Hi Joost, A quick way to resolve this is to normalize the payment fees to a [0,1] scale. Two natural ways to do this are the following. 0 in both of them is some maximum set by the user (maybe with some reasonable default), 1 could be either the cheapest path or simply 0 sat. Once we have normalized the fees to a [0,1] scale, we can proceed.
Let [image: \alpha] be the chosen balance parameter, [image: f] the fee and [image: p] the success probability. Then the score of a channel will be [image: \alpha\cdot f + (1-\alpha)\cdot p] Clara On Mon, Nov 15, 2021 at 10:26 AM Joost Jager <joost.ja...@gmail.com> wrote: > In Lightning pathfinding the two main variables to optimize for are > routing fee and reliability. Routing fee is concrete. It is the sat amount > that is paid when a payment succeeds. Reliability is a property of a route > that can be expressed as a probability. The probability that a route will > be successful. > > During pathfinding, route options are compared against each other. So for > example: > > Route A: fee 10 sat, success probability 50% > Route B: fee 20 sat, success probability 80% > > Which one is the better route? That depends on user preference. A patient > user will probably go for route A in the hope of saving on fees whereas for > a time-sensitive payment route B looks better. > > It would be great to offer this trade-off to the user in a simple way. > Preferably a single [0, 1] value that controls the selection process. At 0, > the route is only optimized for fees and probabilities are ignored > completely. At 1, the route is only optimized for reliability and fees are > ignored completely. > > But how to choose between the routes A and B for a value somewhere in > between 0 and 1? For example 0.5 - perfect balance between reliability and > fee. But what does that mean exactly? > > Anyone got an idea on how to approach this best? I am looking for a simple > formula to decide between routes, preferably with a reasonably sound > probability-theoretical basis (whatever that means). > > Joost > _______________________________________________ > Lightning-dev mailing list > Lightning-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org > https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/lightning-dev >
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