Hello:
I recently started playing vasl and I noticed some strange (what I feel are somewhat out of the ballpark, but which are certainly statistically possible) dice roll situations. After talking to one of my opponents, who knows a computer programmer & who had consulted with him on a previous occasion some time ago, he had told him that sometimes numbers "stick" in the Java computer language. What that means in laymen's terms is that there is a higher degree of probability that, for example, in ten consecutive dice rolls the probability of getting four "3s" is higher than the probability of getting four "3s" in rolling standard physical dice.
My opponent had told me that this issue has certainly been beat into the ground over the years with literally hundreds of threads & replies, but being a new VASLr it is certainly "newly" relavent to me and to any new person to vasl, or new to any virtual random dice generator I guess for that matter, so I sort of feel it is responsible to pass on some of what I have learned and seen--mainly for any new VASLrs like myself out there.
Despite this tendency for the dice to stick, I most definitely!! [underscored] prefer it to the honor system. I think that Sam Belcher in a previous post said it best when he mentioned that he would feel guilty having to report two consecutive honor DRs of 2; I agree with him perfectly on this point. I think that the honor system, at least for me, takes all the fun out of DRs. Whereas I would feel "greatly elated" if I had rolled back-to-back 2s in a ftf game with physical dice which my opponent could directly see, I would feel like "Damn-He's-never-going-to-believe-this" if I had to report back to back 2s in an honor sytem type situation, which would completely take all the fun out of the roll & game (at least for me); not to mention the fact that I'm just not so much of a trusting sort anymore, life & people have contributed to this over the years. So, I would prefer the dice bot (even if somewhat flawed) for that reason alone [which is a very powerful reason to me]. Another way I've recently been feeling more&more about this is: it's something I, or anyone else for that matter who is serious about ASL/VASL, will just have to adapt to, as someone else in another post not-so-elequently put it. If it happens then it happens, just adapt. Having said this, this is a shift from my original opinion which, reading back over now, seems harsh, and which was gained from first occurance, "first impressions" if you will (but you know "first impressions" always change once you get to know someone, or in this case something, better). Add to this the fact that at the time I was in definite (with a capital "D") whinning mode, which you'll understand if you read on to what happened.
I would definitely like to congratulate Rodney Kinney for developing such a great system, and I'm sure that many people wouldn't be playing ASL now if it weren't for VASL, so don't take anything I've said negatively, "sticky" bot or not is irrelevant. By the way, I would definitely contribute to the VASL coffer If I wasn't unemployed; once I get a job he'll definitely get a paypal donation from me. Maybe the Mexican who now has my job in Mexico can contribute on my behalf ... ha!
Anyway, I went ahead and copied & pasted my original email to Rodney Kinney below, mainly because I did so much work with the stat analysis over that weekend that I felt it needed to be saved somehow (after all, I did so much work, hate to see it wasted). So for those guys that said no evidence no proof or something along those lines here it is, even if it's meager. By the way, keep in mind that these results are on the basis of my first 7 vasl games, certainly not a large sample base, but from what I've learned about "sticking" I feel I can now account for these wild swings (at least in my own mind anyway). So, "having said this" and "like I said" this is basically just information for the newbie VASLer who may or may not have witnessed rolls like this already; I'm sure old timers have already seen this subject beaten to death already....
I copied and pasted my email to Rodney Kinney below (to whom it may concern), and immediately after I copied and pasted the short email reply he sent me the next day [just for you information, since as a fellow ASLer you may be interested]. I tried to start a thread on the aslml mailing list, but I seem to be doing something wrong, for everytime I send a letter to the aslml it never gets posted. So apparently I'm doing something wrong, though I don't know exactly what. I noticed that you have periodically started threads there, so perhaps I can burden you with starting one on by behalf ... something along the lines of "Highly improbable DR in relation to vasl dice bot" or something like that. I suspect that there are many people who have seen such wild fluctuations in probability (out of the ball park type of wild), since I suspect the dice bot is flawed and thus I would expect a lot of responses from people with such examples. In my opinion, I believe there is something wrong there, especially after talking to another VASLer (In his case the odds of getting 8 consecutive rof shots with a 1rof gun is: (.16)^8 = .000000429, .0000429%, even more wild than what happened to me! He won't even play using the dice bot! By the way the probability of getting 6 out of 10 dice rolls of 4 or less comes to: (210)*(1/6)^6*(5/6)^4 {where 210 = (10!)/(4!)(6!) which came to .002170635 or .2170635% or about one in 500, pretty far out, though not as far out as I first thought (though in our case it should be a bit less as you got four 3s!!!! among those six 4 four or less). Definitely a string of rolls I'll never forget! a first for me in my ASL gaming experience.
Thanks,
rk (Richard Kindel) ....
To whom it may concern:
I recently had a couple of extraordinary events (in terms of probabilities) occur while playing vasl, and I think this may be of concern to you (though I concede it may not). I recently started playing vasl (though I'm an ASL old timer), and I had two "rare" events occur in my first 7 games of vasl (I've only completed 7 vasl games, and have 3 or 4 games in process up to this point in my first month of vasl playing).
In one event I had 8 consecutive shots from a 50 cal. HMG [ASL 61] for a probability occurrence of (.5)^8 which works out to .390625% [that's .5 for a color die roll of one, two, or three equal to 50%. Multiplied by the power 8 for eight consecutive shots rof]. In the second case which runs in a desert scenario [TOT34] my opponent first got a "gusts" in his rally phase turn one {1 in 36 chance, I did not add the wind change probability of DR2 because even with that the subsequent die roll could at best increase or decrease the "no wind" starting level to "mild breeze", which would have had no effect on my motion dust, dispersed sD, and VSG}; he was then able to get 10 consecutive rof shots from a 40L ATG on a hillock vs my units now without smoke/dust cover. This doesn't sound very extraordinary (unless you're on the receiving end) until you start putting numbers on it. I'm not even going to bother you with the probabilities of his sub rolls on his 10 rof (suffice to say he had gotten 7 hits with that 10rof including four 3s and two 4s in the course of his hot dice rolls; I ended up with two burning halftracks, one normal wreck and two shocks; more than half the infantry component of my attacking force was killed from the rof of one single gun on turn 1!!). Anyway, the numbers work out as follows: (.5)^10 X 1/36 comes out to .000027126 for a probability of .0027126% [where .5 is colored die roll percentage as before, 50%, and power 10 = 10 consecutive rolls, and where 1/36 is gusts probability {not including the wind chance for 2/36 because wind force, up or down one level, would have had no effect in this case}]. I must include the probability of gusts to the rof because it so significant in this situation (desert attacking, absolutely no cover, only the cover of SMOKE).
Now, to put some significance to these numbers I need to make one generalization, that is that a medium sized scenario includes 100 dice rolls from start to finish give or take 20 or so, not including die rolls. Sure, this is debatable, but in my 120 to 150 ftf games or so of ASL over the past 20 years + (which sure, isn't very much) I can say that's approximately been my experience (maybe a small scenario such as T1 is half that [50 dice rolls give or take 10], or a large scenario double that 200/ give take 50, and a CG [campaign game] perhaps 500+ dice rolls). For the most part I've played medium/small scenarios, maybe 90% of my games have been such; I've only tried 3 CGs and never completed one. So, generalizing at 100 dice rolls per game/scenario I should see, for example, a Russian 76L gun with a rof 2 getting 5 shots in succession about .. (.33)^5 times .. for a probability of .0039135 or .39135% (using my TI35 calculator) {this, by the way, is the rarest event I've ever witnessed in my 120 to 150 ftf games}. So, this works out to a 3.9135% chance in ten games [one thousand DRs] or a 39.135% chance in a hundred games [ten thousand Drs] or 391.35% chance in a thousand games [one hundred thousand Drs]. I'll round up the last to 400% chance in a thousand games for simplicity' sake .. this then simplifies to 100% in 250 games .. in other words I should see this event happen once in 250 games for certainty. So, in my 120/150 ftf games of ASL I had approximately a 50% chance of witnessing this event under normal conditions -- which is about what happened and what I would expect.
Now, in in my first 7 vasl games I witnessed the two events I described in the second paragraph, one with a probability of .390625% [I'll call "A"], the other with a probability of .0027126% [I'll call "B"]. Putting numbers on these, I should see the "A" event .. approximately 390.625 times in one thousand games, and again rounding to 400 times for simplicity' sake: 400 in 1000 simplifies to once in 250 games for certainty {i.e. I should see this happen once in 250 games; approximately the same chance as my 76L 2rof Russian gun getting 5 consecutive shots in my ftf games}. The probability of "B" is even more remote with a chance of .0027126% this works to 27.126% chance in one thousand games, which is low even then, so we need to step it up to ten thousand games or 271.26% in ten thousand games. I'll again round to 300% for simplicity' sake in 10,000 games, which works down to once in 3,333games for certainty. Now, I don't know about you, but in 7 vasl games getting two occurrences, one with a chance of 1 in 250 games and the other with 1 in 3000 (or so) games .... This is just a little too remarkable/rare for me, and leads me to draw two possible explanations/conclusions for all this: that the vasl dice machine is either "flawed" or "hacked". Either way significantly reduces my desirability to play vasl. Low rolls don't bother me, as I've dished out as many low rolls as I've been on the receiving end of, but in the case of "flawed" a dice rolling machine that doesn't exhibit the same probability of real dice rolls seriously inhibits the balance of most scenarios (in my opinion: a probability of DR2 being equal to a probability of DR7 seriously hinders any side with fewer forces than the other). And I don't even like to think of the second possibility of "hacked," where some opponent is somehow manipulating his DRs in his favor. But I'll say this, the FBI just doesn't accept wild probabilities; for example, they use DNA analysis for investigation and courtroom evidence to narrow suspects, so I can't just ignore these wild swings in probability which have occurred in just 7 vasl games either. Now, I could be wrong ... but I don't think I am: something is not right with the vasl dice machine; It's either "flawed" or "hacked" (in which case it's not your fault). I don't know which, but I feel relatively certain it's one or the other or both.
But, to end on a positive note I will say that the artwork, boards, counters, and basic functioning of vasl is very good, though I've gotten booted much more than I would like. I think a LOS tracker would be great, so each opponent can know when the other is checking LOS (It just clicks on, or whatever, when one man checks LOS, a very simple mechanism). Also a HIP box and a Secret DR/dr box, like the OBA box, which simply records where all HIP units were placed at game start, and makes notes if any changes in HIP position were made subsequent to setup, would also be great. The HIP box should also be allowed to automatically "open" at game end (once the last game turn is complete) to allow your opponent to see & verify opening HIP placement once the scenario has completed & thus he can then see if any changes were made to it. These would also be simple (in my opinion) but great additions, if nothing else than to reduce the worry that the honor system elements of HIP, LOS checking, and Secret DR/dr necessarily induce. I'm a big fan of eliminating the necessity of the honor system wherever possible; I think it's possible to eliminate it altogether at this point which would be great. A secret DR/dr box would simply record any secret DR/dr made by one opponent for the other, say for example for mud/deep snow bog, by one opponent "labeling" the secret DR/dr which is then made & placed in the HIP box and is automatically "opened" at game end for verification by the opponent along with HIP units.