[Discuss]Providing a battle simulator (calculator) ingame

[Killerbij]

I think round 11 should come with a built-in battle simulator. This page would pretty much work as a battle calculator but use the real ingame formulas. (And display a warning that there are some stochastics involved) The release of shipstats would be unnecessary.

Why?; I always thought a calculator prevents bashing if you know exactly what amounts to send to still get roids and not kill your enemy. However there would still need to be some bashing penalties also displayed on simulator. (Because if bashing shows as beneficial on a calculator; why would you not do it?) Like: your enemy is half your size; expect some ship eta delays and damage reduction due to lack of motivation. This damage reduction should also be shown on the calculator. There should be a mirror display showing you what would happen if you attacked someone your own size (and obviously the benefits displayed should be large). Not only will this have good results ingame, if implemented in a beta stage it will be rather easy to balance things like these bashing penalties.

Other wishes on a simulation page:
-You should be able to load in any (applicable) scans in the planetarion database if you have the ID of that scan on both offense or defense side.
-You should be able to add your own entire fleet with the click of 1 button.

[Tactitus]

What's the point of providing a bcalc that uses the "real ingame forumulas" but not releasing the formulas themselves? If they release the formulas, then people can write their own bcalcs (and generally do a better job of it than PA can, if experience tells us anything).

If the formulas are public, there will be several good bcalcs freely available. If the formulas are private, then the best you can hope for is a single mediocre bcalc from HQ.

PA should spend it's limited resources developing the game, not providing tools that the community can and will provide for ifself (especially if provided with the formulas to do so).

[Killerbij]

Well ofcourse the bcalc/simulator should be accurate. Do give the crew some credit here. I think they could make a good one ingame . As for the advantages to an internal calc:

-it will be forcing you to look at the penalties you get when attacking smaller targets; penalties that wouldnt be displayed on an external calc
-seeing that a bigger target is more beneficial to attack when attacking something smaller than 50% (this should show and happen in real game) on the mirror calc
-the bcalc will be available to all players at the same moment in time
-the bcalc cant be used for data gardering by alliances when parsing in scans or coordinates
-when not releasing formulas and stats there will be no other available tools; no unitmatrices etc that newbies wont find or have access to
-even a newbie will do battle simulations if they are included in a game page

[Kal]

i like the idea myself - they could even add a random factor to make its accuracy vary to add a bit of spice to our lives

[mikay]

Am I the only person who likes the stats secret. As it is they only stay secret for about 2 weeks and if you make an effort you can find out close enough - apparently there are several very accurate calcs out there.

[Killerbij]

Secret stats simply lead to bashing and sending overkill (to compensate for the risk you are running when attacking blindly). It is also a well known fact that some players find the stats out no matter what after some time. So why not make it general knowledge and have a level playing field where everyone tries not to overkill for good reasons.

[Scoot951]

Originally Posted by KalVirtus

i like the idea myself - they could even add a random factor to make its accuracy vary to add a bit of spice to our lives

I'd actually perfer it if the calc was accurate, but the battles themselves were a bit random.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Killerbij

Well ofcourse the bcalc/simulator should be accurate. Do give the crew some credit here. I think they could make a good one ingame . As for the advantages to an internal calc:

-it will be forcing you to look at the penalties you get when attacking smaller targets; penalties that wouldnt be displayed on an external calc

Why wouldn't the penalties be displayed on an external calc? As long as the bonuses and penalties are public, why wouldn't they be included? If they're not public, then that's the problem.

-seeing that a bigger target is more beneficial to attack when attacking something smaller than 50% (this should show and happen in real game) on the mirror calc
-the bcalc will be available to all players at the same moment in time
-the bcalc cant be used for data gardering by alliances when parsing in scans or coordinates

I know of no external bcalcs that required/forced coordinates. Scan parsers are another story, but scan parsers were necessary only because of the stupid way PA formatted information.

-when not releasing formulas and stats there will be no other available tools; no unitmatrices etc that newbies wont find or have access to

I see little value in dumbing-down the game to the lowest common denominator.

-even a newbie will do battle simulations if they are included in a game page

Don't bet on it. Many newbies never get on irc, even though there's an in-game irc facility.

[Killerbij]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

Why wouldn't the penalties be displayed on an external calc? As long as the bonuses and penalties are public, why wouldn't they be included? If they're not public, then that's the problem.

You have display and display. Either you put it up in a big bold fond screaming and flashing or you'd include it at as a small number at the bottom of a page. With just 1 bcalc available the way information is presented will be up to the creators and will be equal to all players. Quite frankly I don't see why you've got such a problem with a planetarion hosted calculator.

Originally Posted by Tactitus

I know of no external bcalcs that required/forced coordinates. Scan parsers are another story, but scan parsers were necessary only because of the stupid way PA formatted information.

True but there are always people that still enter them. If only a small fraction does this the owner of a calculator could in theory benefit (I am not making accusations to anyone currently hosting one)

Originally Posted by Tactitus

I see little value in dumbing-down the game to the lowest common denominator.

Equality and accessibility are both great values into attracting new players.

Originally Posted by Tactitus

Don't bet on it. Many newbies never get on irc, even though there's an in-game irc facility.

I do bet on it. Many newbies dont get onto irc because of the unreliability of the com-unit and the unaccessibility of this new environment. Even if they manage to get connected they will still need to find a channel to join. But they WILL try every page. If I try a new game for the first time I will try every link in the menu as well. To make sure they keep using the feature though it should be user friendly; and I think a simulator with proper explanations could be just that.

[mist]

Originally Posted by mikay

Am I the only person who likes the stats secret. As it is they only stay secret for about 2 weeks and if you make an effort you can find out close enough - apparently there are several very accurate calcs out there.

you can, i probably could. bob the random newbie who's just started playing probably can't. at the moment the game needs to attract newbies.

an in game calc would be handy, because it'd know what ships you have whereas the out of game sites have to be told (yes, i'm lazy) but giving out stats and formulas would probably produce a better end product

-mist

[Vencedor]

Ok, well I think that a in-game Bcalc would be really good
C'mon guys, give the creators some credi, they created/coded this game y'know? I think they could handle making a battlecalc

I think the bcalc should give PERFECT results whereas the battles have random aspects to them...
Also, give the calc the ability to load ou whole fleet or a certain fleet and give it access to the PA Scan Database so you can just use scan ID's (and have a list of stored ones like at the bottem of the Waves page)

Yes it's true, I know calcs and parsers that DO keep track of co-ords etc but I won't metion any names/urls ....

Yeah so, anyway... bcalc ingame would be cool

-=] Vencedor [=-
IPC 'till the end!

[JetLinus]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

What's the point of providing a bcalc that uses the "real ingame forumulas" but not releasing the formulas themselves? If they release the formulas, then people can write their own bcalcs (and generally do a better job of it than PA can, if experience tells us anything).

If the formulas are public, there will be several good bcalcs freely available. If the formulas are private, then the best you can hope for is a single mediocre bcalc from HQ.
...

IMO it shouldn't be too much work to produce a "real working" battlecalc, if you own the actual source of the game. Just create some virtual local "real battle", work it out directly using the real functions, and spit out the results to the waiting user's webpage.

Thing is, it's damn annoying to write bcalcs for people who should have done it themselves.


Also, and most important point: How can you trust the team, that they implemented the formulas the way they're supposed to work (no offence)? If the creators can't code a proper bcalc (and you said you might doubt they could), then how could they possibly code it proper working for the game?

The algorithms should essentially be the same.


And if you've only done some fairly good basic programming, your functions and methods should be really easy reusable. And that way, you would finally get a bcalc that works exactly like the game (not just like the [poor?} documentation wants it to).

When the community is coding tools, that's mostly (well, IMO maybe) because they're missing inside the game -- it's a lack basically, that the customers have to "satisfy / remove / take care of" by themselves.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by JetLinus

IMO it shouldn't be too much work to produce a "real working" battlecalc, if you own the actual source of the game. Just create some virtual local "real battle", work it out directly using the real functions, and spit out the results to the waiting user's webpage.

Thing is, it's damn annoying to write bcalcs for people who should have done it themselves.

I always viewed it as a challenge more than an annoyance; but YMMV.

Also, and most important point: How can you trust the team, that they implemented the formulas the way they're supposed to work (no offence)? If the creators can't code a proper bcalc (and you said you might doubt they could), then how could they possibly code it proper working for the game?

How indeed. The many bugs over the years stand as testimony to that.

The algorithms should essentially be the same.

Yes; yes they should. And yet, round after round, PA couldn't get the correct formulas and stats documented in the manual. It would have been very simple to automatically build the manual stats page from the same table of stats used in the game; yet they could never do it. Round after round I complained about this; round after round they screwed up the stats in the manual.

What should have been a simple task was clearly beyond their capabilities. Eventually, I accepted their obvious limitations and moved on.

And if you've only done some fairly good basic programming, your functions and methods should be really easy reusable. And that way, you would finally get a bcalc that works exactly like the game (not just like the [poor?} documentation wants it to).

If PA could produce a good bcalc then they could produce a good manual. The only thing preventing them from doing either is that they don't have the skills, attention to detail, and motivation that's required. Once you realize and accept this, you'll stop asking them to take on more tasks that they can't and won't be able to accomplish.

That's not to say that HQ is without skills, but their skills do not lie in this area. [The new regime might be a different story but I've seen no evidence of that--so far]

When the community is coding tools, that's mostly (well, IMO maybe) because they're missing inside the game -- it's a lack basically, that the customers have to "satisfy / remove / take care of" by themselves.

Yes; yes it is.

[Vencedor]

**bump**
In game bcalc would be good btw

[Kal]

can someone correct me if i'm wrong - but I think most formulae have been released now - some are not perhaps as well known but I think its all out there - in whcih case the simple solution seems to be to fomrally publish exactly how the combat engine works.

[Vencedor]

Originally Posted by Kal

can someone correct me if i'm wrong - but I think most formulae have been released now - some are not perhaps as well known but I think its all out there - in whcih case the simple solution seems to be to fomrally publish exactly how the combat engine works.

But like I've seen someone else say, the community (most of the time) only make a tool becuase PA is lacking it
an official bcalc wouldn't be hard to make at all considering it can run of the exact in-game formula and therefore update automaticaly, or should I say it will update whenever the game stats are updated because it'll run off the same formula and stats

Also, if they were to ever develope it, a nice one with multiple fleets would be nice. But to start, just a basic one

[Troglodyte]

I agree with someone's previous post about it should be a bit random.and I also agree that the stats should not be known.

If PA wants to keep it ALL mathematical, then why not just show the PREDICTED losses as soon as there is incoming, *that is in essence what an in-game battle calc will be doing.

I shall now plead; for the love of the game please do not make the game even more predictable!! *sigh

[Kal]

I think the time to intriduce an offical bcalc would be if the combat engine had a major change, for now I think we should stick with community bcalcs, any thoughts?

[furball]

I'd keep community bcalcs i think, but this is coming from a player who knows where they all are, etc. Newbies might not. Is PA willing to put links to community bcalcs in game?

[noah02]

No point in PA making more work for themselves when the public happily make there own for public use.

and the portal does have a link to them now so its not that hard to find them nowadays.

[Squishy]

No way should their be an ingame battle calc. If people want to use battle calcs they should go out and find the public ones or make their own.

It would take to much out of the game.

[wakey]

As most people will probally know I'm a strong believer in aspects that are really community projects remaining community projects as they help make this game stronger by giving everyone the possability to improve it. PATeam should be encouraging and aiding such projects but shouldnt ever try and make them official or make their own as it just weakens the game in the long run. Just look at how the official portal for example has weakened the community by removing the need for superior unofficial ones

[demiGOD]

I agree. Just leave the bcalcs community-based.

[King]

Originally Posted by Kal

can someone correct me if i'm wrong - but I think most formulae have been released now - some are not perhaps as well known but I think its all out there - in whcih case the simple solution seems to be to fomrally publish exactly how the combat engine works.

Yes then all we need is a few script kiddies and there are 50 PA's out there.

[noah02]

Originally Posted by Squishy

No way should their be an ingame battle calc. If people want to use battle calcs they should go out and find the public ones or make their own.

It would take to much out of the game.

Arent you making a bcalc also m8ty?

[Ultimate Newbie]

imo having an in-built battlecalculator would go a long way in helping new players get the grips of the game. there is a big difference between having a table of numbers, and understanding how combat works.

This is how i would like to see an in-game calc be used: http://pirate.planetarion.com/showpo...7&postcount=45