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Appendix: Trap Mechanics

• This appendix aims to give a little more detail to the trap mechanics, beyond what you can find in the "Help" section at your local trapsmith.
• A trap consists of a weapon and a base.
• Optionally, a charm may be equipped. Charms are consumable items that boost the stats of the trap.
• The statistics of the three components combine to determine the statistics of your trap as a whole.
• Your trap statistics can be viewed anytime from Inventory → Traps. Here I shall explain each statistic.
• Total Power
• Total Power = (Weapon Power + Base Power + Charm Power) × (100% + Total Power Bonus)
• Is the most basic statistic used in determining your success in catching mice.
• Power Type
• The Power Type is solely determined by your weapon, with the exception of the Nanny Charm, which changes your power type to Parental regardless of your weapon's Power Type.
• Some weapon power types are more effective against certain mice. Others may be less effective.
• Mouse vulnerabilities are usually the same throughout a mouse group, but there exist several exceptions.
• The Total Power of the trap is multiplied by a percentage, depending on this vulnerability, before being compared against the mouse. Total Luck is also affected by Power Type.
• Power Bonus
• Power Bonus = Weapon Power Bonus + Base Power Bonus + Charm Power Bonus
• Only used as part of the calculation for the Total Power discussed above, increasing it.
• Attraction Bonus
• Attraction Bonus = Weapon Attraction Bonus + Base Attraction Bonus + Charm Attraction Bonus
• Along with your cheese type and location, this affects how often mice are attracted to your trap.
• Is the main advantage of the Wooden Base with Target that gives it isolated uses even in the late game.
• Total Luck
• Total Luck = Weapon Luck + Base Luck + Charm Luck + (7 if the Lucky Golden Shield is active)
• Not to be confused with the normal English use of "luck", used to describe the favorability of random events, or superstitious methods used in an attempt to affect it.
• Luck increases your chance to catch a mouse, when Power isn't sufficient.
• It also slightly increases the chance of loot drops.
• Luck does not affect the difficulty shown on the mice page, only Power and Power Type does; as such that difficulty may be deceptive about your actual chance of catching a mouse.
• The Lucky Golden Shield, which can be temporarily activated by donating to the developers of MouseHunt (with the Donate button), boosts the Total Luck by 7 points.
• The developers have said that Luck is nonlinear, in that 10 Luck is more than twice as effective as 5 Luck.
• What this means in practice is that weapons with high Luck are usually best combined with bases with high Luck.
• Limited-edition weapons from Ronza often have very high Luck, allowing them to equal or even outperform regular weapons with more Power, especially against weaker mice.
• Cheese Effect
• Cheese Effect = Weapon Cheese Effect + Base Cheese Effect
• Affects the probability that the cheese will go stale on a failure to attract.
• The ranking is as follows:
• Über Stale (≤-6)
• Ultimately Stale (-5)
• Insanely Stale (-4)
• Extremely Stale (-3)
• Very Stale (-2)
• Stale (-1)
• No Effect (0)
• Fresh (+1)
• Very Fresh (+2)
• Extremely Fresh (+3)
• Insanely Fresh (+4)
• Ultimately Fresh (+5)
• Über Fresh (≥+6)
• Is not as important a statistic as it may seem, as:
• Most cheese is expendable; the gold the cheese costs is less than the gold you may potentially receive from an increase in power, luck, or attraction.
• However, you may wish to avoid using rare or crafted cheeses on a setup that is "Extremely Stale" or worse.
• When cheese goes stale, it produces Stale Cheese, which is actually a useful crafting item in the late game.
• Ironically, this means that the Insanely Stale effect of the ACRONYM is actually useful at that stage of the game, if combined with the Explosive Base and a cheap cheese like Cheddar or White Cheddar.
• There is also a slight bonus to your chances of catching a mouse, based on your Hunter's Title.
• Putting it all together
• The functions of each trap statistic are described below, describing the logic of a hunt as we know it.
• The cheese type, location, and Attraction Bonus are used to determine the chance and type of mouse that is attracted to your trap.
• If a mouse is attracted:
• The cheese is eaten.
• The Total Power is modified by the Power Type, depending on the mouse's Power Type, as described above.
• This modified Power is then compared with the mouse's Power (a hidden value). A random check is used to determine if a catch is successful. Total Luck provides a bonus to this check; indeed, if the Luck is high enough and the mouse is weak enough you may almost never miss the mouse!
• If the check succeeds, the mouse is caught. If the check fails, the mouse gets away, and may steal points, gold, or extra pieces of cheese depending on your location.
• If a mouse is caught, the mouse type, location, and Total Luck is used to determine the chance and type of a loot drop.
• Otherwise, if a mouse is not attracted, the Cheese Effect is used to determine the chance that the cheese goes stale.
• Whew, that's a lot to digest. However, there is a really neat tool for estimating the combined effects of all these factors, developed by Rohan Mehta. It can be accessed here.

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