It seems I missed this at the time, but since Lesswrong’s sorting algorithm has now changed to bring it up the list for me, might as well try it:
X-Y chart of mana vs thaumometer looked interesting, splitting it into separate charts for each colour returned useful results for blue:
blue gives 2 diagonal lines, one for tools/weapons, one for jewelry—for tools/weapons it’s pretty accurate, +-1, but optimistic by 21 or 23 for jewelry
and… that’s basically it, the thaumometer seems relatively useless for the other colours.
But:
green gives an even number of mana that looks uniformish in the range of 2-40
yellow always gives mana in the range of 18-21
red gives mana that can be really high, up to 96, but is not uniform, median 18
easy strategy:
pendant of hope (blue, 77 thaumometer reading → 54 or 56 mana expected), 34 gp
hammer of capability (blue, 35 thaumometer reading → 34 or 36 mana expected), 35 gp
Plough of Plenty (yellow, 18-21 mana expected), 35 gp
Warhammer of Justice +1 (yellow, 18-21 mana expected), 41 gp
For a total of at least 124 mana at the cost of 145 gp, leaving 55 gp left over
Now, if I was doing this at the time, I would likely investigate further to check if, say, high red or green values can be predicted.
But, I admit I have some meta knowledge here—it was stated in discussion of difficulty of a recent problem, if I recall correctly, that this was one of the easier ones. So, I’m guessing there isn’t a hidden decipherable pattern to predict mana values for the reds and greens.
It seems I missed this at the time, but since Lesswrong’s sorting algorithm has now changed to bring it up the list for me, might as well try it:
X-Y chart of mana vs thaumometer looked interesting, splitting it into separate charts for each colour returned useful results for blue:
blue gives 2 diagonal lines, one for tools/weapons, one for jewelry—for tools/weapons it’s pretty accurate, +-1, but optimistic by 21 or 23 for jewelry
and… that’s basically it, the thaumometer seems relatively useless for the other colours.
But:
green gives an even number of mana that looks uniformish in the range of 2-40
yellow always gives mana in the range of 18-21
red gives mana that can be really high, up to 96, but is not uniform, median 18
easy strategy:
pendant of hope (blue, 77 thaumometer reading → 54 or 56 mana expected), 34 gp
hammer of capability (blue, 35 thaumometer reading → 34 or 36 mana expected), 35 gp
Plough of Plenty (yellow, 18-21 mana expected), 35 gp
Warhammer of Justice +1 (yellow, 18-21 mana expected), 41 gp
For a total of at least 124 mana at the cost of 145 gp, leaving 55 gp left over
Now, if I was doing this at the time, I would likely investigate further to check if, say, high red or green values can be predicted.
But, I admit I have some meta knowledge here—it was stated in discussion of difficulty of a recent problem, if I recall correctly, that this was one of the easier ones. So, I’m guessing there isn’t a hidden decipherable pattern to predict mana values for the reds and greens.