RE: Allied Damage Control Option

RE: Allied Damage Control Option (Full Version)

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Anachro -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/23/2016 8:32:15 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Gräfin Zeppelin What did you say ? I cant hear you, I am busy breaking into your OODA loops and confusing you with ma psy ops. Makes alot of noise ya know. [image]http://i99.photobucket.com/albums/l304/Sterntaenzer/guy-fawkes2_zpsyxlhop3c.jpg[/image] We can never escape the legend...and I only know him through reading threads from before my time. Very interesting guy I'd love to chat with or play against if I ever got decent enough.

Tomasek -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/23/2016 8:57:37 PM)
Actually I am that unknown opponent asking original question. Let makes it a bit clearer: 1. We know a lot about Allied side, but what about Japan? Damage control surely improved on both sides during the war. I am not saying Japan matched US, but what was the difference? We can split the issue to technical advantage (starting with pumps, etc.), ship construction/modification, logistics, training, and perhaps more factors. 2. It is very difficult to compare ship survivability, but some ships on both sides survived enormous damage. Taiho is very specific case - obviously it was stupid decision, but it could happen to any navy in the same situation. 3. I am note sure if we can easily reply to Q1, but even less I know about the code of WITP. Is better Allied damage control hardcoded for all ships? Is it constant or improving with time?

Bullwinkle58 -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/23/2016 11:03:50 PM)
FWIW: http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_documents/gvt_reports/USNAVY/USNTMJ%20Reports/USNTMJ-200I-0718-0742%20Report%20S-84%20N.pdf Reading the sections on IJN DC organization my first reaction was "OMG! No wonder they sank."

LargeSlowTarget -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 10:22:05 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve Crap. How elegant. But well, when you step on its tail, the dog barks. Wanted to post an appropriate reply to your original outburst, but after a night's sleep, a cold shower and the discovery that you have edited your post in the meantime, I drop it. I promise to try harder to ignore uncalled-for JFB bashing in the future.

Barb -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 10:54:17 AM)
Glad to see you back in game Alessandro :) I think the allies had an edge over Japanese in Damage Control procedures and training. Royal Navy had several bitter years of hands-on experiences, RAN and RNZN as well. Dutch not so much, but their Navy is not the one to change the overall picture. You can argue the Japanese Navy was also on war footing for several years - this is reflected by their high experiences - but have not a such effective Damage Control. Actually USN Damage control is improving as the war progress - all DC rolls are subject to ship XP - so an early war US ship with EXP in 50s is not as good in DC as the same ship with EXP in 70s...

Alfred -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 11:02:32 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve quote: ORIGINAL: mind_messing I think the point trying to be made is that Allied damage control applies to such ships that it really shouldn't. The USN were fairly good with damage control, at least on warships. What about merchantment? What about the Allies? Were the Dutch, Australians and New Zealanders up to the same standards? FWIW, I'm all for the Allied Damage Control advantage. I would like to see it a little bit more nuanced, though. Rather than a flat boost to damage control, I would have liked to have seen it apply only to ships with experience over a certain threshold. That way, highly drilled ships could take advantage of the advanced damage control, and merchantmen filled with rookies would still burn like cinders. That certainly would be nice. From everything I've read I'm not sure that's possible with the current software. Maybe Bill D , Alfred or Michealm could tell us for certain. Within the abstraction, the wished for nuances are already in place. Seems to me that some of the posters are rather loose with their use of the term "damage control" within the context of the game. Within the game context, the term "damage control" has one basic meaning but two different applications. The basic meaning is the band aid "in the field" (aka whilst out on the high seas) actions to keep a ship afloat (and consequent checks to see if a ship sinks). It is easy to forget that in the game, the damage control routines are different from the ship repair routines. Damage control is not ship repairs. An application of this basic meaning is found in the "systems" damage level found on a ship. The more damaged the "systems" are, the less capability there is to keep the ship afloat. It is far harder to significantly damage a warship's systems than it is to damage a merchantman's systems. In practical game terms, the major application of "damage control" and what most people really have in mind when they use the term, is fire fighting. Here again there is a distinct difference between warships and merchantmen, for crew experience is a factor fed into the fire fighting (aka damage control) algorithms. The higher the crew experience, the better is the fire fighting capability out on the high seas. The crew experience cap for merchantmen gained from just engaging on a shakedown cruise is considerably less than that for warships. Plus to exceed that cap, participation in combat is necessary and again warships are much more likely to survive combat than merchantmen. One poster in the thread wondered whether the toggle is a once only or if "damage control" improves throughout the war. It is a once only toggle but understand that Allied reinforcement ships enter the game with improved crew experience later on plus crew experience can increase (and also decrease) during the war. Thus taking into account the general upward trend in Allied crew experience, "damage control" does improve. As to differentiating between the Allied navies, there is no explicit differentiation, although again one needs to take into account the different Allied crew experience (and by ship type too). The abstraction applies equally to all Allied nations just as logistics (aka rearming) is applied in simple terms to all Allied nations. In theory the code could be made to distinguish varying "damage control" capabilities between the different Allied nations but the work would be substantial and the benefit of doing it would be at best marginal. Some of the difficulties would be identifying what, if any, material differences existed in damage control between the different Allied nations. The difficulty of this fact finding exercise is not to be lightly dismissed how to reflect the "differences" in a TF with mixed nationality without breaking other algorithms eg would the DC capability of the TF nationality be the sole determinant, or is it on a ship by ship basis and if the latter are all ships types equally involved in providing assistance then there is the problem of when you get to a port, how to be consistent with the additional factors which are fed into the DC (fire fighting) routines. Those additional factors are not really identified as separate Allied nationalities eg naval support squads. Port size could be national based eg in Sydney add Australian DC capability but what if the port has been recaptured and now is no longer the same Allied nationality as it was on 7 Dec 1941 (think of Soerabaja) The first time an American warship was lost because of the "assistance" provided by lower DC capability of an Allied nation would result in an all mighty THE GAME IS BORKED thread. So the task of researching, coding and testing would be very substantial, and frankly, considering the level of abstraction found in the game, not worth the effort. Almost all requests made for "improving" the game are fundamentally requests for more micro management and moving the game closer to a simulation. For this commercial product, that is a dead end which in fact degrades the playability of the game and reduces the potential customer base. Alfred

AW1Steve -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 1:10:46 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve Crap. How elegant. But well, when you step on its tail, the dog barks. Wanted to post an appropriate reply to your original outburst, but after a night's sleep, a cold shower and the discovery that you have edited your post in the meantime, I drop it. I promise to try harder to ignore uncalled-for JFB bashing in the future. Originally I assumed you were making this personal. After a night of thinking , I decided no one would make everything personal, just to look for a fight. After your last post , I've thought it over yet again and come to the conclusion that IT IS personal, your debate is NOT substantive, but merely yet another example of "thread stalking" solely for , at worst a personal vendetta , and at best , an attempt to make every thing about your hobby horse. As much as I'd like to resolve this by mediation , unless someone here would be willing to facilitate , that seems most unlikely. Perhaps we can agree to disagree? And try to refrain from personal attacks? Probably not. [:(]

AW1Steve -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 1:13:12 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Alfred quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve quote: ORIGINAL: mind_messing I think the point trying to be made is that Allied damage control applies to such ships that it really shouldn't. The USN were fairly good with damage control, at least on warships. What about merchantment? What about the Allies? Were the Dutch, Australians and New Zealanders up to the same standards? FWIW, I'm all for the Allied Damage Control advantage. I would like to see it a little bit more nuanced, though. Rather than a flat boost to damage control, I would have liked to have seen it apply only to ships with experience over a certain threshold. That way, highly drilled ships could take advantage of the advanced damage control, and merchantmen filled with rookies would still burn like cinders. That certainly would be nice. From everything I've read I'm not sure that's possible with the current software. Maybe Bill D , Alfred or Michealm could tell us for certain. Within the abstraction, the wished for nuances are already in place. Seems to me that some of the posters are rather loose with their use of the term "damage control" within the context of the game. Within the game context, the term "damage control" has one basic meaning but two different applications. The basic meaning is the band aid "in the field" (aka whilst out on the high seas) actions to keep a ship afloat (and consequent checks to see if a ship sinks). It is easy to forget that in the game, the damage control routines are different from the ship repair routines. Damage control is not ship repairs. An application of this basic meaning is found in the "systems" damage level found on a ship. The more damaged the "systems" are, the less capability there is to keep the ship afloat. It is far harder to significantly damage a warship's systems than it is to damage a merchantman's systems. In practical game terms, the major application of "damage control" and what most people really have in mind when they use the term, is fire fighting. Here again there is a distinct difference between warships and merchantmen, for crew experience is a factor fed into the fire fighting (aka damage control) algorithms. The higher the crew experience, the better is the fire fighting capability out on the high seas. The crew experience cap for merchantmen gained from just engaging on a shakedown cruise is considerably less than that for warships. Plus to exceed that cap, participation in combat is necessary and again warships are much more likely to survive combat than merchantmen. One poster in the thread wondered whether the toggle is a once only or if "damage control" improves throughout the war. It is a once only toggle but understand that Allied reinforcement ships enter the game with improved crew experience later on plus crew experience can increase (and also decrease) during the war. Thus taking into account the general upward trend in Allied crew experience, "damage control" does improve. As to differentiating between the Allied navies, there is no explicit differentiation, although again one needs to take into account the different Allied crew experience (and by ship type too). The abstraction applies equally to all Allied nations just as logistics (aka rearming) is applied in simple terms to all Allied nations. In theory the code could be made to distinguish varying "damage control" capabilities between the different Allied nations but the work would be substantial and the benefit of doing it would be at best marginal. Some of the difficulties would be identifying what, if any, material differences existed in damage control between the different Allied nations. The difficulty of this fact finding exercise is not to be lightly dismissed how to reflect the "differences" in a TF with mixed nationality without breaking other algorithms eg would the DC capability of the TF nationality be the sole determinant, or is it on a ship by ship basis and if the latter are all ships types equally involved in providing assistance then there is the problem of when you get to a port, how to be consistent with the additional factors which are fed into the DC (fire fighting) routines. Those additional factors are not really identified as separate Allied nationalities eg naval support squads. Port size could be national based eg in Sydney add Australian DC capability but what if the port has been recaptured and now is no longer the same Allied nationality as it was on 7 Dec 1941 (think of Soerabaja) The first time an American warship was lost because of the "assistance" provided by lower DC capability of an Allied nation would result in an all mighty THE GAME IS BORKED thread. So the task of researching, coding and testing would be very substantial, and frankly, considering the level of abstraction found in the game, not worth the effort. Almost all requests made for "improving" the game are fundamentally requests for more micro management and moving the game closer to a simulation. For this commercial product, that is a dead end which in fact degrades the playability of the game and reduces the potential customer base. Alfred Thank you Alfred! That's exactly the sort of rational, clear headed analysis we needed( and have come to expect from you). Many thanks! (Or as we ex-"squids" would say , "Bravo Zulu"!). [&o][&o][&o]

Alfred -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 1:40:48 PM)
The really definitive answer can only come from a dev who worked on the algorithms.[;)] Unfortunately the key naval devs either no longer post or are not allowed onto the forum. We are all very much the poorer for that. The two remaining dev coders expertise is in other areas. Michaelm only sporadically drops by and he really, and quite rightly IMO, only takes on board those few posted "bugs" which prima facie may be a code bug (as opposed to a player bug). His expertise is the air component so he would have to research the naval algorithms to see the structure. A lot of effort on his behalf to investigate something which is not going to be altered now. Wdolson is the other dev coder who still frequents the forum. His time of course is fully taken up with moderating the forum. He too would have to research the naval algorithms as his expertise was used elsewhere. That he (and miachaelm) still provides dev input re code operation remains a gift which is not really appreciated by so many players. Particularly when there are individuals who attempt to reverse engineer the algorithms/ discover what has been stated to be the case many times over the years (since 2008) by the devs. makes one think what is the point in a dev explaining the game when players then go of to "test" the very same thing. Alfred

AW1Steve -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 2:13:07 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Alfred The really definitive answer can only come from a dev who worked on the algorithms.[;)] Unfortunately the key naval devs either no longer post or are not allowed onto the forum. We are all very much the poorer for that. The two remaining dev coders expertise is in other areas. Michaelm only sporadically drops by and he really, and quite rightly IMO, only takes on board those few posted "bugs" which prima facie may be a code bug (as opposed to a player bug). His expertise is the air component so he would have to research the naval algorithms to see the structure. A lot of effort on his behalf to investigate something which is not going to be altered now. Wdolson is the other dev coder who still frequents the forum. His time of course is fully taken up with moderating the forum. He too would have to research the naval algorithms as his expertise was used elsewhere. That he (and miachaelm) still provides dev input re code operation remains a gift which is not really appreciated by so many players. Particularly when there are individuals who attempt to reverse engineer the algorithms/ discover what has been stated to be the case many times over the years (since 2008) by the devs. makes one think what is the point in a dev explaining the game when players then go of to "test" the very same thing. Alfred So if I understand correctly (please forgive my layman's ignorance, I've not written a line of code since 1975[:D]) that due to budget, time constraints , shortage of time and talent, and other factors, these "problems" cannot be easily resolved, explained , and are probably not a feasible use (or practical one) of the very limited resources (most notably people's time) for the result. So logically resources should be used on reasonably fixable issues , rather than "pie-in-the-sky" issues which may only be perceived as real? Is this at all close? Again , please forgive my question if I'm way off, I'm just trying to wrap my elderly brain around the concepts. It's not your explanation ,It's more my comprehension. And in case no ones said it lately, thanks again for your time and effort , both in furthering the game , and in trying to explain it to jug heads like me. [&o]

AW1Steve -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 2:14:04 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Alfred The really definitive answer can only come from a dev who worked on the algorithms.[;)] Unfortunately the key naval devs either no longer post or are not allowed onto the forum. We are all very much the poorer for that. The two remaining dev coders expertise is in other areas. Michaelm only sporadically drops by and he really, and quite rightly IMO, only takes on board those few posted "bugs" which prima facie may be a code bug (as opposed to a player bug). His expertise is the air component so he would have to research the naval algorithms to see the structure. A lot of effort on his behalf to investigate something which is not going to be altered now. Wdolson is the other dev coder who still frequents the forum. His time of course is fully taken up with moderating the forum. He too would have to research the naval algorithms as his expertise was used elsewhere. That he (and miachaelm) still provides dev input re code operation remains a gift which is not really appreciated by so many players. Particularly when there are individuals who attempt to reverse engineer the algorithms/ discover what has been stated to be the case many times over the years (since 2008) by the devs. makes one think what is the point in a dev explaining the game when players then go of to "test" the very same thing. Alfred So if I understand correctly (please forgive my layman's ignorance, I've not written a line of code since 1975[:D]) that due to budget, time constraints , shortage of time and talent, and other factors, these "problems" cannot be easily resolved, explained , and are probably not a feasible use (or practical one) of the very limited resources (most notably people's time) for the result. So logically resources should be used on reasonably fixable issues , rather than "pie-in-the-sky" issues which may only be perceived as real? Is this at all close? Again , please forgive my question if I'm way off, I'm just trying to wrap my elderly brain around the concepts. It's not your explanation ,It's more my comprehension. And in case no ones said it lately, thanks again for your time and effort , both in furthering the game , and in trying to explain it to jug heads like me. [&o]

LargeSlowTarget -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 2:50:50 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve quote: ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve Crap. How elegant. But well, when you step on its tail, the dog barks. Wanted to post an appropriate reply to your original outburst, but after a night's sleep, a cold shower and the discovery that you have edited your post in the meantime, I drop it. I promise to try harder to ignore uncalled-for JFB bashing in the future. Originally I assumed you were making this personal. After a night of thinking , I decided no one would make everything personal, just to look for a fight. After your last post , I've thought it over yet again and come to the conclusion that IT IS personal, your debate is NOT substantive, but merely yet another example of "thread stalking" solely for , at worst a personal vendetta , and at best , an attempt to make every thing about your hobby horse. As much as I'd like to resolve this by mediation , unless someone here would be willing to facilitate , that seems most unlikely. Perhaps we can agree to disagree? And try to refrain from personal attacks? Probably not. [:(] Pointing out an uncalled-for fanboy bashing is hardly a personal attack. Name-calling ("crapstirrer" or whatever the term was in your unedited post) however is a personal attack, so don't play innocent. And isn't it rather the unprovoked bashing that qualifies as thread-stalking and vendetta? But well, we know each others sore spots and obviously are not able to reconcile our diverging fanboyish views, so yes, let's agree to disagree once again.

Lecivius -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 2:52:35 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve quote: ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve Crap. How elegant. But well, when you step on its tail, the dog barks. Wanted to post an appropriate reply to your original outburst, but after a night's sleep, a cold shower and the discovery that you have edited your post in the meantime, I drop it. I promise to try harder to ignore uncalled-for JFB bashing in the future. Originally I assumed you were making this personal. After a night of thinking , I decided no one would make everything personal, just to look for a fight. After your last post , I've thought it over yet again and come to the conclusion that IT IS personal, your debate is NOT substantive, but merely yet another example of "thread stalking" solely for , at worst a personal vendetta , and at best , an attempt to make every thing about your hobby horse. As much as I'd like to resolve this by mediation , unless someone here would be willing to facilitate , that seems most unlikely. Perhaps we can agree to disagree? And try to refrain from personal attacks? Probably not. [:(] Pointing out an uncalled-for fanboy bashing is hardly a personal attack. Name-calling ("crapstirrer" or whatever the term was in your unedited post) however is a personal attack, so don't play innocent. And isn't it rather the unprovoked bashing that qualifies as thread-stalking and vendetta? But well, we know each others sore spots and obviously are not able to reconcile our diverging fanboyish views, so yes, let's agree to disagree once again. Uhm, enough already?

AW1Steve -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 3:04:55 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Lecivius quote: ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve quote: ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve Crap. How elegant. But well, when you step on its tail, the dog barks. Wanted to post an appropriate reply to your original outburst, but after a night's sleep, a cold shower and the discovery that you have edited your post in the meantime, I drop it. I promise to try harder to ignore uncalled-for JFB bashing in the future. Originally I assumed you were making this personal. After a night of thinking , I decided no one would make everything personal, just to look for a fight. After your last post , I've thought it over yet again and come to the conclusion that IT IS personal, your debate is NOT substantive, but merely yet another example of "thread stalking" solely for , at worst a personal vendetta , and at best , an attempt to make every thing about your hobby horse. As much as I'd like to resolve this by mediation , unless someone here would be willing to facilitate , that seems most unlikely. Perhaps we can agree to disagree? And try to refrain from personal attacks? Probably not. [:(] Pointing out an uncalled-for fanboy bashing is hardly a personal attack. Name-calling ("crapstirrer" or whatever the term was in your unedited post) however is a personal attack, so don't play innocent. And isn't it rather the unprovoked bashing that qualifies as thread-stalking and vendetta? But well, we know each others sore spots and obviously are not able to reconcile our diverging fanboyish views, so yes, let's agree to disagree once again. Uhm, enough already? Agreed. I'm willing to shake hands and make peace.

LargeSlowTarget -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 3:21:01 PM)
[sm=00000924.gif]

HansBolter -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 3:50:50 PM)
Before I walk away I feel compelled to point out that the qualifier "uncalled for" you so liberally disperse is both an opinion and a mischaracterization.

Lecivius -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 4:02:30 PM)
Hans, don't make me come down there [;)] Still, we just got 20 inches of snow, 60 MPH winds, and another storm coming here in Denver. Your sig says your in Florida. Might need to go fishin [:'(]

AW1Steve -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 4:14:48 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: HansBolter Before I walk away I feel compelled to point out that the qualifier "uncalled for" you so liberally disperse is both an opinion and a mischaracterization. Hans I know you feel strongly about this. As do I. But there has been a very good question asked , and some extremely good information dispersed by Alfred and others. Rather than distract the useful information and let this degenerate into a childish , and never ending "pissing contest", I'm willing to swallow my pride and surrender some of my dignity to get this back on track. All sides know what they believe. No one is going to convert the other , there is no win here. If LST is offended by my opinion and wants to believe that my remarks were somehow directed at him, I'll apologize. Hell, I'll apologize for whatever it takes to get this thread back on track. I'm not going to change your, or his , or my thoughts and convictions anyway , and there is no such thing as being "too civil" (at least in my opinion). And the fact of the matter is , if I said something to set LST off, I AM genuinely sorry. I don't normally go out of my way to pick a fight. So in the spirit of cooperation , whirled peas and singing Kumbaya ,can't we suck it up a little , and do whatever it takes to advance the narrative? In this case learning about this incredible game? [:)]

Lecivius -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 5:00:21 PM)
I think we should all go snook fishing. I'll bring the beer!! LOTS of beer. By the time we're done discussing DC, we'll be more focused on our own [;)][:D] [sm=cool0013.gif]

Alfred -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 6:09:49 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve quote: ORIGINAL: Alfred The really definitive answer can only come from a dev who worked on the algorithms.[;)] Unfortunately the key naval devs either no longer post or are not allowed onto the forum. We are all very much the poorer for that. The two remaining dev coders expertise is in other areas. Michaelm only sporadically drops by and he really, and quite rightly IMO, only takes on board those few posted "bugs" which prima facie may be a code bug (as opposed to a player bug). His expertise is the air component so he would have to research the naval algorithms to see the structure. A lot of effort on his behalf to investigate something which is not going to be altered now. Wdolson is the other dev coder who still frequents the forum. His time of course is fully taken up with moderating the forum. He too would have to research the naval algorithms as his expertise was used elsewhere. That he (and miachaelm) still provides dev input re code operation remains a gift which is not really appreciated by so many players. Particularly when there are individuals who attempt to reverse engineer the algorithms/ discover what has been stated to be the case many times over the years (since 2008) by the devs. makes one think what is the point in a dev explaining the game when players then go of to "test" the very same thing. Alfred So if I understand correctly (please forgive my layman's ignorance, I've not written a line of code since 1975[:D]) that due to budget, time constraints , shortage of time and talent, and other factors, these "problems" cannot be easily resolved, explained , and are probably not a feasible use (or practical one) of the very limited resources (most notably people's time) for the result. So logically resources should be used on reasonably fixable issues , rather than "pie-in-the-sky" issues which may only be perceived as real? Is this at all close? Again , please forgive my question if I'm way off, I'm just trying to wrap my elderly brain around the concepts. It's not your explanation ,It's more my comprehension. And in case no ones said it lately, thanks again for your time and effort , both in furthering the game , and in trying to explain it to jug heads like me. [&o] Don't sell yourself short. You are on the money with your "layman" interpretation. You will recall this but most of our newer players are probably unaware of the following. 1. Henderson Field Designs assembled a team of about 18 identified devs. There was also a core test group of 9 others who would generally not be considered to be devs but who nonetheless participated in the design of the game merely by providing feedback and being in the discussion loops. A further 6 individuals were worthy of "special mention" so obviously they contributed in some unspecified manner to the production of AE. All these numbers exclude Matrix staff who were involved in the game development. The names of the individuals involved can be found in the manual and the in-game credits screen. 2. The HFD devs were split into the following teams: Air Naval Ground Map Beta Ship Art Reporting Manual Scenarios A few of the devs were involved multi teams but the overwhelming majority focused on only one team. 3. Without disparaging the contributions made by those devs not mentioned below, considering the nature of the criticisms/suggested improvements/dissatisfaction etc expressed on the forum since the release of AE in mid 2009, the key devs to address this "feedback" have been: jwilkerson - project manager theElf + michaelm - air leader and air coder respectively JWE + Don Bowen - naval leader and naval coder respectively Andy Mac + BigJ62 - land leader + chief AI script writer and land coder respectively wdolson - "Beta" team leader but also sundry under the hood coding I've left out various devs from the above list because their work was not challenged as often nor as vociferously as those mentioned above. 4. Of the eight mentioned in point 3 above, all were very active on the forum in the period 2009-2010 explaining how the game worked, correcting gross misinterpretations of how things worked, fixing bugs, adding new enhancements etc. This 18 month period saw five official patches released on: 9 Sept 2009 7 Dec 2009 28 Feb 2010 21 July 2010 24 Oct 2010 With the release of these patches, all development work on AE came to an end. Forum participation by jwilkerson, theElf, and BigJ62 basically ended (although theElf has subsequently resurfaced for short periods). Don Bowen still appeared, albeit at a much slower rate for a couple of years but has basically not been sighted since 2014. Wdolson became a moderator so he remained but focussed primarily on his moderating role and giving general advice to newbies. Michaelm remained specifically to fix bugs which combined with GUI improvements resulted in patch #6 (of 21 Jan 2012) and the various betas which culminated in patch #7 (of 25 Dec 2015) which wasn't actually released until about March 2015. Since then michaelm's participation has been very sporadic. That leaves Andy Mac who remained involved in tweaking the AI scripts all the way through to 2012/2013 and after a sabbatical has recently returned to the task of tweaking the scripts, and JWE/Symon who post patch #5 remained by far the most engaged of the devs in fielding naval and device questions until the parting of the ways last year. 5. The point of the preceding is that for years now, the requisite resources which were required to produce AE have simply not been available. A large proportion of those resources would be required to implement the "feedback" provided on the forum. That is assuming firstly that the "feedback" was valid, which in the overwhelming number of cases it isn't; secondly it could be implemented which considering the legacy code is most definitely not an easy task; and thirdly is the ROI positive, which invariably it isn't usually being most marginal at best. Just to provide context, consider the subject of this very thread. Damage Control is very much an abstracted game concept which operates without player input. The algorithms would still not be disclosed. Change the existing code to accommodate the "improvements" requested and there still would be no player input plus players would still complain about how it operates. Implement the changes and does anyone seriously believe that players would significantly alter their tactical thinking when the work is still done under the hood and without disclosure of the algorithms. Alfred

AW1Steve -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 7:16:08 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Alfred quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve quote: ORIGINAL: Alfred The really definitive answer can only come from a dev who worked on the algorithms.[;)] Unfortunately the key naval devs either no longer post or are not allowed onto the forum. We are all very much the poorer for that. The two remaining dev coders expertise is in other areas. Michaelm only sporadically drops by and he really, and quite rightly IMO, only takes on board those few posted "bugs" which prima facie may be a code bug (as opposed to a player bug). His expertise is the air component so he would have to research the naval algorithms to see the structure. A lot of effort on his behalf to investigate something which is not going to be altered now. Wdolson is the other dev coder who still frequents the forum. His time of course is fully taken up with moderating the forum. He too would have to research the naval algorithms as his expertise was used elsewhere. That he (and miachaelm) still provides dev input re code operation remains a gift which is not really appreciated by so many players. Particularly when there are individuals who attempt to reverse engineer the algorithms/ discover what has been stated to be the case many times over the years (since 2008) by the devs. makes one think what is the point in a dev explaining the game when players then go of to "test" the very same thing. Alfred So if I understand correctly (please forgive my layman's ignorance, I've not written a line of code since 1975[:D]) that due to budget, time constraints , shortage of time and talent, and other factors, these "problems" cannot be easily resolved, explained , and are probably not a feasible use (or practical one) of the very limited resources (most notably people's time) for the result. So logically resources should be used on reasonably fixable issues , rather than "pie-in-the-sky" issues which may only be perceived as real? Is this at all close? Again , please forgive my question if I'm way off, I'm just trying to wrap my elderly brain around the concepts. It's not your explanation ,It's more my comprehension. And in case no ones said it lately, thanks again for your time and effort , both in furthering the game , and in trying to explain it to jug heads like me. [&o] Don't sell yourself short. You are on the money with your "layman" interpretation. You will recall this but most of our newer players are probably unaware of the following. 1. Henderson Field Designs assembled a team of about 18 identified devs. There was also a core test group of 9 others who would generally not be considered to be devs but who nonetheless participated in the design of the game merely by providing feedback and being in the discussion loops. A further 6 individuals were worthy of "special mention" so obviously they contributed in some unspecified manner to the production of AE. All these numbers exclude Matrix staff who were involved in the game development. The names of the individuals involved can be found in the manual and the in-game credits screen. 2. The HFD devs were split into the following teams: Air Naval Ground Map Beta Ship Art Reporting Manual Scenarios A few of the devs were involved multi teams but the overwhelming majority focused on only one team. 3. Without disparaging the contributions made by those devs not mentioned below, considering the nature of the criticisms/suggested improvements/dissatisfaction etc expressed on the forum since the release of AE in mid 2009, the key devs to address this "feedback" have been: jwilkerson - project manager theElf + michaelm - air leader and air coder respectively JWE + Don Bowen - naval leader and naval coder respectively Andy Mac + BigJ62 - land leader + chief AI script writer and land coder respectively wdolson - "Beta" team leader but also sundry under the hood coding I've left out various devs from the above list because their work was not challenged as often nor as vociferously as those mentioned above. 4. Of the eight mentioned in point 3 above, all were very active on the forum in the period 2009-2010 explaining how the game worked, correcting gross misinterpretations of how things worked, fixing bugs, adding new enhancements etc. This 18 month period saw five official patches released on: 9 Sept 2009 7 Dec 2009 28 Feb 2010 21 July 2010 24 Oct 2010 With the release of these patches, all development work on AE came to an end. Forum participation by jwilkerson, theElf, and BigJ62 basically ended (although theElf has subsequently resurfaced for short periods). Don Bowen still appeared, albeit at a much slower rate for a couple of years but has basically not been sighted since 2014. Wdolson became a moderator so he remained but focussed primarily on his moderating role and giving general advice to newbies. Michaelm remained specifically to fix bugs which combined with GUI improvements resulted in patch #6 (of 21 Jan 2012) and the various betas which culminated in patch #7 (of 25 Dec 2015) which wasn't actually released until about March 2015. Since then michaelm's participation has been very sporadic. That leaves Andy Mac who remained involved in tweaking the AI scripts all the way through to 2012/2013 and after a sabbatical has recently returned to the task of tweaking the scripts, and JWE/Symon who post patch #5 remained by far the most engaged of the devs in fielding naval and device questions until the parting of the ways last year. 5. The point of the preceding is that for years now, the requisite resources which were required to produce AE have simply not been available. A large proportion of those resources would be required to implement the "feedback" provided on the forum. That is assuming firstly that the "feedback" was valid, which in the overwhelming number of cases it isn't; secondly it could be implemented which considering the legacy code is most definitely not an easy task; and thirdly is the ROI positive, which invariably it isn't usually being most marginal at best. Just to provide context, consider the subject of this very thread. Damage Control is very much an abstracted game concept which operates without player input. The algorithms would still not be disclosed. Change the existing code to accommodate the "improvements" requested and there still would be no player input plus players would still complain about how it operates. Implement the changes and does anyone seriously believe that players would significantly alter their tactical thinking when the work is still done under the hood and without disclosure of the algorithms. Alfred Thank you Alfred! I had forgotten much of this , and there's a lot that I never knew. We need to "sticky" this explanation , as it answers a lot of questions, not just this one. Many, Many thanks![&o] [&o][&o]

dave sindel -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 7:49:03 PM)
Thank you for the background Alfred. Very enlightening.

Bullwinkle58 -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/24/2016 9:18:18 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: AW1Steve Thank you Alfred! I had forgotten much of this , and there's a lot that I never knew. We need to "sticky" this explanation , as it answers a lot of questions, not just this one. Many, Many thanks![&o] [&o][&o] An expansion to everything Alfred said, by jwilkerson himself. The thread continues with bios and sea stories about the dev team members. An ancient thread at this point. Scares me how long I've been playing this puppy. http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2173764

rustysi -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/25/2016 12:14:34 AM)
quote: Within the abstraction, the wished for nuances are already in place. Seems to me that some of the posters are rather loose with their use of the term "damage control" within the context of the game. Within the game context, the term "damage control" has one basic meaning but two different applications. The basic meaning is the band aid "in the field" (aka whilst out on the high seas) actions to keep a ship afloat (and consequent checks to see if a ship sinks). It is easy to forget that in the game, the damage control routines are different from the ship repair routines. Damage control is not ship repairs. An application of this basic meaning is found in the "systems" damage level found on a ship. The more damaged the "systems" are, the less capability there is to keep the ship afloat. It is far harder to significantly damage a warship's systems than it is to damage a merchantman's systems. In practical game terms, the major application of "damage control" and what most people really have in mind when they use the term, is fire fighting. Here again there is a distinct difference between warships and merchantmen, for crew experience is a factor fed into the fire fighting (aka damage control) algorithms. The higher the crew experience, the better is the fire fighting capability out on the high seas. The crew experience cap for merchantmen gained from just engaging on a shakedown cruise is considerably less than that for warships. Plus to exceed that cap, participation in combat is necessary and again warships are much more likely to survive combat than merchantmen. One poster in the thread wondered whether the toggle is a once only or if "damage control" improves throughout the war. It is a once only toggle but understand that Allied reinforcement ships enter the game with improved crew experience later on plus crew experience can increase (and also decrease) during the war. Thus taking into account the general upward trend in Allied crew experience, "damage control" does improve. As to differentiating between the Allied navies, there is no explicit differentiation, although again one needs to take into account the different Allied crew experience (and by ship type too). The abstraction applies equally to all Allied nations just as logistics (aka rearming) is applied in simple terms to all Allied nations. In theory the code could be made to distinguish varying "damage control" capabilities between the different Allied nations but the work would be substantial and the benefit of doing it would be at best marginal. Some of the difficulties would be identifying what, if any, material differences existed in damage control between the different Allied nations. The difficulty of this fact finding exercise is not to be lightly dismissed how to reflect the "differences" in a TF with mixed nationality without breaking other algorithms eg would the DC capability of the TF nationality be the sole determinant, or is it on a ship by ship basis and if the latter are all ships types equally involved in providing assistance then there is the problem of when you get to a port, how to be consistent with the additional factors which are fed into the DC (fire fighting) routines. Those additional factors are not really identified as separate Allied nationalities eg naval support squads. Port size could be national based eg in Sydney add Australian DC capability but what if the port has been recaptured and now is no longer the same Allied nationality as it was on 7 Dec 1941 (think of Soerabaja) The first time an American warship was lost because of the "assistance" provided by lower DC capability of an Allied nation would result in an all mighty THE GAME IS BORKED thread. So the task of researching, coding and testing would be very substantial, and frankly, considering the level of abstraction found in the game, not worth the effort. Almost all requests made for "improving" the game are fundamentally requests for more micro management and moving the game closer to a simulation. For this commercial product, that is a dead end which in fact degrades the playability of the game and reduces the potential customer base. Alfred Thank you Alfred. All I can say when I see threads that get this way, 'is here we go again'. Its a game people. To code things to take in every single instance of every occurrence is near impossible and certainly outside the scope and cost of this great game. Besides as Alfred has stated its handle abstractly within the parameters of the game. OK, rant over. Now to the original post. Yes you can turn off Allied damage control, but to do so would be unfortunate IMHO. Allied DC was generally better during the war, and US in particular. Yes there was a learning curve for all sides, but in most cases the Allies handled it better. Some have mentioned various things to support this and I agree with what has been covered above. To add a bit I think it even goes further. Yes the Japanese did attempt to improve after Midway, but even these efforts did not produce much fruit that can be alluded to. Kinda like closing the barn door after the horse is already out, but OK. Also many Japanese warships had rather glaring shortcomings in this area. One, for instance (alluded to above) is 'compartmentalization' of fire mains. Many (if not all) had only port/starboard sections. Lose pressure in one the whole side of the ships' firefighting was out of service. Some Japanese vessels had caste iron firefighting plumbing, very fragile compared to steel, but less costly. That was why they did it that way. Anyway I like the feature and will always play with it on, Allied player or not.

wdolson -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/25/2016 2:24:55 AM)
Generally on the mark, but a few clarifications... quote: ORIGINAL: Alfred Don't sell yourself short. You are on the money with your "layman" interpretation. You will recall this but most of our newer players are probably unaware of the following. 1. Henderson Field Designs assembled a team of about 18 identified devs. There was also a core test group of 9 others who would generally not be considered to be devs but who nonetheless participated in the design of the game merely by providing feedback and being in the discussion loops. A further 6 individuals were worthy of "special mention" so obviously they contributed in some unspecified manner to the production of AE. All these numbers exclude Matrix staff who were involved in the game development. The names of the individuals involved can be found in the manual and the in-game credits screen. Everyone on the team was free to opine and give suggestions and everyone did to some degree, but there were essentially three types of devs: content people who researched and came up with the numbers for units, equipment, etc., art people, and coders. The content people ranged from people like Andy Mac who had a hand in everything land related and TheElf who had a hand in everything air related to others who had more narrow focus and only worked on the OOB for say the Japanese land units or something like that. Some opinionated people (like me) had input in many areas while others stuck to their main area of focus. Most of the code design was a collaboration between the team leads and the programmers. There was one lead for each major area: land, sea, and air with Joe Wilkerson serving as the general program lead (there was very little code changes for the map so there were no dedicated map coder) and originally 3 programmers. I came on when beta testing started and moved into coding when Don Bowen had to take some time off to recover from a medical procedure. At the end we added a 5th programmer, but the code was just being tweaked at that point. Everyone had some input on the code, but the major design stuff was a core of about 8 people. quote: 2. The HFD devs were split into the following teams: Air Naval Ground Map Beta Ship Art Reporting Manual Scenarios A few of the devs were involved multi teams but the overwhelming majority focused on only one team. 3. Without disparaging the contributions made by those devs not mentioned below, considering the nature of the criticisms/suggested improvements/dissatisfaction etc expressed on the forum since the release of AE in mid 2009, the key devs to address this "feedback" have been: jwilkerson - project manager theElf + michaelm - air leader and air coder respectively JWE + Don Bowen - naval leader and naval coder respectively Andy Mac + BigJ62 - land leader + chief AI script writer and land coder respectively wdolson - "Beta" team leader but also sundry under the hood coding I was sort of the utility infielder. The only two areas of the code I didn't get into much was the air code and AI. I worked on the repair routines quite a bit when I was filling in for Don. I knew them quite well at one point, but that was almost 10 years ago. At the end I was doing most of the land code as BigJ62 was bogged down completely with the AI. Due to his efforts the AI is far better than WitP's was. quote: I've left out various devs from the above list because their work was not challenged as often nor as vociferously as those mentioned above. 4. Of the eight mentioned in point 3 above, all were very active on the forum in the period 2009-2010 explaining how the game worked, correcting gross misinterpretations of how things worked, fixing bugs, adding new enhancements etc. This 18 month period saw five official patches released on: 9 Sept 2009 7 Dec 2009 28 Feb 2010 21 July 2010 24 Oct 2010 With the release of these patches, all development work on AE came to an end. Forum participation by jwilkerson, theElf, and BigJ62 basically ended (although theElf has subsequently resurfaced for short periods). Don Bowen still appeared, albeit at a much slower rate for a couple of years but has basically not been sighted since 2014. Wdolson became a moderator so he remained but focussed primarily on his moderating role and giving general advice to newbies. Michaelm remained specifically to fix bugs which combined with GUI improvements resulted in patch #6 (of 21 Jan 2012) and the various betas which culminated in patch #7 (of 25 Dec 2015) which wasn't actually released until about March 2015. Since then michaelm's participation has been very sporadic. That leaves Andy Mac who remained involved in tweaking the AI scripts all the way through to 2012/2013 and after a sabbatical has recently returned to the task of tweaking the scripts, and JWE/Symon who post patch #5 remained by far the most engaged of the devs in fielding naval and device questions until the parting of the ways last year. 5. The point of the preceding is that for years now, the requisite resources which were required to produce AE have simply not been available. A large proportion of those resources would be required to implement the "feedback" provided on the forum. That is assuming firstly that the "feedback" was valid, which in the overwhelming number of cases it isn't; secondly it could be implemented which considering the legacy code is most definitely not an easy task; and thirdly is the ROI positive, which invariably it isn't usually being most marginal at best. Very true! A lot of people had life interfere and have gone off into the unimportant things of the real world. quote: Just to provide context, consider the subject of this very thread. Damage Control is very much an abstracted game concept which operates without player input. The algorithms would still not be disclosed. Change the existing code to accommodate the "improvements" requested and there still would be no player input plus players would still complain about how it operates. Implement the changes and does anyone seriously believe that players would significantly alter their tactical thinking when the work is still done under the hood and without disclosure of the algorithms. Alfred Agreed. The resources aren't there to successfully rewrite and fully test any algorithm. People have requested making the code public domain or open source and let anyone who wants to work on it. That will never happen because a) it would make reliable PBEM impossible and b) large portions of the code are owned by 2X3, not Henderson Field Design, and they aren't going to give that permission short of a court order. (I know why they will never give permission, but I can't disclose it.) Bill

m10bob -> RE: Allied Damage Control Option (3/25/2016 5:37:45 PM)
My books indicate the Japanese were never real heavy into "damage control", on ships or land. During the terrible fire bombings of the Mainland in 1945, the Japanese had less fire engines on the entire continent as America had in a medium sized city.

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