GENCON Tales

Over at The Scrapyard Armory you will find some nice summaries of Battletech events and more from GENCON 2009 (posts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7). Of course, Brian ALWAYS posts good event summaries, and these are no exception.



I wound also like to officially thank Brian for linking to this blog, as The Scrapyard Armory is now the top referrer here, finally surpassing the Blog-of-Note referrals dating back to December 2008. Hopefully I can return the favor by sending some of you his way.

[More of Brian's photos at (can you guess?)]

Stochastic Duels: Introduction

Blog ... Math ... Statistics ... Games ... check ... I haven’t done much of that lately, and it’s time I got back on track. There is a topic I've been sitting on for a while now, that of Stochastic Duels. I started writing the post, but the post keeps getting longer and longer; First to the point where I needed to break it up into two parts, then I realized that still wasn't enough and I ought to do it as a series.
So a series it is, with this post serving as the introduction, table of contents, summary of topics, and anything else that occurs to me along the way. This post will change as I update it this the latest installments, and as I figure out exactly where I am going with this.

Stochastic Duels: Introduction

[image GameSignal, where they got it from I have no idea]

Definitions and History: A stochastic process is a series of events that are at least partly random. There may also be a predictable part which is useful to understand, but primarily interested in the random part and how it applies to games. I took this from a paper I found titled "The One-on-One Stochastic Duel: Parts I and II", by C.J.Ancker, Jr. (1979) -

The stochastic duel was first formulated and analyzed by G. Trevor Williams and the author [C. J. Ancker, Jr.], in a paper presented on 1U May 1966 at the 4-th Annual ORSA meeting in Washington, D.C. (1)

I don't have access to the 1966 paper, but I've been able to find a number of Ancker's papers from the 70's and 80's. Some of this is my source material, and I'll be working parts out for myself as well.
The term Stochastic Duel was first used by Ancker and Williams to describe a simplified combat model, where two opponents repeatedly (and simultaneously) fire at each other until one (or both) of them is hit. In this very simple sort of game it’s not too hard to work out the math describing it. The game is not intended to be realistic, but rather to demonstrate the principles involved. Once a basic understanding is established, the game can be made much more complex and realistic.

Contents:

Introduction (your fingers are soaking in it now).

Part 1: A simple stochastic duel.
The simplest form of this game considers only the probabilities of hitting the opponent, and can be represented as a geometric series.
Related topics: Dueling for total damage.

Part 2: A stochastic duel with differing ranges.
How to represent the advantage of unequal ranges.
Related topics: Lanchester's Laws

Part 3: A stochastic duel with hit probabilities dependent on range.
Related topics: Death March, movement paths,

Part 4: Range and movement in stochastic duels.


To be determined: To complete my purpose, my will need to extend these simple "shoot until you hit" games to "shoot and accumulate damage" games such as Battletech and Squadron Strike. That should be good for a few more parts in the series (I think), and I've already written about some of this before.

I should have Part 1 up tomorrow.

Bloggers Beware Patternspace.net

I just received the following email message, and a little searching reveals it is likely a SPAMMER. (caution: righteously angry blogger at that link)

Greetings,
My name is Harrison Barrow and I represent an online gaming website.
Currently, I am doing promotional work, and as such, I am very interested
in the prospect of placing a link onto Giant Battling Robots. Let me know
if this sounds appealing to you. I would be more than willing to
compensate you for your time. If you have any questions, please don't
hesitate to ask. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Best,
Harrison

The answer though, is "no". I don't want to advertise for anything other than my own efforts and those of the friends and game companies I have some connection with. Thank you.

[UPDATE - April 21, 2010]
Commenter SpastikMooss Has provided some of the basic information I was looking for; that Patternspace seems to be a legitimate advertiser, and they run adds for online poker. I withdraw my accusations that they are affiliated with canned meat products.

Prototype Miniatures Carrier

I had mentioned before that I was working with my friend Tom of PhotonCutter Studios to produce my design for a custom miniatures carrier. The prototype is ready, and Tom will have it at GENCON, along with some of my minis to help show it off.

I like to modify miniatures; at one point I had a goal to modify or reposed ALL of my Battletech minis in some way, but have since backed off of that for practical reasons. The Perseus and Thug minis shown here are all reposes, and (IMO) some of my best work.

One of the early difficulties I had was how to carry my minis around without damaging them. I tried foam of course, but that still tended to leave a lot of rattle room, and tended to break some of my more delicate modifications. Packing the foam more tighly around them was problematic, because that also put more pressure on delicate parts.

Foam also tended to rub the paint, and over time lead to a lot of touch up work on minis that had hardly been used. My solution was to construct my own way to store and carry minis - a home build rack with padded dowels and springs that clamps down on the base of the mini, leaving the miniature itself untouched.
The first versions were made entirely out of hobby wood and plywood, with EPDM weather stripping providing the crucial "grip".

You can see a nice picture of the early versions here, taken at ORIGINS 2005. And yes, it holds the minis in securely at any angle, not just upright, and even with vigorous shaking and moderate shocks. **These are not gravity proof** If dropped sufficiently hard, a lot of shock goes to the mini and it can pop them out of the rack. Given an equal amount of abuse, I think miniatures packed in foam are likely to shift around a lot too.

Tom created this acrylic version from my plans and my "revised" wooden prototype. Tom also came up with a neat way to "close the box" with an acrylic cover. It looks really good, and makes a very attractive display as well as functional protection for storing and transporting miniature figures. Each rack is about 12 inches long, ~4 wide and ~3 high; I routinely carry 6 racks around in a carry-on luggage bag, along with other supplies for the weekly Battletech session.

I realize this isn't for everyone; foam cells in a tacklebox work perfectly well for most people. I've already had a number of people show interest at ORIGINS this year though, so I think there in some market for this. We'll see what sort of reaction Tom gets at GENCON.

Under Construction

Pardon the dust, I'm trying out a new template. Comments and criticisms appreciated!

So far, so good. My blogroll even transferred over, which I did not expect. I need to rearrange my gadgets more to my liking.

I can see I'm going to have to do something about my banner, the old one is too small for this layout.

I bumped up the font size. I don't know if anyone else has trouble with small text, but I do, and I have to read it, so bigger it gets. Unfortunately, this may play hell with the layout of my older posts. Please email me about any old post where the formatting has clearly gone south.

Adjusted the color scheme. Maybe not for the better, but it is a bit more themed than it was before. I'll try it ... YIPES! The bottom bar text is now the same color as the blog title (thank you Rounders template. I like safety yellow, but that is a bit much. I guess I'll have to dive into the template HTML and see if I can swap color there.

I'm noticing rather slow loading times tonight. Is this loading slowly for anyone else?

I started fiddling around in Paint.net to create a new banner. Here is what I have so far.


Credit where credit is due: To create this three column layout I followed an excellent tutorial from:

The Blogger Guide
[Blogger Tips, Tutorials & Consultancy]
Web: http://bguide.blogspot.com/

The instruction here were to add a third left-side column to my old Rounders layout, but they were clear enough that I managed to switch it to two right-side columns with no difficulty. (But I backed everything up first, just in case).
I have been meaning to add a third column for some time to make better use of screen space. Two right-side columns let me put more information "up top" where people can see it, but people with smaller monitors can still read the main text without side scrolling.

Not Chopped Liver

In my previous post about my mini with a functional spotlight, I perhaps undersold Steve Satak's amazing efforts along similar lines.




Although I'm pretty sure Steve's was teasing me when he wrote ...

What about my Warhammer stuff. What, is that chopped liver?

... I'd like to set the record straight: It ain't no chapped liver, it's great stuff, and any serious modeler should take a look at Steve's methods and learn. Even if you don't plan on installing electronics yourself, knowing what can be done allows you to consider new ideas of what might be done, and that's when innovation happens.

Steve added a number of other interesting comments too, well worth a read in themselves.

Shine a Light

This post is Steve's fault, his comments got me thinking about one of my own custom mini projects that I haven't mentioned on this blog yet. Actually, it was my first really major rebuild of a miniature ever, and is still the favorite among many of my Battletech friends.



If you didn't see Steve's comments, he has a history of adding lights and electronics to Warhammer 40K models. It's some impressive work. (Go look at the links now, I'll wait).


Now where was I ... Oh yes, the Guillotine mini I put together for my son ... and lights.




One thing about the Guillotine mini; it's got that big spotlight on the top. One day at a model train show I discovered "Grain of wheat" light bulbs used scale trains and dioramas. They only need 1.5 volts, and can be run off of a hearing-aid battery.
So I got this idea in my head that I would mount the light in the mini as a Christmas present for my son.

Here's the short version of the project: Cut the legs of the mini away from the base. Cut of right leg. Drill top-down through spotlight and right-hip-up so the drill holes meet somewhere in the middle. Do about the same thing with the right legs (but goof and blow out the side). Bore out the inside of the spotlight. Drill a pin hole in the left foot/left for mounting later. Cut and re-pin right arm at different angle. Cut hole in standard hex base.

Run wires for the "grain-of-wheat" bulb down through the torso, the right leg, and base. Pin everything together. Fill in (or resculpt) the damage done to the mini with green stuff (can you spot my goof?). Make a wire jig for mounting the left leg and glue it in the base. Fill in the base with green stuff, leaving a bump (pushed up from the bottom) so there will be room for the battery. Add a metal clip and widgetry to make the battery connection on the bottom. Add a little green stuff to the bottom of the base to anchor the clip and give room for the widgetry. Mount the mini. glue everything down. cur a small piece of clear plastic and insert it as the "glass" in the spotlight. Paint. Paint. Paint. Flock. Done.

Unfortunately the battery is dead at the moment and you can't actually see the light operating in these photos - not that it shows up real well in bright light anyway - but it's still cool to see peoples faces when I turn it on and set it on the gaming table.

It was about 50 hours of work, but I was learning everything back then. I bet I could do a better job in half the time now.