Allied Damage Control Option

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AW1Steve
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by AW1Steve »

Funny how the word I specifically and carefully used SOME seems to have been deliberately or carelessly lost or mistranslated as ALL. I referred to a post Hans made , advising him to simply avoid dealing with a SPECIFIC type of player both of us , and SOME others on this forum have encountered. THIS is how flame wars result. I sincerely hope that does not happen here. Please consider this.


As to the damage control , you asked about USN damage control. I gave you what limited knowledge from 1st had from 1st hand experience , training from WW2 US Navy veterans and a life long exposure to and interest in the subject. That's all. I thought , that I might be able to contribute a little to the subject obviously I was wrong. Sorry. [:(]
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adsoul64
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by adsoul64 »

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

Funny how the word I specifically and carefully used SOME seems to have been deliberately or carelessly lost or mistranslated as ALL. I referred to a post Hans made , advising him to simply avoid dealing with a SPECIFIC type of player both of us , and SOME others on this forum have encountered. THIS is how flame wars result. I sincerely hope that does not happen here. Please consider this.


As to the damage control , you asked about USN damage control. I gave you what limited knowledge from 1st had from 1st hand experience , training from WW2 US Navy veterans and a life long exposure to and interest in the subject. That's all. I thought , that I might be able to contribute a little to the subject obviously I was wrong. Sorry. [:(]

You've contributed very much to the subject. Till now, my knowledge were just from books about single battles and especially Shattered Sword that IMHO makes a big work depicting Japanese procedure (or, I'd say, carelessness of them and heroism of Japanese sailors). Obviously, it's different reading from someone who knows the subject in depth and went through training and service.
Dili
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by Dili »

ORIGINAL: Anachro

Dili, I don't understand your point. None of those are the Japanese navy, which is the only comparison that matters...wait on second thought, I get it, you are saying its not a good example of US damage control capability. I admit, you are probably right. I just think its a cool example of successful damage control.

I wonder if the Japanese would have been capable of saving such a ship. Really, I think for the game it matters in terms of relativity. Japan was demonstrably inferior in the damage control department. I do think there is debate as to how much of a buff the allies should get in comparison.

Just the photo the point is that photo is not an example of USN superiority.


Also fire fighting has to be a damage control issue unless all that Japanese issues with fires aren't pilled on them which doesn't make sense.
As Lexington, Franklin and others shows there were problems with damage control within USN on occasion.

And depends on the ship type, class too.

I think the damage control option currently in game is not good and instead if it can work durability of the ships types that proved that were on good or bad damage control should be increased and decreased accordingly.




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LargeSlowTarget
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by LargeSlowTarget »

I don't see any demands for house rules or the nerfing of USN damage control in this thread - until Hans brought that up without provocation and then started uncalled JFB bashing, with Steve joining in against "some" JFBs. Just saying that the USN got better over time is enough to trigger the anti-JFB reflexes? Oh, just "some" kidding [:'(]

That said, USN damage control was better than IJN at start and improved much more as well. Noone doubts that. Question is whether in-game the advantage is fully developped from start and also applies to Non-USN hulls. Just a question - not a crusade for HRs or nerfing.
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by HansBolter »

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

I don't see any demands for house rules or the nerfing of USN damage control in this thread - until Hans brought that up without provocation and then started uncalled JFB bashing, with Steve joining in against "some" JFBs. Just saying that the USN got better over time is enough to trigger the anti-JFB reflexes? Oh, just "some" kidding [:'(]

That said, USN damage control was better than IJN at start and improved much more as well. Noone doubts that. Question is whether in-game the advantage is fully developped from start and also applies to Non-USN hulls. Just a question - not a crusade for HRs or nerfing.


Perhaps not, but we all know too well that this is how crusades for HRs and nerfing get started.

Was I truly out of line in pointing out the huge ahistorical advantages given to the Japanese?

If I start a thread asking why there is no victory disease and if it's a legitimate question to ask "should there be" what do you presume the reaction form JFBs would be?

If I start a thread asking why there is no coordination penalty between IJN and IJA units and ask "should there be" what do you presume the reaction from JFBs would be?

Every time a player starts a thread on a subject of "should the Allies have this perceived ahistorical bonus" you can bank on me chiming in to remind everyone, who conveniently forget, that the Allies have been giuven no where near the level of ahistorical bonuses the Japanese players have been given and Japanese players should learn to be grateful for what they were given and stop asking for more.

I'm not going to apologize for it and I'm not going to be made to feel guilty for doing what I know to be right.

No amount of backhanded chastising is going to work LST.
Hans

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AW1Steve
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by AW1Steve »

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

I don't see any demands for house rules or the nerfing of USN damage control in this thread - until Hans brought that up without provocation and then started uncalled JFB bashing, with Steve joining in against "some" JFBs. Just saying that the USN got better over time is enough to trigger the anti-JFB reflexes? Oh, just "some" kidding [:'(]

That said, USN damage control was better than IJN at start and improved much more as well. Noone doubts that. Question is whether in-game the advantage is fully developped from start and also applies to Non-USN hulls. Just a question - not a crusade for HRs or nerfing.


Crap.
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Lecivius
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by Lecivius »

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Bullwinkle58
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

I think the point trying to be made is that Allied damage control applies to such ships that it really shouldn't.

The USN were fairly good with damage control, at least on warships. What about merchantment?

What about the Allies? Were the Dutch, Australians and New Zealanders up to the same standards?

FWIW, I'm all for the Allied Damage Control advantage. I would like to see it a little bit more nuanced, though. Rather than a flat boost to damage control, I would have liked to have seen it apply only to ships with experience over a certain threshold. That way, highly drilled ships could take advantage of the advanced damage control, and merchantmen filled with rookies would still burn like cinders.

It is what it is.

My impression of Dutch merchantmen is they were spotless and well-maintained on a system level. Any sailor will tell you a dirty ship burns better than a clean one. Aussies and Kiwis I have no idea. Their merchant hull numbers are not that significant in the game. From some of the profiles I'd guess many were a bit older vessels.

The vast majority of merchants in the game for the USA are either Liberty ships or Victory ships. Brand new, SOTA systems. The Victories incorporated a lot of lessons from the Liberties. They were built to survive. US crews were union seamen, often very experienced. Older in some cases, but not rookies on an experience level.

The Japanese merchant marine was a mixed bag. A lot of the smaller ships were still burning coal, and coal dust is fatal in a fire. Most of them smoked badly; smoke was a primary detection method for US subs even after radar. Some of the smoke was crap fuel I guess, but a lot was lack of maintenance. Maintenance takes time, and time in port Japan did not have to spare. Their ships and men got driven hard as the war went against them. I also have no data on the merchant crews, but I doubt they had a union looking out for their safety.

Japan also had showboat merchants, fast and in good shape. The algo works the same way for them as the Allies. One size fits all.
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Grfin Zeppelin
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by Grfin Zeppelin »

ORIGINAL: Anachro

But the game already makes Japan more competitive than in reality. I mean, we see regular invasions of Australia, India, and PH in PBEMs now.
Very true in a historical sense yes.
The game itself however is unbalanced and this spawns desires.The game isnt fair by default for a Japanese player.In some cases also not for an Allied player and *drumroll*....some complain and want more.
See I dont say Japan should get more, I just explained to Hans Bolter from where this desire comes.

People bitched in Starcraft about game balance and that is the most balanced game one can imagine, go figure.

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Grfin Zeppelin
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by Grfin Zeppelin »

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

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What did you say ? I cant hear you, I am busy breaking into your OODA loops and confusing you with ma psy ops. Makes alot of noise ya know.
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Anachro
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by Anachro »

ORIGINAL: Gräfin Zeppelin
What did you say ? I cant hear you, I am busy breaking into your OODA loops and confusing you with ma psy ops. Makes alot of noise ya know.
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We can never escape the legend...and I only know him through reading threads from before my time. Very interesting guy I'd love to chat with or play against if I ever got decent enough.
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Tomasek
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by Tomasek »

Actually I am that unknown opponent asking original question. Let makes it a bit clearer:

1. We know a lot about Allied side, but what about Japan? Damage control surely improved on both sides during the war. I am not saying Japan matched US, but what was the difference? We can split the issue to technical advantage (starting with pumps, etc.), ship construction/modification, logistics, training, and perhaps more factors.
2. It is very difficult to compare ship survivability, but some ships on both sides survived enormous damage. Taiho is very specific case - obviously it was stupid decision, but it could happen to any navy in the same situation.
3. I am note sure if we can easily reply to Q1, but even less I know about the code of WITP. Is better Allied damage control hardcoded for all ships? Is it constant or improving with time?


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Bullwinkle58
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by Bullwinkle58 »

FWIW:

http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_ ... 84%20N.pdf

Reading the sections on IJN DC organization my first reaction was "OMG! No wonder they sank."

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LargeSlowTarget
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by 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.
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Barb
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by Barb »

Glad to see you back in game Alessandro :)

I think the allies had an edge over Japanese in Damage Control procedures and training. Royal Navy had several bitter years of hands-on experiences, RAN and RNZN as well. Dutch not so much, but their Navy is not the one to change the overall picture. You can argue the Japanese Navy was also on war footing for several years - this is reflected by their high experiences - but have not a such effective Damage Control.

Actually USN Damage control is improving as the war progress - all DC rolls are subject to ship XP - so an early war US ship with EXP in 50s is not as good in DC as the same ship with EXP in 70s...
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Alfred
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by Alfred »

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

I think the point trying to be made is that Allied damage control applies to such ships that it really shouldn't.

The USN were fairly good with damage control, at least on warships. What about merchantment?

What about the Allies? Were the Dutch, Australians and New Zealanders up to the same standards?

FWIW, I'm all for the Allied Damage Control advantage. I would like to see it a little bit more nuanced, though. Rather than a flat boost to damage control, I would have liked to have seen it apply only to ships with experience over a certain threshold. That way, highly drilled ships could take advantage of the advanced damage control, and merchantmen filled with rookies would still burn like cinders.

That certainly would be nice. From everything I've read I'm not sure that's possible with the current software. Maybe Bill D , Alfred or Michealm could tell us for certain.

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
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AW1Steve
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by 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. [:(]
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AW1Steve
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by AW1Steve »

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

I think the point trying to be made is that Allied damage control applies to such ships that it really shouldn't.

The USN were fairly good with damage control, at least on warships. What about merchantment?

What about the Allies? Were the Dutch, Australians and New Zealanders up to the same standards?

FWIW, I'm all for the Allied Damage Control advantage. I would like to see it a little bit more nuanced, though. Rather than a flat boost to damage control, I would have liked to have seen it apply only to ships with experience over a certain threshold. That way, highly drilled ships could take advantage of the advanced damage control, and merchantmen filled with rookies would still burn like cinders.

That certainly would be nice. From everything I've read I'm not sure that's possible with the current software. Maybe Bill D , Alfred or Michealm could tell us for certain.

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


Thank you Alfred! That's exactly the sort of rational, clear headed analysis we needed( and have come to expect from you). Many thanks! (Or as we ex-"squids" would say , "Bravo Zulu"!). [&o][&o][&o]
Alfred
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by 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
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AW1Steve
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RE: Allied Damage Control Option

Post by 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]
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