Anyone know the details on the bond unite skill in tracking? Same plane? Time to do it? Stopped by afflictions/monolith/actions?

I notice E more than I notice my own city's Patron. Do the other gods just stick more to their own Orders?

Same local area for unite. Not stopped by monos, is stopped by movement attempt. It takes a few seconds.

Eventru is just a lot more... worldwide flashy. Which is kinda fun. I still fondly remember him and Fain sending meteors to the Pool/Megalith when I was still in Celest, resulting in the deaths of several mortals in the process. Fun times.

I hope you're kidding.

Does Hallifax have a program yet for grants to fund empiricial research on things like this?

I'm not really sure why he'd be kidding; it makes perfect sense. If the oil is on it on the tick (I'd imagine it only checks on the 13th-of-the-month update, but it depends on how the decay timer is coded), it doesn't decrement it. If it's not, it is decremented. It wouldn't care if oil was on it at any other point, really; just like if you put an item in a stockroom right before the decay-ticks (the 13th and the 1st).

Really, I'm kind of astonished that you'd conclude that a difference of at most one month more or less per application could turn into the difference between changing a 30-month basket into a 35-month versus a 60-month basket. No, really, I'm not. I'm surprised Esano would think that, though. And I'm surprised he would expect that, while I'm actually keeping track of the effect over the course of a dozen baskets, it wouldn't occur to me to consider this factor.

Except you keep stating things like this... are you just applying it once per basket? That seems unlikely, but if you're applying it once per basket (assuming a 50% decay rate slowdown), and you applied it right before a decay-day, you'd save it on 6 ticks of decay (about 1.5 days). Which means you really have to be applying more than once for the numbers you're stating, but the question is how much and how often.

Further, the "random factor", over the course of 30 days if you continue to apply it, really could make a difference of multiple days; I'm frankly astonished that you can't see that! If you apply right after a decay-date, you've just wasted 12 hours of that application as well as not protecting your item at all on the previous tick. Now, you can say that you took it into account, but as you didn't state so either way it's a perfectly reasonable comment for him to make. Being snippy doesn't change that.

Now, to your numbers: if you're saving an average of one month per application, right there is a greater than 10% decay time on average. Assuming you reapply it after it wears off, of course.

30 days (720 hours) / 72 hours == 10 times to apply during the lifespan of the basket (assuming that you reapply the moment it wears off, and don't give it a couple of hours until it approaches a decay-tick to reapply and reduce applications needed).

Just using your own numbers, that would give the basket an additional 10 days (or +33%) of life, not 10%.

If you don't want people to look at your numbers and try to figure out why they don't add up (by pointing out potential flaws in your methods), you should put up actual numbers and not guesstimations; because the numbers you're giving us don't make sense (while Ragniliff's make much more sense).

Thank you!

How does her zap look like?

If you're so convinced that I'm as big of an idiot as you imagine, let's make a 100cr bet. We'll take four identical items with the same number of months, and apply oil to each at the same time, and reapply at the same time throughout their lives. If they all decay at the exact same time, I pay out 100cr. If they last differing amounts of times, you pay out 100cr. Easy bet, given how completely incompetent I am at observation and methodology, and how much smarter you are at such things without even doing the testing. Deal?

I love how you completely ignore that I went on to state that it seems unlikely. And, in fact, ignore that your "guesstimated" numbers appear suspect, but instead go for the /divert.

I'm not buying it. Nice try though!

Edit:
You could always try putting up your real data observations (dates applied, etc) if you have been putting this much time into it, but the numbers you're giving us just don't add up.

I'll borrow a page from you and say, I accept your concession. (And it's as valid now as it is when you do it. Which isn't to say much, huh?)

Incidentally, the problem with the numbers is you're basing your calculations on a wholly unsubtantiated (and incidentally incorrect) assumption.

For anyone else interested in checking, more recent tests are showing an improvement more like 25%, but still nowhere near the doubling Esano implied. And nothing that could possibly square with what Xenthos mistakes for an analysis.

I have no clue what you're talking about, given that I've given you a challenge and you decided to /divert it instead of even attempt to defend your conclusions.

Again, nice try.

And, to your edit:
That would, in fact, be edging closer to the 33% that your own previous "observations" indicate it should be.

So, why not put up your actual numbers / data, with date-points of applications and the like? What's to lose?

There's two reasons. First, I don't have the numbers from back when Lorecrafting came out. How long ago was that? I just have the conclusions and my memory of my methodology.

But the far bigger one is that you are practicing the precise opposite of the scientific method. You have your preconception of how it must work, and with it, you deny any evidence to contradict it, yet you simultaneously refuse to do your own test. If I posted a billion numbers you would disbelieve them as readily as you disbelieved anything else, and given your refusal to actually validate or invalidate them, that disbelief would mean nothing. Other than to make me wonder why I haven't taken the obvious step about making this forum more sensible.

For anyone else, though, I'll be happy to compare empirical data and encourage, even fund, doing the tests the way I described. That there's a random factor (which doesn't depend on the experimenter being as stupid as everyone-but-Xenthos) will be trivially easy to prove or disprove with a single four-object sample. It'll probably become evident even before the first ones decay. The precise reduction range will take more samples (and we'll have to set up definitions about what an N% reduction means so we won't get confused between 1+N% increase and 1-N% reductions, as Xenthos did, not that it really affected anything substantive).

Which brings me back to where I started, saying that Hallifax really ought to be funding scientific studies like this.

Except that no, I am not. I am stating that your 10% number goes contrary to other observations (which, yes, seem like they make more sense). However, at the same time I'm not stating that it must be 50% (because, well, while it makes the most sense that isn't necessarily how it is). What I did do was look at your numbers and say, "Hey, wait, something isn't right here." I then did calculations based upon your numbers to show you that something was not right.

You then ranted, railed, /diverted, and when all that failed you said, "Oh, wait, you're right. I'm not seeing 10% after all."

It's not like I really care what the percentage is, and I am actually interested in seeing if it's not 50% as that would also give a bit more of an idea on how the decay-formula works behind-the-scenes.

You don't even need the numbers from "back when Lore-crafting first came out;" you just need the numbers you're using now to make your claims. If they're complete, they should be usable (you are, after all, using them). So, why not show them? It doesn't even take any funding to just put up the numbers you've got.

Fine, fine. I'll settle this for you boys.

EDIT: Four new items with ten month decay times preserved on the 6th of Dvarsh.

Remember, 72 hours of duration for the oil is more a guesstimate than anything else. Don't go running around with it for tests if you really want to confirm for sure.

After giving it some thought, I think I might have a separate suggestion: the degree of preservation might be influenced by the current lifetime of the object. So the sooner you start applying preservation to something with an extended lifespan, the longer it will ultimately last sum total.

This might explain discrepancies between food baskets and, say, a shadow cauldron. I've only needed to use one shadow cauldron since coming back to Glomdoring until very recently, and even when I imbued it with esteem and offered it, it still had 10 months of usefulness left. I've been back in Glomdoring for over 300 RL days, and a shadow cauldron is supposed to last between like 253-255 RL days upon creation. I also wasn't applying oil every single time it slid off - in fact, I'm fairly sure there were a few weeks, if not a RL month of time where the cauldron had no preservation oil protecting it.

That's a fair gap in predicted months preserved. But if baskets start with a significantly smaller sum lifespan, that would explain your difference.

Either way, use the stuff. It's inexpensive and beats paying for jewelry repairs later, etc. Semantics and specifics be damned.

So, a simpler question - how do you apply said oil? <.<