Living Manual

[Joel Billings]

Item for the Living Manual is here: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/vie ... 7&t=395941

[chee006]

Sorry if this has been answered before, but may I know why don'=n't we just update the main manual instead of recreating multiple living manuals without the full images and color?

[MarkShot]

I think it is an efficiency issue, since some companies like PDS and CA make the players write the documentation.

The living manual is a beta task which means it uncompensated, and those who are compensated are working on code which few of the betas would be qualified to do anyway.

Yes, the betas did do the main manual, but if you were going to do this seriously, you would need to update screen captures. Also, early in most of 2by3 releases, there was a new beta build almost every 2-3 weeks; the current long delay is due to a single monolithic upgrade project (OOB 2.0).

The above is conjecture. I am not privy to any insider knowledge.

[loki100]

The explanation is actually really simple.

We handed in about 900 pages of text (ie what is now the Living Manual) and all the images. So that would easily have generated about 1000+ pages of published manual.

The layout people managed to squeeze all that into the 520 or so pages of the published version. There was then a tussle in the days immediate prior to release to get the order of text-images improved so that it wasn't all over the place. The result was yes we inherited a 520 page word document with all the images. Add a single letter and the whole thing falls apart and needs a massive effort to reformat.

So it was just not feasible to use as the basis for the Living Manual - but it could have been if the option to generate an official HTML variant had been on offer

and yes doing the Living Manual is indeed unpaid and voluntary - and I long lost any enthusiasm for voluntary work given the actions of a small vocal sub-set of the community

[Zovs]

Early on there was sometimes a release or update once a day, the norm was 2-3 days a release then once a week would be norm with daily or every other day bug releases.

[MarkShot]

I was around for the early days of commercial software; before the Internet.

We received monthly:

* Patch tapes (real patches; they replaced instructions in disk files with a hex editor); along with detailed notes on each one.

* Sheets of 3 ring binder pages with replacement instructions for various sets of pages.

We have come from this to "read the WIKI" or "search the forum".

---

Loki, I very much appreciate your fine work. WITE2 was my first GG title, and being on Panther's team so many years I was an anti-TBS/HEX snob. It was actually reading your very professional manual for WITE2 which led me down the road of purchasing most of GG's titles.

I owe you very much for having a richer retirement. Thank you, Loki. (and all the 2by3 developers and betas)

[chee006]

The explanation is actually really simple.

We handed in about 900 pages of text (ie what is now the Living Manual) and all the images. So that would easily have generated about 1000+ pages of published manual.

The layout people managed to squeeze all that into the 520 or so pages of the published version. There was then a tussle in the days immediate prior to release to get the order of text-images improved so that it wasn't all over the place. The result was yes we inherited a 520 page word document with all the images. Add a single letter and the whole thing falls apart and needs a massive effort to reformat.

So it was just not feasible to use as the basis for the Living Manual - but it could have been if the option to generate an official HTML variant had been on offer

and yes doing the Living Manual is indeed unpaid and voluntary - and I long lost any enthusiasm for voluntary work given the actions of a small vocal sub-set of the community

Thanks for the clarification, I was not aware that it was voluntary work but I am grateful for all the work the community has put in. I am not sure what you mean by vocal sub-set of the community as I am fairly new to this part of the forums.

[Joel Billings]

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=395027
should be worth including

These are really good screens. I've stickied the thread in the war room. Adding them into the manual is a bridge too far for me.

[Joel Billings]

I think I've picked up the items posted here over the past few months for the next living manual. I confirmed that it is 60% of damaged element manpower goes to the disabled pool, not 40%, and it appears it's was intentional, and has been like this since release. It is different than WitW. I forgot to ask Gary about the manpower item, but it sounds like something he would do, and the posted screenshots clearly shows it's impacting things. Thanks for pointing out these corrections to be made.

[Arthurius]

What is exatly imapct of ,,Logistics Level'' Option. There aren't any description in manual. Is this affect on:

a) supply consumption
b) supply range
c) supply prodution
d) suppply loses
e) none of above
f) any else

[Joel Billings]

I'm not sure, will have to ask Gary if he can find in the code what it impacts.

[Joel Billings]

It appears the fact that the show event screen only lists the latest item is not mentioned in the manual. A mention could be added to 36.15. There is a thread here: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 5#p5118485 .

[Joel Billings]

What is exatly imapct of ,,Logistics Level'' Option. There aren't any description in manual. Is this affect on:

a) supply consumption
b) supply range
c) supply prodution
d) suppply loses
e) none of above
f) any else

The manual says this in 36.18:

Logistics Level: Impacts the formulas that determine the amount of supply and replacements a unit receives based on its supply trace, to include through ports, the amount of attrition a unit suffers due to movement, the amount of fatigue added or removed from a unit during a turn, and the amount of fuel expended by generic vehicles. This level also affects the ability of leaders to conduct successful admin checks.

[Wiedrock]

28.6.2. Factory Damage
In addition to capture damage, all factories can be damaged by the strategic
bombing (bomb city) air mission (18.1.5).
Damage is applied to an entire factory, not to individual factory points. The damage
level of a factory is also the probability that the factory will not produce on a given
turn.
For example 100 damage means no production, while 25 damage means 25 percent
chance of no production and a 75 percent chance of full production. For example a
FW-190 aircraft factory with 12 factory points, or size 12, which had 40 damage
would have a 60 percent chance of producing 12 aircraft and a 40 percent chance of
producing 0 aircraft.

see attachment.

Seems not to be the case to work like that but exactly using percentages and rounding up.

[Lurberri]

28.6.2. Factory Damage
In addition to capture damage, all factories can be damaged by the strategic
bombing (bomb city) air mission (18.1.5).
Damage is applied to an entire factory, not to individual factory points. The damage
level of a factory is also the probability that the factory will not produce on a given
turn.
For example 100 damage means no production, while 25 damage means 25 percent
chance of no production and a 75 percent chance of full production. For example a
FW-190 aircraft factory with 12 factory points, or size 12, which had 40 damage
would have a 60 percent chance of producing 12 aircraft and a 40 percent chance of
producing 0 aircraft.

see attachment.

Seems not to be the case to work like that but exactly using percentages and rounding up.

It seems more correct to me as it is currently implemented in the game, although it is obvious that the manual needs to be corrected.

[Wiedrock]

The values for additional MP requirement depending on Ground weather/Roads/Motorization in the manual need an update.

[Wiedrock]

This Chart is missing 2x "." (decimal points).

[warhero88AB]

New to this game, not new to monster wargames (War in Europe, etc). Currently wading through this games very, very nice but voluminous manual. Am I to understand that I also need to read 1 to N "living manuals" in order to be fully up to date on rules? I mean, how significant are the adds and fixes?

[Wiedrock]

New to this game, not new to monster wargames (War in Europe, etc). Currently wading through this games very, very nice but voluminous manual. Am I to understand that I also need to read 1 to N "living manuals" in order to be fully up to date on rules? I mean, how significant are the adds and fixes?

You can mostly stick to the normal manual. Before reading a Chapter, take a quick look in the latest version of that chapter in the living manual (current version is 1.23). There look out for red text and Erratas.

[Joel Billings]

An item for the living manual is here: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 7&t=400330