Big O notation and branching factor

Lets say that you are trying to figure out what the best path to take is. You have z number of possible moves and can make x number of moves at the same ti开发者_运维知识库me. You always do x number of moves at once, no more or less. How can you figure out the branching factor in terms of x and z?

the branching factor in this example is 1 - the size of the problem is not increasing - you had x options to start with, you followed them all and you have the same number of available moves. You appear to be effectively taking 1 step down each of x straight lines at once. no branching is occurring unless i have misunderstood your question (whcih is possible, cause i don't see what z has to do with it)

If you are generating x new states (one for each move valid move you can make) at every node then the branching factor is x if x is always less than z. If z is always less than x then the branching factor is z (as you can only make valid moves).