Talk:Schroedinger's Cat

No further mechanics will be generated with the box or Schroedinger's cat.

I'm not seeing anything in the source code to suggest this. Makemon.c#line623 doesn't show anything but a simple rn2(20). I can't comment on whether or not this is true from gameplay either, as quantum mechanics are rare enough and 5% is low enough that even seeing one box in a given game is somewhat unusual. Can anyone confirm/deny this claim? e.g. someone who has played an extinctionist game and thus has seen a lot of quantum mechanics but never more than 1 box.

The article needs some cleanup anyways. It refers to the cat as a "unique monster", while it's just a regular housecat with a name. Additional stuff: The corpse is not named, that only happens if it's alive (so turn undead will create a regular housecat), the cat is always dead if the monster generation fails, e.g. extinct/genocided. There's a todo for "destroyed box" messages, but I don't believe those exist. There is a different message if you are blind and the cat is alive, however. It could be added that the "observation" is limited to opening the box, not any possible source of observation. -- Qazmlpok 21:20, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Correct, it's not unique and there will be other Schroedinger's cats if you get lucky enough. --paxed 21:43, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Just to be sure, I tested this in wizmode: after killing a large roomful of quantum mechanics, I found two boxes, both of which contained a cat. After opening those boxes, I generated more quantum mechanics and ended up with two more boxes before ctrl + g Q enter stopped producing any more quantum mechanics. This one's busted. --Ilmari Karonen 23:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming. Just reworded almost the entire article, including copying the origin from the quantum mechanic page. -- Qazmlpok 23:43, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

...and I tried doing the same and ended up with an edit conflict. :P I tried to merge both of our versions, but I admit the result is a bit awkward. I removed the claim about the corpse not being named, since both wizmode testing and source diving show it to be false. Some other things that need further testing include:

• What exactly do various ways of trying to detect the cat inside the box, such as probing, show? I think they just treat the box as empty, but that should be confirmed in wizmode.
• Can you still get a live Schroedinger's Cat if housecats are extinct? What if they're genocided? A quick reading of makemon in makemon.c suggests that the answers are yes and no respectively, but that should be tested.

--Ilmari Karonen 00:24, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Whoops, didn't see that the mkobj call took the name as well.

The bug explicitly states that probing doesn't work, and wizard mode confirms that probing simply says "The large box is empty". I don't know of any other methods to 'peek' inside the container, just probing and actually opening it.

Did some wiz mode testing myself; the cat will be generated as long as it's not genocided; extinct doesn't cut it. Just a guess, but I imagine that if the entire level is filled with monsters the cat is also guaranteed to be dead, simply because makemon won't have anywhere to put him. -- Qazmlpok 01:01, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

3.6.0

Adds a minor touch: If you ascend with a carried quantum box and the cat turns out to be alive, it will be included in the list of creatures that ascended with you. It will give the usual "The cat is alive/dead" messages, but I think it would in 3.4.3 as well just as a result of checking the container contents. Probing, telepathy, etc appear to still not do anything. -- Qazmlpok (talk) 16:57, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Confirmed. https://s3.amazonaws.com/altorg/dumplog/Furey/1694176405.nh367.txt is a game where I did that. I ascended with a carried quantum box, the game said the box contained a live cat, and the farewell message said: "Fare thee well Furey the Demigod... You and Schroedinger's cat went to your reward with 3192192 points, ..." Furey (talk) 02:07, 11 September 2023 (UTC)