

Due to covid-related restrictions for public events, the GIFF 2021 souvenir came from logging this trackable with a code from the GIFF video. Similar to how the rover trackable worked.

 

Trackable logs themselves aren’t currently allowed criteria I think, but souvenirs are.

Edited November 7, 2022 by mustakorppi

[+thebruce0]

Right right. Slipped my mind.

 

But, there are challenges for count of TBs discovered.  Can't recall if those are pre- or post- moratorium though. But, I think they are checkable and allowed... could be wrong, I haven't checked =P

 

ETA: The one I'm thinking of is 2013, pre-moratorium. Don't know if any have been published post though... 

 

ETA2: Yes in the guidelines criteria, trackable logs aren't allowed now. Boo.

Edited November 7, 2022 by thebruce0

[+Hügh]

28 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

But, there are challenges for count of TBs discovered.  Can't recall if those are pre- or post- moratorium though. But, I think they are checkable and allowed... could be wrong, I haven't checked =P

 

As you say in your edit: pre-moratorium. But the Project-GC scripting system does have a function for getting the total number of trackables discovered. So a checker is definitely possible.

 

However, the function doesn't provide much more than that. I have seen a couple grandfathered challenges for discovering tattoos (the ones under the "Human Trackable" category) but unfortunately checkers can't be written for those. You have to manually (oh god) look in your profile to see the count.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Hügh

[+thebruce0]

"Challenge cache criteria must be based upon caches with the seeker’s logs: Found it!, Attended, Webcam Photo Taken."

 

So, based on the guidelines, we're back to being based only on smiley logs for geocaches. Which means in spirit, one by one, there must be at least one non-challenge cache found and logged before a challenge cache could be qualified and logged (making an 82 finds theoretical minimum). Practically, it may be possible to batch log multiple challenges in one day such that they qualify for each other, if no CO disputes the strategy (since the checkers won't distinguish the order of logs within one date) making an 81 finds theoretical minimum. 

 

However, if we adjust the wording to the minimum count of physical containers found, then it could certainly be 81 if the qualifiers are Attended or Webcam Photo Taken logs 

[+CheekyBrit]

On 11/7/2022 at 12:24 PM, thebruce0 said:

 

Also keep in mind that T can be irrelevant to the challenge and only relevant to the challenge cache container, so you're really only coming up with 9 different "difficulty" levels of challenges (but 9 challenges for each terrain).

Terrain is often irrelevant to the challenge. In trying to be more of a purist, my wife and I put our challenges on mountain trails and summits to bump up the real life terrain to match what we want to list them as. I'm sure it might disappoint the park and cache challenge cache collectors but if it gets more people on these awesome trails, it was worth it.