Stealing Technology Bug?

[Protagonist]

People have complained about the ease of stealing technologies and while making a table to check percentages for stealing tech, I noticed something wrong.

When Japan starts off they have 6 spies against China. That should be too few to ever steal an actual technology.

From page 86 of the manual:

A spy roll will be made for each field that the player trails in technology or has the same technology but trails in research and which the stealing player has at least one point already invested in research. If Random(Attacking Spies) is greater than Random(5+Defending Security) then the player gains a free Research Point in that field.

Random(Attacking Spies) can be from 1-6. Random(5+Defending Security) can be from 6-11. There is no number in Random(Attacking Spies) that fulfills the requirement for any Random(5+Defending Security). As a matter of fact, you should never be able to get a technology point for any fewer than 7 spies. You can pass the first test with as few as 1 spy though.

In game, I am of course getting a lot of tech from China (as Japan). Russia was getting a lot of tech from Germany when I played Germany and had 15-20 security early and while I couldn't see the number of spies since I was playing with FoW, it seemed a bit worrisome to me. The actual formula seems different than listed.

Another note: In the bookmarks for the manual, the bookmarks that fall under Chapter 9 are not nested, and happen to be in reverse order.

[Uncle_Joe]

No, the defender is 'rolling' from 1-11. If it was 6-11, it would be 5+Rnd(defending security).
 
So its possible and intended to actually succeed with Spies even when 'outnumbered' by defending Security. But the Security gets a bump on average.

[Protagonist]

Thanks Uncle_Joe. I think what messed me up was that the constant was first instead of the variable (but they were both in the function so it should have been obvious either way).

That means there is a 23% chance that you steal say Armor Evasion in any one turn. But I could have sworn I got it more than once every year. My suspicion was that ties also go to the attacker, increasing odds to 32%. I don't have enough runs to get a good sample though.

[JanSorensen]

I just checked the code. Ties do not allow for a steal.

[Protagonist]

Thanks so much for the check Jan.

[MrQuiet]

I have a question:  How are security assets reduced?
 
I can not find anything in section 9 of the manual about Security being 'attacked'. I assume it would be spies that would target security, but I was wondering what the calculations are.
 
Thanks
-MrQuiet
 
 

[JanSorensen]

If Rnd(Security) > Rnd(50) Security is reduced by one.
 
Thus there is no active way to target enemy security and its unlikely to lower often unless a nation has a really high count and then only by 1 each turn.

[MrQuiet]

Thanks for the answer.
I have noticed it dropping by 1 now and then and just wondered how it was calculated.
 
-MrQuiet

[Protagonist]

To confirm, in addition to the Random(Security) > Random(50) that each player checks two times during its turn (only for enemies, not allies) to see if the opposing player loses a spy from its spy ring, it also runs a check of Random(Security) > Random(50) to see if the opposing player loses a Security point? (also enemies I assume).