Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Alfred

The really definitive answer can only come from a dev who worked on the algorithms.[;)]

Unfortunately the key naval devs either no longer post or are not allowed onto the forum.  We are all very much the poorer for that.

The two remaining dev coders expertise is in other areas.  Michaelm only sporadically drops by and he really, and quite rightly IMO, only takes on board those few posted "bugs" which prima facie may be a code bug (as opposed to a player bug).  His expertise is the air component so he would have to research the naval algorithms to see the structure.  A lot of effort on his behalf to investigate something which is not going to be altered now.

Wdolson is the other dev coder who still frequents the forum.  His time of course is fully taken up with moderating the forum.  He too would have to research the naval algorithms as his expertise was used elsewhere.  That he (and miachaelm) still provides dev input re code operation remains a gift which is not really appreciated by so many players.  Particularly when there are individuals who attempt to reverse engineer the algorithms/ discover what has been stated to be the case many times over the years (since 2008) by the devs.  makes one think what is the point in a dev explaining the game when players then go of to "test" the very same thing.

Alfred

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

Crap.

How elegant. But well, when you step on its tail, the dog barks. Wanted to post an appropriate reply to your original outburst, but after a night's sleep, a cold shower and the discovery that you have edited your post in the meantime, I drop it. I promise to try harder to ignore uncalled-for JFB bashing in the future.

Originally I assumed you were making this personal. After a night of thinking , I decided no one would make everything personal, just to look for a fight. After your last post , I've thought it over yet again and come to the conclusion that IT IS personal, your debate is NOT substantive, but merely yet another example of "thread stalking" solely for , at worst a personal vendetta , and at best , an attempt to make every thing about your hobby horse. As much as I'd like to resolve this by mediation , unless someone here would be willing to facilitate , that seems most unlikely. Perhaps we can agree to disagree? And try to refrain from personal attacks? Probably not. [:(]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget



How elegant. But well, when you step on its tail, the dog barks. Wanted to post an appropriate reply to your original outburst, but after a night's sleep, a cold shower and the discovery that you have edited your post in the meantime, I drop it. I promise to try harder to ignore uncalled-for JFB bashing in the future.

Originally I assumed you were making this personal. After a night of thinking , I decided no one would make everything personal, just to look for a fight. After your last post , I've thought it over yet again and come to the conclusion that IT IS personal, your debate is NOT substantive, but merely yet another example of "thread stalking" solely for , at worst a personal vendetta , and at best , an attempt to make every thing about your hobby horse. As much as I'd like to resolve this by mediation , unless someone here would be willing to facilitate , that seems most unlikely. Perhaps we can agree to disagree? And try to refrain from personal attacks? Probably not. [:(]

Pointing out an uncalled-for fanboy bashing is hardly a personal attack. Name-calling ("crapstirrer" or whatever the term was in your unedited post) however is a personal attack, so don't play innocent. And isn't it rather the unprovoked bashing that qualifies as thread-stalking and vendetta? But well, we know each others sore spots and obviously are not able to reconcile our diverging fanboyish views, so yes, let's agree to disagree once again.

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve




Originally I assumed you were making this personal. After a night of thinking , I decided no one would make everything personal, just to look for a fight. After your last post , I've thought it over yet again and come to the conclusion that IT IS personal, your debate is NOT substantive, but merely yet another example of "thread stalking" solely for , at worst a personal vendetta , and at best , an attempt to make every thing about your hobby horse. As much as I'd like to resolve this by mediation , unless someone here would be willing to facilitate , that seems most unlikely. Perhaps we can agree to disagree? And try to refrain from personal attacks? Probably not. [:(]

Pointing out an uncalled-for fanboy bashing is hardly a personal attack. Name-calling ("crapstirrer" or whatever the term was in your unedited post) however is a personal attack, so don't play innocent. And isn't it rather the unprovoked bashing that qualifies as thread-stalking and vendetta? But well, we know each others sore spots and obviously are not able to reconcile our diverging fanboyish views, so yes, let's agree to disagree once again.

Uhm, enough already?

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Before I walk away I feel compelled to point out that the qualifier "uncalled for" you so liberally disperse is both an opinion and a mischaracterization.

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Alfred

The really definitive answer can only come from a dev who worked on the algorithms.[;)]

Unfortunately the key naval devs either no longer post or are not allowed onto the forum.  We are all very much the poorer for that.

The two remaining dev coders expertise is in other areas.  Michaelm only sporadically drops by and he really, and quite rightly IMO, only takes on board those few posted "bugs" which prima facie may be a code bug (as opposed to a player bug).  His expertise is the air component so he would have to research the naval algorithms to see the structure.  A lot of effort on his behalf to investigate something which is not going to be altered now.

Wdolson is the other dev coder who still frequents the forum.  His time of course is fully taken up with moderating the forum.  He too would have to research the naval algorithms as his expertise was used elsewhere.  That he (and miachaelm) still provides dev input re code operation remains a gift which is not really appreciated by so many players.  Particularly when there are individuals who attempt to reverse engineer the algorithms/ discover what has been stated to be the case many times over the years (since 2008) by the devs.  makes one think what is the point in a dev explaining the game when players then go of to "test" the very same thing.

Alfred

So if I understand correctly (please forgive my layman's ignorance, I've not written a line of code since 1975[:D]) that due to budget, time constraints , shortage of time and talent, and other factors, these "problems" cannot be easily resolved, explained , and are probably not a feasible use (or practical one) of the very limited resources (most notably people's time) for the result. So logically resources should be used on reasonably fixable issues , rather than "pie-in-the-sky" issues which may only be perceived as real? Is this at all close? Again , please forgive my question if I'm way off, I'm just trying to wrap my elderly brain around the concepts. It's not your explanation ,It's more my comprehension.

And in case no ones said it lately, thanks again for your time and effort , both in furthering the game , and in trying to explain it to jug heads like me. [&o]

• Air
• Naval
• Ground
• Map
• Beta
• Ship Art
• Reporting
• Manual
• Scenarios

• jwilkerson - project manager
• theElf + michaelm - air leader and air coder respectively
• JWE + Don Bowen - naval leader and naval coder respectively
• Andy Mac + BigJ62 - land leader + chief AI script writer and land coder respectively
• wdolson - "Beta" team leader but also sundry under the hood coding

• 9 Sept 2009
• 7 Dec 2009
• 28 Feb 2010
• 21 July 2010
• 24 Oct 2010

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Alfred

The really definitive answer can only come from a dev who worked on the algorithms.[;)]

Unfortunately the key naval devs either no longer post or are not allowed onto the forum.  We are all very much the poorer for that.

The two remaining dev coders expertise is in other areas.  Michaelm only sporadically drops by and he really, and quite rightly IMO, only takes on board those few posted "bugs" which prima facie may be a code bug (as opposed to a player bug).  His expertise is the air component so he would have to research the naval algorithms to see the structure.  A lot of effort on his behalf to investigate something which is not going to be altered now.

Wdolson is the other dev coder who still frequents the forum.  His time of course is fully taken up with moderating the forum.  He too would have to research the naval algorithms as his expertise was used elsewhere.  That he (and miachaelm) still provides dev input re code operation remains a gift which is not really appreciated by so many players.  Particularly when there are individuals who attempt to reverse engineer the algorithms/ discover what has been stated to be the case many times over the years (since 2008) by the devs.  makes one think what is the point in a dev explaining the game when players then go of to "test" the very same thing.

Alfred

So if I understand correctly (please forgive my layman's ignorance, I've not written a line of code since 1975[:D]) that due to budget, time constraints , shortage of time and talent, and other factors, these "problems" cannot be easily resolved, explained , and are probably not a feasible use (or practical one) of the very limited resources (most notably people's time) for the result. So logically resources should be used on reasonably fixable issues , rather than "pie-in-the-sky" issues which may only be perceived as real? Is this at all close? Again , please forgive my question if I'm way off, I'm just trying to wrap my elderly brain around the concepts. It's not your explanation ,It's more my comprehension.

And in case no ones said it lately, thanks again for your time and effort , both in furthering the game , and in trying to explain it to jug heads like me. [&o]

Don't sell yourself short. You are on the money with your "layman" interpretation.

You will recall this but most of our newer players are probably unaware of the following.

1. Henderson Field Designs assembled a team of about 18 identified devs. There was also a core test group of 9 others who would generally not be considered to be devs but who nonetheless participated in the design of the game merely by providing feedback and being in the discussion loops. A further 6 individuals were worthy of "special mention" so obviously they contributed in some unspecified manner to the production of AE. All these numbers exclude Matrix staff who were involved in the game development. The names of the individuals involved can be found in the manual and the in-game credits screen.

2. The HFD devs were split into the following teams:

• Air
• Naval
• Ground
• Map
• Beta
• Ship Art
• Reporting
• Manual
• Scenarios

A few of the devs were involved multi teams but the overwhelming majority focused on only one team.

3. Without disparaging the contributions made by those devs not mentioned below, considering the nature of the criticisms/suggested improvements/dissatisfaction etc expressed on the forum since the release of AE in mid 2009, the key devs to address this "feedback" have been:

• jwilkerson - project manager
• theElf + michaelm - air leader and air coder respectively
• JWE + Don Bowen - naval leader and naval coder respectively
• Andy Mac + BigJ62 - land leader + chief AI script writer and land coder respectively
• wdolson - "Beta" team leader but also sundry under the hood coding

I've left out various devs from the above list because their work was not challenged as often nor as vociferously as those mentioned above.

4. Of the eight mentioned in point 3 above, all were very active on the forum in the period 2009-2010 explaining how the game worked, correcting gross misinterpretations of how things worked, fixing bugs, adding new enhancements etc. This 18 month period saw five official patches released on:

• 9 Sept 2009
• 7 Dec 2009
• 28 Feb 2010
• 21 July 2010
• 24 Oct 2010

With the release of these patches, all development work on AE came to an end. Forum participation by jwilkerson, theElf, and BigJ62 basically ended (although theElf has subsequently resurfaced for short periods). Don Bowen still appeared, albeit at a much slower rate for a couple of years but has basically not been sighted since 2014. Wdolson became a moderator so he remained but focussed primarily on his moderating role and giving general advice to newbies. Michaelm remained specifically to fix bugs which combined with GUI improvements resulted in patch #6 (of 21 Jan 2012) and the various betas which culminated in patch #7 (of 25 Dec 2015) which wasn't actually released until about March 2015. Since then michaelm's participation has been very sporadic. That leaves Andy Mac who remained involved in tweaking the AI scripts all the way through to 2012/2013 and after a sabbatical has recently returned to the task of tweaking the scripts, and JWE/Symon who post patch #5 remained by far the most engaged of the devs in fielding naval and device questions until the parting of the ways last year.

5. The point of the preceding is that for years now, the requisite resources which were required to produce AE have simply not been available. A large proportion of those resources would be required to implement the "feedback" provided on the forum. That is assuming firstly that the "feedback" was valid, which in the overwhelming number of cases it isn't; secondly it could be implemented which considering the legacy code is most definitely not an easy task; and thirdly is the ROI positive, which invariably it isn't usually being most marginal at best.

Just to provide context, consider the subject of this very thread. Damage Control is very much an abstracted game concept which operates without player input. The algorithms would still not be disclosed. Change the existing code to accommodate the "improvements" requested and there still would be no player input plus players would still complain about how it operates. Implement the changes and does anyone seriously believe that players would significantly alter their tactical thinking when the work is still done under the hood and without disclosure of the algorithms.

Alfred

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

Thank you Alfred! I had forgotten much of this , and there's a lot that I never knew. We need to "sticky" this explanation , as it answers a lot of questions, not just this one. Many, Many thanks![&o] [&o][&o]

Within the abstraction, the wished for nuances are already in place.

Seems to me that some of the posters are rather loose with their use of the term "damage control" within the context of the game.

Within the game context, the term "damage control" has one basic meaning but two different applications. The basic meaning is the band aid "in the field" (aka whilst out on the high seas) actions to keep a ship afloat (and consequent checks to see if a ship sinks). It is easy to forget that in the game, the damage control routines are different from the ship repair routines. Damage control is not ship repairs.

An application of this basic meaning is found in the "systems" damage level found on a ship. The more damaged the "systems" are, the less capability there is to keep the ship afloat. It is far harder to significantly damage a warship's systems than it is to damage a merchantman's systems.

In practical game terms, the major application of "damage control" and what most people really have in mind when they use the term, is fire fighting. Here again there is a distinct difference between warships and merchantmen, for crew experience is a factor fed into the fire fighting (aka damage control) algorithms. The higher the crew experience, the better is the fire fighting capability out on the high seas. The crew experience cap for merchantmen gained from just engaging on a shakedown cruise is considerably less than that for warships. Plus to exceed that cap, participation in combat is necessary and again warships are much more likely to survive combat than merchantmen.

One poster in the thread wondered whether the toggle is a once only or if "damage control" improves throughout the war. It is a once only toggle but understand that Allied reinforcement ships enter the game with improved crew experience later on plus crew experience can increase (and also decrease) during the war. Thus taking into account the general upward trend in Allied crew experience, "damage control" does improve.

As to differentiating between the Allied navies, there is no explicit differentiation, although again one needs to take into account the different Allied crew experience (and by ship type too). The abstraction applies equally to all Allied nations just as logistics (aka rearming) is applied in simple terms to all Allied nations.

In theory the code could be made to distinguish varying "damage control" capabilities between the different Allied nations but the work would be substantial and the benefit of doing it would be at best marginal. Some of the difficulties would be


identifying what, if any, material differences existed in damage control between the different Allied nations. The difficulty of this fact finding exercise is not to be lightly dismissed
how to reflect the "differences" in a TF with mixed nationality without breaking other algorithms eg would the DC capability of the TF nationality be the sole determinant, or is it on a ship by ship basis and if the latter are all ships types equally involved in providing assistance
then there is the problem of when you get to a port, how to be consistent with the additional factors which are fed into the DC (fire fighting) routines. Those additional factors are not really identified as separate Allied nationalities eg naval support squads. Port size could be national based eg in Sydney add Australian DC capability but what if the port has been recaptured and now is no longer the same Allied nationality as it was on 7 Dec 1941 (think of Soerabaja)


The first time an American warship was lost because of the "assistance" provided by lower DC capability of an Allied nation would result in an all mighty THE GAME IS BORKED thread. So the task of researching, coding and testing would be very substantial, and frankly, considering the level of abstraction found in the game, not worth the effort.

Almost all requests made for "improving" the game are fundamentally requests for more micro management and moving the game closer to a simulation. For this commercial product, that is a dead end which in fact degrades the playability of the game and reduces the potential customer base.

Alfred

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Don't sell yourself short. You are on the money with your "layman" interpretation.

You will recall this but most of our newer players are probably unaware of the following.

1. Henderson Field Designs assembled a team of about 18 identified devs. There was also a core test group of 9 others who would generally not be considered to be devs but who nonetheless participated in the design of the game merely by providing feedback and being in the discussion loops. A further 6 individuals were worthy of "special mention" so obviously they contributed in some unspecified manner to the production of AE. All these numbers exclude Matrix staff who were involved in the game development. The names of the individuals involved can be found in the manual and the in-game credits screen.

2. The HFD devs were split into the following teams:

• Air
• Naval
• Ground
• Map
• Beta
• Ship Art
• Reporting
• Manual
• Scenarios

A few of the devs were involved multi teams but the overwhelming majority focused on only one team.

3. Without disparaging the contributions made by those devs not mentioned below, considering the nature of the criticisms/suggested improvements/dissatisfaction etc expressed on the forum since the release of AE in mid 2009, the key devs to address this "feedback" have been:

• jwilkerson - project manager
• theElf + michaelm - air leader and air coder respectively
• JWE + Don Bowen - naval leader and naval coder respectively
• Andy Mac + BigJ62 - land leader + chief AI script writer and land coder respectively
• wdolson - "Beta" team leader but also sundry under the hood coding

I've left out various devs from the above list because their work was not challenged as often nor as vociferously as those mentioned above.

4. Of the eight mentioned in point 3 above, all were very active on the forum in the period 2009-2010 explaining how the game worked, correcting gross misinterpretations of how things worked, fixing bugs, adding new enhancements etc. This 18 month period saw five official patches released on:

• 9 Sept 2009
• 7 Dec 2009
• 28 Feb 2010
• 21 July 2010
• 24 Oct 2010

With the release of these patches, all development work on AE came to an end. Forum participation by jwilkerson, theElf, and BigJ62 basically ended (although theElf has subsequently resurfaced for short periods). Don Bowen still appeared, albeit at a much slower rate for a couple of years but has basically not been sighted since 2014. Wdolson became a moderator so he remained but focussed primarily on his moderating role and giving general advice to newbies. Michaelm remained specifically to fix bugs which combined with GUI improvements resulted in patch #6 (of 21 Jan 2012) and the various betas which culminated in patch #7 (of 25 Dec 2015) which wasn't actually released until about March 2015. Since then michaelm's participation has been very sporadic. That leaves Andy Mac who remained involved in tweaking the AI scripts all the way through to 2012/2013 and after a sabbatical has recently returned to the task of tweaking the scripts, and JWE/Symon who post patch #5 remained by far the most engaged of the devs in fielding naval and device questions until the parting of the ways last year.

5. The point of the preceding is that for years now, the requisite resources which were required to produce AE have simply not been available. A large proportion of those resources would be required to implement the "feedback" provided on the forum. That is assuming firstly that the "feedback" was valid, which in the overwhelming number of cases it isn't; secondly it could be implemented which considering the legacy code is most definitely not an easy task; and thirdly is the ROI positive, which invariably it isn't usually being most marginal at best.

Just to provide context, consider the subject of this very thread. Damage Control is very much an abstracted game concept which operates without player input. The algorithms would still not be disclosed. Change the existing code to accommodate the "improvements" requested and there still would be no player input plus players would still complain about how it operates. Implement the changes and does anyone seriously believe that players would significantly alter their tactical thinking when the work is still done under the hood and without disclosure of the algorithms.

Alfred