PC [BUG] luck boosting food inconsistently affecting Skull Cavern ladder/hole appearance rates

The TV showed the highest daily luck (I don't know exact value) and I recently acquired the Special Charm so I figured it would be a good day to get to level 100 in the skull caves. To help with the deep dive, I took a few Lucky Lunches with me.
- I ate the first Lucky Lunch in the little cave before going into the Cavern proper. Going through, nothing seemed amiss. When the luck boost wore off, I ate a second Lucky Lunch while in the Skull Cave. After that, the drop rate of ladders and holes increased dramatically. I didn't make it to level 100 so I restarted the day.
- The second time around, again I ate the Lucky Lunch before entering the Skull Cavern. Saw okay ladder and hole drops, but not the best. After eating the second lunch (again) I noticed a significant uptick in ladder and hole appearance rates. By this time, it was high 80s and nearing 1am so I restated the day again.
- Wanting to get to the Cavern faster, I drank Espresso and ate Spicy Eel (+1 speed +1 luck) for the double speed boost to the Cavern. Noticing a pattern of ladder/hole rates, I opted to eat the Luck Lunch after entering floor 1 of the cavern. This time, I experienced the much higher and similar ladder and hole rates to the second consumption of Lucky Lunches the previous two attempts. I got to level 100 before midnight.

I see three possibilities:
1) Luck boosting foods (or maybe just Lucky Lunch) consumed outside of the Skull Cavern doesn't carry the luck boost upon entering (though it visually shows the boost on the UI)
2) The first time eating a luck boosting food on a day doesn't actually give a luck boost. Subsequent consumption does however.
3) Despite strong correlations, there is no causation and I just was super...unlucky.

For each of these attempts, I was under the effect of Triple Espresso and saw no change to movement speed after entering the Cavern.

Version 1.5 (new save created in 1.5)
No mods installed
PC (through Steam on Mac)
Single Player
English
 

nerdmanpap

Greenhorn
I can't for sure say much about the luck mechanism affecting spawn rates of holes and ladders, but it could just be good old RNG doing it's thing. I recently built a bunch of stairs and on a max luck day went to the caverns with lucky lunch/ginger ale/luck ring and just kept placing stairs to get as deep as possible hoping for treasure rooms with auto-petters. First attempt I got to floor 288 (that's how many stairs I had) and saw 22 treasure rooms but no auto-petters. Reset the day and did it again and got to 288 and saw 16 treasure rooms no auto petters. Reset again and by floor 60 I had 2 auto-petters so I warped home and went about decorating the farm.

Not sure this helps you, but perhaps the RNG for treasure rooms, ladders, holes, etc is doing it's best to be random and the luck modifier just helps it to be somewhat more favorable. Overall I'm ok with it, although in my specific need for auto-petters (community center completed, so no joja mart) it would be cool to somehow buy them with qi gems or even have a hidden abandoned joja quest line to discover the plans and craft your own!
 
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