Matrix Games Forums

LarkinVB wrote:You do have acroread, do you :rolleyes: ? Download the guide as PDF from the top sticky thread.

Yes, I have Acrobat Reader. :rolleyes: And I have downloaded the manual from the Sticky thread. :rolleyes: And the weapons table is listed seperately from the guide, further down the thread list, which I have also downloaded. :rolleyes: And as it's an Excel file, I can't open it.

The guide I get when I download from that thread is 19 pages. The weapons table is supposed to be page 20, but it isn't there.

widowmaker

Ooops. My fault, did upload wrong file. Try again.

Got it! Nice table Iceman. That's enough to quiet me down on this issue . My thirst for knowledge has been sated, for now.

And I still can't manage to post an attachment. Could it be something on my end?

widowmaker

widowmaker wrote:And though I wonder about your definition of "average", I submit that the PU requirement is a significant weapon stat, and thus should be readily available to any player. After all, the manual lists the PU requirements for and heat caused by movement--is the "average" player going to care for that? I know I have. I was checking those heat numbers frequently during the Android Rebellion campaign. Heat's an issue in that one.

When I said average, I didn't mean it refering to skill or anything like that. I meant it in relation to interest in reading the manual. A manual is something that is not easy to write, as I've experienced You have to select the info to be put there, so that it isn't too "heavy" nor excessively vague. A 100+ page manual could have been written for WS, but that would probably have put off a lot of people (and the economic issues would have surfaced too I'm sure). A balance must be reached, and most of what is not in the manual can be accessed through the help system (and "unofficial" details are in the guide).
Now, as for the PU thing, yes, they're not in the factory anymore, and they should, but heat and power for movement is something that you can control (and need to), but power for weapon recycle is not that clear-cut. It depends on a lot of things.

Sleeping_Dragon wrote:I agree.


However, the bell curve thing looks interesting, what about using a bell curve distribution for enemy skill and tonnage centered on the level chosen? Not sure how much this would add to the game, but would leave room for some 'fuzziness' of war.. does the enemy actually have 400tons worth of titans.. or 340? or 440? 480? etc... Neither for or against this... just an idea.

Added a gaussian random for weight balance with mean 0, std deviation 15% and limited to +-33% max/min.

There is already a random jock skill deviation with +-1 rank. Should be obvious in the after battle stats. Added a rare +-2 rank deviation.

LarkinVB wrote:There is already a random jock skill deviation with +-1 rank. Should be obvious in the after battle stats. Added a rare +-2 rank deviation.

Doh, ...had never really paid attention to the enemy jock skill to notice this.

Thanks for the weight randomizer!

100/140 or 1200/1600 possible? hmm.

hmmm ? Why hmmm ? Its an option with effects players do know. Do you mean 33% is to much ? Remember that 33% is at the end of the gaussian distribution. I thought of letting players set standard deviation and limits but this would be too much work. I was also thinking about allowing only positive deviation as this is what I usually play. Most of my battles are at AI at ranks 1 lower than my average with +20% to +40% weight advantage. So the new randomness wouldn't help me at all in my personal setup. Perhaps I should add another standard deviation for all balance selections like this :

...
+20: +16% to + 25%
+10: +6% to +15%
EVEN : -5% to +5%
-10: -6% to -15%
-20: -16% to -25%
...

This would add some weight twists and battle surprises for bigger total weights.

Oppinions ?

Yes, 33% is at the end of the distribution, but remember there are 2~4 teams. If one is -15% and the other is +15%...
The extreme example of 1200/1600, that's *2* assaults difference. The other example, not good in a duel.

Anyways, haven't tried it yet, will take a look and comment.

LarkinVB wrote:There is already a random jock skill deviation with +-1 rank. Should be obvious in the after battle stats. Added a rare +-2 rank deviation.

Are these changes random hotseat only, or any setup?
As rare as it may be, a rookie custom team fighting a novice AI random team may not be a pleasant surprise.

Thorgrim wrote:Yes, 33% is at the end of the distribution, but remember there are 2~4 teams. If one is -15% and the other is +15%...

Anyways, haven't tried it yet, will take a look and comment.

Balance is per side, not per team. So only one side will get -33% to +33%. -33% for one side and +33% for the other isn't possible.

LarkinVB wrote:There is already a random jock skill deviation with +-1 rank. Should be obvious in the after battle stats. Added a rare +-2 rank deviation.

DOH! I knew that, but forgot.. I like the rare +/-2 addition!

Thorgrim wrote:Are these changes random hotseat only, or any setup?
As rare as it may be, a rookie custom team fighting a novice AI random team may not be a pleasant surprise.

These deviation is per jock, not per team. so its VERY unlikely to get your setup. Formula is 2% each for +- 2 ranks, 8% for +- 1 rank checked for each jock !

Test it with 4 random hotseat huge teams and you will see.

Thorgrim wrote:As rare as it may be, a rookie custom team fighting a novice AI random team may not be a pleasant surprise.

As long as its individual jocks, not teams, it shouldn't be too bad. At rookie people may want to set balance a little lower since it's at the 'edge' of the skill catagories and any variance will only increase the oppositions skill level, a random decrease would just be regarded as a rookie. (I'm assuming that is how the boundary condition is handled, but we all know about assuming things..) Since there isn't a significantly noticable problem now. I doubt the rare +2 jock would be too unbalanceing.

LarkinVB wrote:Balance is per side, not per team. So only one side will get -33% to +33%. -33% for one side and +33% for the other isn't possible.

Ok, got it after checking. I was mislead by some "centered on the level chosen" comment. Now I see it's just a random setting for balance.

As for the jock skill deviation, during testing, I used those 4 huge teams, and very often I got 2 to 3 jocks with 1 rank deviation in a game.
This means one side can have 1 jock with an advantage of up to 4 skill levels. Nearly impossible? I thought the same about failing 4 or 5 move skill checks in a row at 92+%, till it happened...

LarkinVB wrote:I should add another standard deviation for all balance selections like this :

...
+20: +16% to + 25%
+10: +6% to +15%
EVEN : -5% to +5%
-10: -6% to -15%
-25: -16% to -25%
...

This would add some weight twists and battle surprises for bigger total weights.

Oppinions ?

This is in addition or a replacement to the Guassian distribution you mentioned previously? I take it that it's in addition to the GD; if so I like it. It's not typically going to change the numbers that much after the GD is applied, but it's more 'mathmatically pleasing' IMO and does open up room for a few wieght surprises Count me in for a 'Yea' vote.

First attempt:
4 huge random teams, elite
tonnages: 1515/1410/1521/1385
ranks: 3 had 1 crack; 4 had one crack and one veteran



If the crack from 3 would have been in 2... and with the tonnage balance to compound.

That looks ok for me. Jock randomness and weight randomness are not related.

LarkinVB wrote:Balance is per side, not per team. So only one side will get -33% to +33%. -33% for one side and +33% for the other isn't possible.

I found that -33 to +33 don't fit my preferred range so I will add a complete second page for balance settings with various ranges.

Will be my last changes before the patch goes out :rolleyes: .