WitP Tracker: a new WitP Tool in the works

[Mynok]

I totally glazed over about word 5.........then read this, explaining all:

Harry Erwin, PhD.......Computational neuroethologist:

[:D]

[floydg]

ORIGINAL: herwin

ORIGINAL: floydg

ORIGINAL: herwin

I like Bohdi's utility in large part because it organises intel data similarly to what I'm used to. I'd like to see an effective moving ships tracker algorithm added, but that would be a really big deal, involving input from my current research in autonomous robot control.

I'm not sure what you mean by "moving ships tracker algorithm". Do you mean tracking the movement of enemy ships?

The knee-jerk engineering solution would be a Kalman filter, but that has a series of weaknesses:
1. A Kalman filter is an optimal linear filter, but ships follow curved paths (geodesics or rhumb lines).
2. Ships maneuver or sail to waypoints and change course. Kalman filters are too dumb to pick up on situational clues or take account of how ship captains actually maneuver their ships.
3. The expansion of the covariance matrix for the Kalman filter over time does not model how ship tracks become uncertain after a few days off the screen.

On the other hand, a non-linear filter can be faked out by deceptive tactics and will be sensitive to the order and timing of updates to tracks. Association of track reports to the correct track is also a hard problem--we run into this in auditory scene analysis.

So I use the Bohdi utility and draw my own conclusions from the pattern of reports. If you provide something similar, the reports should be colour-coded in some obvious way based on how old they are.

I doubt we'll be able to solve that problem for you with this program. I'm sure if we could reliably predict the path of a task force, nobody would want to play against us (or we'd be doing some super-secret government work we can't tell you about).

Floyd

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Mynok


I totally glazed over about word 5.........then read this, explaining all:

Harry Erwin, PhD.......Computational neuroethologist:

[:D]

[:)]

That's my current job description; I also worked on OBU. I look at the game as the flight simulator version.

[n01487477]

Just a 2 quick screens in one showing plane production and engine production ...
more to do:-
1. list bases producing when you click the plane/engine row (will be below)
2. sorting and filtering...
3. Warnings need to be resolved.
4. Histories are ready to go ...
5**. Another Tab with individual planes , their production fully explored, upgrades to and from ... etc (think screen above from Access, on steroids)

Anyway ...onto Base Oil/supply/etc production now ... so I hope Floyd and I can bring this to you soon ...

[Reg]

ORIGINAL: floydg

I doubt we'll be able to solve that problem for you with this program. I'm sure if we could reliably predict the path of a task force, nobody would want to play against us (or we'd be doing some super-secret government work we can't tell you about).

Floyd

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but until the game can produce task force tracks like the diagram below, I am not sure that I would want a tool which will provide intel to the players which will be much more accurate than what would have been available to contemporary commanders.

(Not to mention play balance issues against players who are not using the tool if it is not included as part of the standard distribution).

I am aware that AE is introducing way-points which will partially address the issue but I suspect it will not go far enough to disguise paths at the scale of this game if this tool is too effective.

[floydg]

ORIGINAL: Reg

ORIGINAL: floydg

I doubt we'll be able to solve that problem for you with this program. I'm sure if we could reliably predict the path of a task force, nobody would want to play against us (or we'd be doing some super-secret government work we can't tell you about).

Floyd

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but until the game can produce task force tracks like the diagram below, I am not sure that I would want a tool which will provide intel to the players which will be much more accurate than what would have been available to contemporary commanders.

(Not to mention play balance issues against players who are not using the tool if it is not included as part of the standard distribution).

I am aware that AE is introducing way-points which will partially address the issue but I suspect it will not go far enough to disguise paths at the scale of this game if this tool is too effective.

Are you asking for a history of where a TF was or a prediction of where it will be? I think Harry was asking for the latter, but we could certainly do the former (and I believe witpDecoder already does that).

Floyd

[floydg]

Okay, two more things I've been working on. The first is a Task Force screen. The part which adds value is that each TF can be assigned a label to group them together for some common purpose and each TF can also have a 40-character "note" attached to it so you don't need to remember or makes notes somewhere else.

Below is a screenshot of what I have so far. I will be adding filtering, sorting and more per-TF information. I'll also add a TF detail section containing (almost) the same information as in the game.

[floydg]

And the screen to define the labels...

[floydg]

And the second part I was working on is something I call "alerts". These are things that sometimes silently happen in the game that I'd really like to know when it happens. For example, a ship upgrades, an airgroup upgrades, a new unit appears somewhere (like a reinforcement air fragment), supply running low at a base, TF out of fuel, subs out of ammo, etc etc. The below screen shows an example with ship upgrades. I'll add filtering, customization (which alerts to generate, different thresholds for some things) and other things.

[Roger Neilson II]

MY my this is looking like a really nice utility........ can't wait to try it. That bit about being able to label the TF....... oh yes, my poor brain can have a rest.

Roger

[Reg]

ORIGINAL: floydg

Are you asking for a history of where a TF was or a prediction of where it will be? I think Harry was asking for the latter, but we could certainly do the former (and I believe witpDecoder already does that).

Floyd

Don't get me wrong, this will be a great utility, I would just be a little concerned if its TF prediction capability were to be too good!! Whether a prediction capability (other than a reported course) should be included at all would be up to the other players though I wouldn't be keen due to the reasons I cited in my previous post.

IRL there were many things that prevented accurate task force position prediction that simply aren't included in the simplified WITP game world (which currently plots the most direct route).

An example of this is the course reversal (when spotted) of the Japanese task force on its way to the Battle of Savo Island. This caused the 32SQN Hudson to report an incorrect course track and prevented the sighting from being promptly passed on to the task force at Guadalcanal.

[n01487477]

update of screens:-
1. Airgroups - have added some info...
Also has a pilots screen, also want to be able to click on group and have pilot info below (not done yet)
need: pilot screen & airgroup filtering (of course)
2. Aircraftproduction has 3 screens, overview and engines are almost complete, (with better labels - hope you can understand better this time) ...
want: Overview should have plane factories listed below.
want: Engines should have engine factories listed below.
Also upgrades needs work, but will focus on future production etc.
need: filtering etc.
maybe: split groups into 3 screens (fighters/bombers/shipbased) not sure, but maybe filtering is the best option ???
Damn Java Gui !!!

[n01487477]

Another screen ... more to do ... coming along ok ?

Any suggestions ?

Production coming next hopefully ... soon...

[Coach Z]

Looks very interesting
 

[Nomad]

Is this thing ready yet? [:D]

[Roger Neilson II]

Couple of suggestions

I hate the info screens as you can't take info from them unless you capture them as screen shots. In particular I'd like to be able to get the ships sunk data and use it in other ways.... I'm not after any info I should not have, but it would be good to take info like this and be able to put it into AARs.... with comments. At present you can't select a list, but have to settle for whatever is shown on the screen shot and this limits what you can do with it. It would also allow greater annotation and dating of such info if extra text fields were available. For example the four capital ships here - three were lost in the initial week of the war..... only the Pennsylvania was lost later in defence of Menando.

Roger

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: floydg

ORIGINAL: Reg

ORIGINAL: floydg

I doubt we'll be able to solve that problem for you with this program. I'm sure if we could reliably predict the path of a task force, nobody would want to play against us (or we'd be doing some super-secret government work we can't tell you about).

Floyd

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but until the game can produce task force tracks like the diagram below, I am not sure that I would want a tool which will provide intel to the players which will be much more accurate than what would have been available to contemporary commanders.

(Not to mention play balance issues against players who are not using the tool if it is not included as part of the standard distribution).

I am aware that AE is introducing way-points which will partially address the issue but I suspect it will not go far enough to disguise paths at the scale of this game if this tool is too effective.

Are you asking for a history of where a TF was or a prediction of where it will be? I think Harry was asking for the latter, but we could certainly do the former (and I believe witpDecoder already does that).

Floyd

Yes, I was asking for something that might have professional interest [;)]. History is easy if you know which TF it is that you've detected. History is very hard if you need to associate track reports to enemy TFs. In that case, you have to predict the set of known tracks to the time of the report and decide which one the track report represents. Or you may decide that it's a new track entirely. I'd be very interested in something simpler that could simply present the data and allow the players to make their judgements.

[floydg]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson II

Couple of suggestions

I hate the info screens as you can't take info from them unless you capture them as screen shots. In particular I'd like to be able to get the ships sunk data and use it in other ways.... I'm not after any info I should not have, but it would be good to take info like this and be able to put it into AARs.... with comments. At present you can't select a list, but have to settle for whatever is shown on the screen shot and this limits what you can do with it. It would also allow greater annotation and dating of such info if extra text fields were available. For example the four capital ships here - three were lost in the initial week of the war..... only the Pennsylvania was lost later in defence of Menando.

Roger

I can do something like that for the side you're playing. I may be able to do it for the opposing side as well if I can figure out how the game models the FOW aspect.

But otherwise, here is a screen in-progress. It's similar to the in-game screen, except this can show all ships, not just active ones (ignore the Speed column, it's just a place-holder for now). I'll add filtering to only show active ships, reinforcements or sunk ships. The last column is a free-form text entry for notes.

[Roger Neilson II]

excellent, would be nice to be able to annotate the opposition as well... provided its info that is available through normal combat reports.

Roger

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Coach Z

Looks very interesting

I didn't know DEATH was a participant on this forum!