Weighted Randomness

I'm putting together a script, and I would like to implement weighted randomness, I believe similar to what the co-op does.

essentially, I have 4 items to randomly select from. I would like item 1 to have a 50% probability of being selected, item 2 to have a 25% probability of being selected, item 3 a 15% probability of being selected and item 4 a 10% chance of being selected.

Now, I can solve this problem by making an array of 100 items and populating 1 50 times, 2 25 times, 3 15 times, and 4 10 times, but there has to be a cleaner solution. I'm not sure what the memory requirements are, but it just seems like a waste to me.

Any ideas?

 

Try something like this.

X = random number between 0 and 100
if x < 50 then choise = 1
else if x < 75 then choise = 2
else if x < 90 then choise = 3
else choise = 4

Code (markup):

That should do the trick.

 

If each object has a weight can you just do $RandNo = rand(1, totalweights); and then loop through your objects until $RandNo is within that objects range
e.g.

Item 1 - 1 -> 10 (weight 10)
Item 2 - 11 -> 15 (weight 5)
Item 3 - 16 -> 18 (weight 3)
Item 4 - 19 -> 20 (weight 2)

I don't think I've explained this very well but hopefully you'll get the gist, if you create a 100 element array I will never speak to you again

 

I am sooo stupid sometimes. thanks guys. You have no idea the complexities that I was working my way through...