Recon Federation of Club Penguin

NORTHERN LIGHTS, UKAHALA–What if you could accurately predict the max showing of RFCP soldiers in a single battle by using only the total enlisted number?

The server stats of the Recon Federation of Club Penguin (RFCP) show that the army currently has 58 enlisted members. Brig. Dab0n would bet Bumble Bucks, every time, that our max showing to a battle would then be roughly 11 soldiers. But what makes him so confident?

Well, on July 6, 2022, Dab0n created an algorithm in Microsoft Excel which could estimate how many enlisted members are necessary to produce a certain desired max–taking into account the percentage of soldiers which he assumes would remain inactive even when pinged like crazy by the Officers. Dab0n’s formula argues that approximately 19.23% of all enlisted soldiers show up for battle. He expressed his theory below:

The function of this system in Excel is not only to show hicom what maxes they can expect with RFCP’s current number of enlisted, but also how many enlisted would be necessary to produce a hypothetical, desired max. The INPUT/OUTPUT section is editable–in INPUT, one puts in the desired max, and OUTPUT then projects how many enlisted members RFCP would need in order to produce such an outcome, if Dab0n’s percentage assumption is correct.

For example, how many enlisted soldiers does the algorithm declare RFCP would need in order to break its previous all-time max record of 47 soldiers in battle?

250 enlisted (250 x 0.1923 = 48.075). In this case, the equation is conservative, as we’d end up with .075 more of a soldier! (Remember that 19.23% would be .1923 when multiplying it with the percentage-of number to achieve results). We would need about 250 members enlisted to break our record. That’s around 200 more recruits!

While groundbreaking, the algorithm is not airtight and doesn’t account for all variable factors. What if the battle is at 3:00 a.m. for most soldiers? What if it’s on an unfamiliar CPPS? What if the incentives to attend are at historic levels? What if it’s a Friday? What if it’s a Monday? What if, what if? The system also does not account for the fact that Honorably Retired members, who are not technically enlisted, often still fight for us in battle when called upon. This makes the output numbers not totally reliable.

Gen. Sillabye, the co-Division Head of the Recruitment Coalition, raised another point of concern with the formula that has nothing to do with numbers. They reminded the army that the Recruitment Coalition is emphasizing quality over quantity in all recruitments, which means every newly enlisted member should be gung-ho about participating, rendering the 19.23% participation assumption obsolete. “We [shouldn’t] need to recruit 78 people to have a max of 15 at an event,” said the Division Head. “We should only have to recruit 15-20 people to get 15 of them there.”

But the Recruitment Coalition’s objective is indeed a tall order, considering that on average the retention rate of new Agents is around 10%–in other words, only 1 out of every 10 recruits brought into the server will stay and dive into our community. Maybe that doesn’t matter if all the 1-out-of-10ers are the quality sought for by Gen. Sillabye and the division.

Commander Prior Bumble was impressed by the invention of this formula. Only he and Brig. Dab0n have it downloaded for use. The brigadier, who perhaps designed this fascinating system with RFCP Air Force recruitment aspirations in mind, had said to Prior when introducing the algorithm:

“Maths”–how fittingly Air Force (EU)!

Brigadier Dab0n was awarded the Medal of Technology for his unique development.

What max number do YOU want to plug into the algorithm? Let us know in the comments below!

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