Matrix Games Forums

Ok the following procedure works for me 100% of the time on 100% of the games I'm playing.

I've eliminated events that don't have to take place for it too occur and am left with a pretty short list.

1. Save a Combat Result file and a jap file sent to you(for a game you are playing the americans) along with an american file sent to you (for a game you are playing as the japs).
2. Run the turn where you are the Japs, creating results.
3. Exit after the replay, do not save.
4. Load the turn where you are the Americans.
5. End your turn and save the game.
6. Reload the same game where you are the japs.. DIFFERENT combat replay and different combat results file.

Still waiting to hear back what the American player sees for a replay and a results file, but like I said the above steps work 100% of the time for me.

An Example:

VERSION 1:

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 08/17/42

Weather: Partly Cloudy

Sub attack at 28,34

Allied Ships
SS S-38


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on Gili Gili , at 17,42

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 4
A6M3 Zero x 17

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 9
B-17E Fortress x 25

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero x 1 damaged
A6M3 Zero x 3 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
Hudson x 2 destroyed
Hudson x 2 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 16

Airbase supply hits 1
Runway hits 5

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet
4 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Noumea at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 53
A6M3 Zero x 13
D3A Val x 5
B5N Kate x 13

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 10

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero x 3 destroyed
A6M3 Zero x 2 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat x 3 destroyed
F4F-4 Wildcat x 1 damaged

MAJ J. Smith of VMF-223 is credited with kill number 3

MAJ J. Smith of VMF-223 bails out and is RESCUED

Allied Ships
AP President Polk
SC 646
PG Tui, Bomb hits 1, on fire
AP President Hayes
PG Moa, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Noumea at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 6

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 18

Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty x 7 destroyed


2LT W. Lees of VMF-223 is credited with kill number 3

Attacking Level Bombers:
0 x G4M1 Betty at 200 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Noumea at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
B5N Kate x 18

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 18

Japanese aircraft losses
B5N Kate x 5 destroyed
B5N Kate x 2 damaged


2LT H. Phillips of VMF-223 is credited with kill number 2

Allied Ships
AP Neville
AP William P. Biddle
AP Pierce


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VERSION 2:

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 08/17/42

Weather: Partly Cloudy

Sub attack at 28,34

Allied Ships
SS S-38


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on Gili Gili , at 17,42

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 4
A6M3 Zero x 17

Allied aircraft
Hudson x 9
B-17E Fortress x 25

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero x 1 damaged
A6M3 Zero x 3 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
Hudson x 2 destroyed
Hudson x 2 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 16

Airbase supply hits 1
Runway hits 5

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet
4 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet
3 x B-17E Fortress at 21000 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Noumea at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 53
A6M3 Zero x 13
D3A Val x 5
B5N Kate x 13

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 10

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero x 3 destroyed
A6M3 Zero x 2 destroyed
D3A Val x 1 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat x 3 destroyed
F4F-4 Wildcat x 1 damaged

LTJG R.Kotani of AII-1 Daitai is credited with kill number 2

MAJ J. Smith of VMF-223 is KILLED

Allied Ships
MSW Toowoomba
AP President Polk
AP Monrovia
PG Tui


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Noumea at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 3

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 9

Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty x 3 damaged


Allied Ships
AP Esperance Bay

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x G4M1 Betty at 200 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Noumea at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 50
A6M3 Zero x 8
D3A Val x 4

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 9

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero x 2 destroyed
A6M2 Zero x 1 damaged
D3A Val x 1 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat x 2 destroyed
F4F-4 Wildcat x 1 damaged

Allied Ships
CVE Long Island, Bomb hits 1, on fire


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Noumea at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 3

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 7

Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty x 1 damaged


Allied Ships
AP Monrovia

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x G4M1 Betty at 200 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Noumea at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 11

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 7

Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty x 2 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat x 1 damaged

Allied Ships
DD Worden, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
MSW Ipswich, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

Attacking Level Bombers:
3 x G4M1 Betty at 200 feet
4 x G4M1 Betty at 200 feet
4 x G4M1 Betty at 200 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Noumea at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
D3A Val x 23
B5N Kate x 9

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 7

Japanese aircraft losses
D3A Val x 1 damaged


Allied Ships
AP William P. Biddle, Bomb hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
AP Ormsby
AK Fomalhaut
AP William Ward Burrows
AP Neville, Bomb hits 1, on fire
AP Pierce
MSW Lismore, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Noumea at 52,67

Japanese aircraft
B5N Kate x 18

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 7

Japanese aircraft losses
B5N Kate x 1 destroyed
B5N Kate x 2 damaged


Allied Ships
AK Mercury, Bomb hits 2, on fire
AP Heywood
AK Alhena


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LOL. Of COURSE the combat results will be different if you do what you describe. The random numbers are saved when the American player saves his turn. Since you procedure calls for the American player to save two seperate times he is creating two seperate sets of random numbers.
There is no great revelation here. You have just described how the game is supposed to work. If this were a normal PBEM game and the American player sent you two different saves of the same game you would have different results when you ran them.

Unless I mis-read your post I don't quite get your point.

Yamamoto

So you are basically saying that the combat results issue is directly tied to folks forgetting to save the turn? I would be rather surprised if that was the case. You are talking about folks who play multiple games with multiple folks, gotta give them credit to know enough to save at the turn end...

Here's what I think is going on.

(a) random number generator is seeded with a starting value.

(b) random number generator will produce the exact same sequence of numbers each and every time.

Computers are infallible at this particular task.

Each thing you do that causes a random number to be drawn from this sequence will have the exact same result each and every time because of this.

Here's where it gets tricky. Altering the ORDER that you request these numbers will dramatically alter the actual outcome.

Lets say the numbers on the stack are 47, 79, 30, 97.

Two of these numbers (assuming that 50 represents a pass/fail level) will result in failures, two in passes.

We do 4 things:

transfer aircraft
fly cap
fly bombers
move sub

By adjusting which happens first, we can adjust the two fails to happen during non-critical results.

the first 47 will cause a transfer to crash. If we do the cap first, cap will fly light (no impact) but the transfer crash now going second does NOT crash.

This is what is happening in the replay bug. Something that folks are doing is causing 1 random number to get popped off the stack, which adjusts the results for every single event after that 1 gets used. It has to be something specifically related to the USA player as they get the seed value from the Japan player's save file. Since it does not happen to everyone, it is a matter of sorting through the differences between what the USA players do to cause this extra random call to happen.

It could be as simple as the startup options/reality settings on the Allied machine.

The only way to end this one is for all the Allied guys to get together and compare EXACTLY what they do in a step by step manner from the email arriving to the turn ending.

Matrix will never be able to fix this because they are unaware of what this 1 thing that some of the USA players are doing that is different then what they do. I presume that Matrix's work on trying to fix this one has been in trapping each and every possible option and setting that can cause a random number to be stolen from the seeded sequence which messes up the results, but as you can imagine, there are a billion possibilities that could happen and without a concerted effort by all the PBEM folks to isolate it for them, they have a 1 in a billion shot of finding it, just as it doesn't affect all of the PBEM folks.

Hi all,

Please note that even for Japanese player it is possible to get different
results.

In other words the Japanese player can start the "Combat Replay" file already
created on his computer and look at it again and, sometimes, he/she can get
different result.

Therefore it is not imperative that two different PCs and/or players are
involved at all...


Please read my thread:

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: "Combat Replay / Report" inconsistencies !!!

showthread.php?s=&threadid=35466



Leo "Apollo11"

Originally posted by Yamamoto
LOL. Of COURSE the combat results will be different if you do what you describe. The random numbers are saved when the American player saves his turn. Since you procedure calls for the American player to save two seperate times he is creating two seperate sets of random numbers.
There is no great revelation here. You have just described how the game is supposed to work. If this were a normal PBEM game and the American player sent you two different saves of the same game you would have different results when you ran them.

Unless I mis-read your post I don't quite get your point.

Yamamoto

Yeah your missing the point.

I play many games as do others.

I frequently will just watch a replay to quickly see what happened as Im not married to the game. Im talking about watching the replay generated from whats sent to you for game #1 (where your opponent is the americans).. ill still peak into the game that comes up after to see the "status of my forces" but just deciding maybe there is too much to do to play your turn then or you have to run and do something else so you exit. You or some others might not understand this but others have other things they do in life.

Then later Ill load up my game #2 where I am the Americans (seperate game). Play it and SAVE it.. then when I go back and load up my game #1 Jap turn I get DIFFERENT results.

You must think im talking about the same game, im not. Im talking about 2 different ones.

Its a bug if i can generate two different combat results based on a single american turn sent to me in a game I am playing as the Japs.

This has happened to me several times and it bothers me a lot as the innacuracy it too great. Just look at the difference in the two files I attached.

If "random numbers" are saved when an american player does his turn it is (or should be) only for THAT game. Im talking about going into a TOTALLY seperate game as the americans. then going to a different TOTALLY seperate game as the japs and getting different results.

That causes inconsistancies and I can very well imagine this is what a lot of people are doing.

And either way it is a bug. A huge one to me.

Thanks for your support.

Originally posted by Mr.Frag
So you are basically saying that the combat results issue is directly tied to folks forgetting to save the turn?

You've never just watched a replay really quick before work and then checked out your unit stats?

This is so implausible?

If you do that or you follow my steps it generates two different combat results. It shouldn't. The fact that it does is a bug.

Originally posted by Veldor

You must think im talking about the same game, im not. Im talking about 2 different ones.

Yes, I thought you were talking about getting a turn from the AMerican player, running it and getting results. Then having him send you the turn again (after saving it again) and getting different results.

Once the American saves the turn you should get the same results every time you run it. Since you are not, it's a bug.

I haven't seen that one myself, but then again, I only re-run turns once in a blue moon when my computer crashes before I can finish my turn.

Does this happen often? Does it happen if you run the turn and then quit and re-run the same turn without playing a turn from another game? Maybe the game is saving values to some other intermediate file. At one point Matrix was telling us to exit out of the game completely between games. While that was completely unacceptable for most of us, that might solve your problem. If I were you I would just save the game right after running the combat portion. If you save and don't end your turn you can always go back and input your orders later.

Yamamoto

Originally posted by Yamamoto
Yes, I thought you were talking about getting a turn from the AMerican player, running it and getting results. Then having him send you the turn again (after saving it again) and getting different results.

Once the American saves the turn you should get the same results every time you run it. Since you are not, it's a bug.

I haven't seen that one myself, but then again, I only re-run turns once in a blue moon when my computer crashes before I can finish my turn.

Does this happen often? Does it happen if you run the turn and then quit and re-run the same turn without playing a turn from another game? Maybe the game is saving values to some other intermediate file. At one point Matrix was telling us to exit out of the game completely between games. While that was completely unacceptable for most of us, that might solve your problem. If I were you I would just save the game right after running the combat portion. If you save and don't end your turn you can always go back and input your orders later.

Yamamoto

It happens every single time you do the steps I listed. I mention it because I do not think I am crazy and it may be some others have the same issue for similiar reasons.

It does not happen if you deviate much from the list of steps but that list of steps is EXACTLY what a lot of people do if you watch your replays all at once before executing your turns. I often do this because I do not have time to play all my turns but still want to see the results asap. saving the jap turn after watching the replay would probably fix it but doesnt alter it being a bug.

Exiting the game doesnt seem to matter much but I havent fully tested that part of it.

Its not sporadic as it will happen every single time i do the steps i mentioned. Now I have to wonder how many results ive seen in the past were that innacurate for me due to doing that...

Most importantly though is the larger issue mentioned elsewhere about inconsistencies.. and since this process is 100% replicatable, even though proabably a less common occurance, it may shed some light on where the bugs lie for all the related issues.