PT boats fuel

This new stand alone release based on the legendary War in the Pacific from 2 by 3 Games adds significant improvements and changes to enhance game play, improve realism, and increase historical accuracy. With dozens of new features, new art, and engine improvements, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition brings you the most realistic and immersive WWII Pacific Theater wargame ever!

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Dili
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PT boats fuel

Post by Dili »

PT boats seem to have an exagerated level of fuel, same also in other small combatants, any reason for this?
For example the Japanese have 16t Fuel in a 17t hull...
Alfred
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by Alfred »

Like everything in this game, it is an abstraction.  Said often enough by the devs and by others.  Insistance on crystallising abstractions into exact concrete fungible things will always create a problem.  Provided the abstractions are consistent with each other, there is no problem.
 
And now, one of my all time favourite posts from a dev, in this case Symon.  Read his post #182 in this thread.
 
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2732392&mpage=7&key=fuel%2Cpoints&#2738274
 
It rather succinctly summarises that it is only a "point".
 
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Symon
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by Symon »

ORIGINAL: Alfred
It rather succinctly summarises that it is only a "point".
Alfred
Wow! that was a blast from the past. I might have been channeling Harry Nilsson when I wrote that because "The Point" is a fabulous tale that needs to be included in every childs universe of fables. "Everything has a point and, if it doesn't, there's a point to it."

Thanks Alfred. JWE
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oldman45
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by oldman45 »

Man it was good rereading that thread, thanks for finding that Alfred!!
Dili
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by Dili »

Provided the abstractions are consistent with each other, there is no problem.

Yes, also besides internal consistence means consistent also with fuel prodution, fuel transport, everything fuel.
But they aren't consistent.
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Symon
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by Symon »

Consistency is trying to get a Pane Toscano and a German Brochen out of the same batch of flour (Tippo 100). You think ww-2 warships are hard, you don't know the half of it. Woof !!
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topeverest
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by topeverest »

I get the point
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msieving1
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by msieving1 »

If you want to get completely accurate, PT boats should use supplies instead of fuel, since they ran on gasoline rather than bunker oil.  And about half of the Japanese cargo ships were coal burners, so they should also use supplies (or maybe resources) instead of fuel.
 
That's not how the game works, though, so we just have to live with it.
 
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Dili
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by Dili »

A romantic msieving1, if i can't get perfection i don't care?
Accurate within the system limitations. And within system limitations doing the best we could.

Since the product cames already from refinery then when supplying to the frontline it should respect the weight/transport penalty. Fuel densities don't allow for such disparities.


Btw that thread is very good.
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bigred
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by bigred »

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Like everything in this game, it is an abstraction.  Said often enough by the devs and by others.  Insistance on crystallising abstractions into exact concrete fungible things will always create a problem.  Provided the abstractions are consistent with each other, there is no problem.

And now, one of my all time favourite posts from a dev, in this case Symon.  Read his post #182 in this thread.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2732392&mpage=7&key=fuel%2Cpoints&#2738274

It rather succinctly summarises that it is only a "point".

Alfred
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LoBaron
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by LoBaron »

Dili, I am aware that you are a number cruncher by heart and so might find it difficult to accept this, but I still would like to point something out: I have seen you repeating the same error a couple of times already when you try to translate real world data into the games´ representation of that data.

The ingame data is nearly always an abstraction of reality. This is done to enable to game to represent this data at all. Without abstraction WitP AE would either be impossible, or it would be complex bordering unplayable. Abstraction comes with a couple of consequences. There´s more but I would like to focus on the three obvious and logically connected to support my point:

1) Abstraction prevents a general 1:1 translation of real world numbers into ingame numbers. Thats what John means when he points out that sometimes points are just points.

2) Abstraction challenges your fantasy as much as your number crunching ability. Let´s focus on the fuel/crude oil system (as this is the base of this debate, but be aware this applies to hundreds of other ingame aspects as well):
- Who says that a point of gasoline used for PT boats just represents the gasoline?
- Isn´t it more likely that it is the representation of the transportation method as well?
- And does it in terms of production also represent the amount of other resources and work required to enable the gasoline refining process?
- Finally, who cares how many points of gasoline - resulting from the above real word data combined with in game abstraction method - end up in a specific PT, as long as it then contributes to reflect PT´s real world endurance ingame while at the same time remaining inline with the production and logistics aspect?

3) A direct result of the above - the abstraction of the data and how it can be rationalized - is there is no 'right' value for the data. Just a couple of values that match all real world aspects of a certain resource closest, all more or less correct depending on what part of the game you focus on.

To get back at your previous:
Since the product cames already from refinery then when supplying to the frontline it should respect the weight/transport penalty. Fuel densities don't allow for such disparities.

Oh yes, the game does allow for such disparities!

Because the abstraction of all kinds of fuel and lubricants takes a lot more variables into account than just fuel density. If you believe that only fuel density is a factor you are bound to end up with very very wrong numbers - all while trying to be as accurate as possible.

The above is just an example, you can apply the same logic to many aspects of WitP AE. Embracing the implications of abstraction and using that knowledge to interprete in game values leads to a better understanding of how WitP AE works, and how it achieves realism.

My advice is, if you find numbers in game that do not match the real world data you have access to, before trying to find ways to correct the data, you should check the abstraction level as well as where this data is used throughout the game.

You might find that correcting it on one end of the game results in unbalancing it on the other.
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wdolson
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by wdolson »

If you really want to pick nits, PT boats shouldn't use fuel at all. They ran on av gas which is supply in this game.

It is an abstraction and ultimately they aren't sucking down anywhere near the fuel used by the big beasts.

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obvert
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by obvert »

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Dili, I am aware that you are a number cruncher by heart and so might find it difficult to accept this, but I still would like to point something out: I have seen you repeating the same error a couple of times already when you try to translate real world data into the games´ representation of that data.

The ingame data is nearly always an abstraction of reality. This is done to enable to game to represent this data at all. Without abstraction WitP AE would either be impossible, or it would be complex bordering unplayable. Abstraction comes with a couple of consequences. There´s more but I would like to focus on the three obvious and logically connected to support my point:

1) Abstraction prevents a general 1:1 translation of real world numbers into ingame numbers. Thats what John means when he points out that sometimes points are just points.

2) Abstraction challenges your fantasy as much as your number crunching ability. Let´s focus on the fuel/crude oil system (as this is the base of this debate, but be aware this applies to hundreds of other ingame aspects as well):
- Who says that a point of gasoline used for PT boats just represents the gasoline?
- Isn´t it more likely that it is the representation of the transportation method as well?
- And does it in terms of production also represent the amount of other resources and work required to enable the gasoline refining process?
- Finally, who cares how many points of gasoline - resulting from the above real word data combined with in game abstraction method - end up in a specific PT, as long as it then contributes to reflect PT´s real world endurance ingame while at the same time remaining inline with the production and logistics aspect?

3) A direct result of the above - the abstraction of the data and how it can be rationalized - is there is no 'right' value for the data. Just a couple of values that match all real world aspects of a certain resource closest, all more or less correct depending on what part of the game you focus on.

To get back at your previous:
Since the product cames already from refinery then when supplying to the frontline it should respect the weight/transport penalty. Fuel densities don't allow for such disparities.

Oh yes, the game does allow for such disparities!

Because the abstraction of all kinds of fuel and lubricants takes a lot more variables into account than just fuel density. If you believe that only fuel density is a factor you are bound to end up with very very wrong numbers - all while trying to be as accurate as possible.

The above is just an example, you can apply the same logic to many aspects of WitP AE. Embracing the implications of abstraction and using that knowledge to interprete in game values leads to a better understanding of how WitP AE works, and how it achieves realism.

My advice is, if you find numbers in game that do not match the real world data you have access to, before trying to find ways to correct the data, you should check the abstraction level as well as where this data is used throughout the game.

You might find that correcting it on one end of the game results in unbalancing it on the other.

+1

PTs should be able to pick up and deposit troops right? And they should be able to be run over by a DD in the night? And they should gun down Japanese barges by the hundreds, right? And ...

If we think about too much detail of the reality vs abstraction aspect in the game, we forget that it's actually amazingly balanced and exceedingly fun to play! Now, put away the calculators and try to sink the buggers! That's the real issue! [:D]
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
Dili
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by Dili »

1) Abstraction prevents a general 1:1 translation of real world numbers into ingame numbers. Thats what John means when he points out that sometimes points are just points.

My answer allows for that.

If you really want to pick nits, PT boats shouldn't use fuel at all. They ran on av gas which is supply in this game.

It is an abstraction and ultimately they aren't sucking down anywhere near the fuel used by the big beasts.

I already answered that above.


The whole argument doesn't make sense to me because the same logic is not applied to big ships that have much bigger logistic overhead :

lubrification
equipement, replacements
food

So should we put food in logistic tail of a carrier or a battleship with almost 2000 crew compared to a 1/100 of a PT.

But in the end is editable, i just wanted to understand if there was something in the code. Still not sure.
Alfred
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by Alfred »

ORIGINAL: Dili
1) Abstraction prevents a general 1:1 translation of real world numbers into ingame numbers. Thats what John means when he points out that sometimes points are just points.

My answer allows for that.

If you really want to pick nits, PT boats shouldn't use fuel at all. They ran on av gas which is supply in this game.

It is an abstraction and ultimately they aren't sucking down anywhere near the fuel used by the big beasts.

I already answered that above.


The whole argument doesn't make sense to me because the same logic is not applied to big ships that have much bigger logistic overhead :

lubrification
equipement, replacements
food

So should we put food in logistic tail of a carrier or a battleship with almost 2000 crew compared to a 1/100 of a PT.

But in the end is editable, i just wanted to understand if there was something in the code. Still not sure.

You are still missing the point.

The abstraction is still consistent because where there is a relationship between the abstracted values, they remain consistent with each other.

You instead are picking on two values, ship displacement and bunkerage size, which have zero relationship to each other in AE. It is therefore completely irrelevant what those two values are to each other because there is no link between them. Your own concern is just an exercise in futility; it would not matter one iota if a ship's total displacement were 16 tons and in the game it was credited with 9999 fuel points (or alternatively 1 fuel point for an endurance of 25000 as one prominent dev has done for his own private mod) because the scenario designer was trying to emulate a sailing yacht with no motor whatsoever. In that situation the consistence lies in remaining true to how endurance is used in the game, the necessity of putting into port to consume precious fuel etc etc etc. Those are all values which must remain consistent with each other because they are used by the game engine for many calculations. There is no game calculation made by the game engine involving displacement and bunkerage.

In an abstraction the key point is understanding what has to be represented on a consistent basis and what just does not matter because it has no positive impact on game playability, or does not advance generating a plausible result within real world parameters. As always it involves value judgements because that is the nature of any abstraction. If you think otherwise, consider any econometric model with its thousands of detailed algorithms intended to predict outputs based on different inputs. You would think that it would be nirvana for all number crunchers but the fact is that every econometric model fundamentally deep down remains an abstraction based on subjective assessments.

Alfred
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Nikademus
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by Nikademus »

wasting your time Alfred. [:)]
jmalter
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by jmalter »

I've adjusted my early-days thinking to view "fuel" as consisting of a wide variety of POL - not just bunker fuel & lighter-grade diesel fuel, but 27 different kinds of lubricants as well as gasoline for the portable generators & pumps that all warships would carry for damage-control or maintenance use.

It's quite reasonable to assume that the abstraction of "fuel" contains enough gasoline to support whatever gasoline-powered craft are present at the port.
Dili
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RE: PT boats fuel

Post by Dili »

The abstraction is still consistent because where there is a relationship between the abstracted values, they remain consistent with each other.

That was my initial post. Not my last post

I wrote this:
The whole argument doesn't make sense to me because the same logic is not applied to big ships that have much bigger logistic overhead

So for example an Hatsuharu goes from 460 real world to 500 game it is an increase of around 8-9%. The PT increase is not 9%, is much bigger.
Of course an exponential/logarithm formula explains a situation like that, i just want to understand why was chosen.




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