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Combinatorial Explosion: Difference between revisions
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For the equivalent in skills, spells or crafting, see [[Exponential Potential]].
{{examples
* ''[[Nethack]]'' is noted as a game where the combinatoric explosion is particularly well handled; it is said that [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]]. Of course, they've been working on the game for ''decades''.
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* A non-video game example is provided in the [[Transformers]] franchise's "Power Core Combiners" sub-line. The line consists of three types of figures: "Commanders", which can transform into robots, vehicles, or a torso-like "power up" mode to enable the line's main gimmick [[Combining Mecha|(three guesses as to what that is)]], "Drones", which each transform from a vehicle into either an arm or a leg when attached to a Commander in the aforementioned "power up" mode, and "Mini-Cons", which can attach to Commanders or Drones as armor or weapon power-ups. Assuming you form a combined robot out of one Commander, two arm Drones, two leg Drones, and one Mini-Con, within the first "wave" of figures alone (which is all that's widely available in the US at the time of this writing) there are 540 possible combinations (or over <s>9000!</s> 2000 permutations, if you count reversing right and left arms/legs). And there are at least three more waves planned and prototyped.
** And that's assuming you play strictly by the rules. Most Commanders can use more than one Mini-Con at a time (typical is one mounting point for armor and two hands that can hold weapons), and usually Drones can use them as well (though sometimes the design leaves [[Kibbles and Bits|kibble]] in the way). Searchlight combined with the Combaticons can manage ''ten'' if you're clever. [[Up to Eleven|And some Mini-Cons can attach to other Mini-Cons.]]
* Fortunately, ''[[Homestuck (Webcomic)|Homestuck]]'' is run by a human as a webcomic, or the [[Item Crafting|alchemy system]], which weighs in at some 280 trillion combinations, would never be finished. On the other hand, 280 trillion doesn't seem so big when you realize it's supposed to represent ''nearly every item in the universe''. [[Timey
** This is why another MS Paint Adventure, ''Bard Quest'', was abandoned. It was originally intended as a branching [[Choose Your Own Adventure]]-style tale, but the [[Combinatorial Explosion]] quickly became too big to handle.
* An Inform extension detects words that might mean that the player was frustrated and responds with this message:
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[[Category:Video Game Items and Inventory]]
[[Category:Combinatorial Explosion]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
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