Spawns Question

[65olschool]

Can anybody explain to me with regard to missions and the spawn probability dice roll, what is the difference between 1D12 or 2D6 for when you have 12 spawns to choose from?

I understand 1d12 mean 1X12 sided dice as it were, it rolls and you get what ever spawn from the rolled position that's in the table, but how does that translate to a 2d6 dice and how does it affect the spawn table?

Why not have 4d3, what would that do to the spawn table?

So many questions I know, hoping somebody could explain it in layman's terms for me as I cant find any discussion that explains it on the forum

Mick

[Daiwilletti]

Can anybody explain to me with regard to missions and the spawn probability dice roll, what is the difference between 1D12 or 2D6 for when you have 12 spawns to choose from?

I understand 1d12 mean 1X12 sided dice as it were, it rolls and you get what ever spawn from the rolled position that's in the table, but how does that translate to a 2d6 dice and how does it affect the spawn table?

Why not have 4d3, what would that do to the spawn table?

So many questions I know, hoping somebody could explain it in layman's terms for me as I cant find any discussion that explains it on the forum

Mick

I find it helps to picture a real dice when working it out. If you have 2 6 sided die, you cannot throw a 1, the lowest you can get is 2 (1+1). If you roll 3 die, the lowest number you can get is 3 (1+1+1).

If you have 1D12=6, you have only one out of twelve chance of the event happening (throwing a 6). If you have 2D6=6, you have more chance of the spawning event occurring, (1+5, 2+4, 3+3, 4+2, 5+1).

Also the context of the die roll is relevant. When it is in a positional context, like a facility-die-roll, sometimes you don't want the spawn to appear in sector one (there are twelve positional sectors like hours on a clock). Then you can use 2D6 instead of 1D12, and you can ensure that sector one is never engaged.

I haven't been trained in or studied syntax, all I've done is look at the way it is used in the campaign file and spawn files. Someone who has studied this stuff can give you a more academically precise explanation no doubt.

There are a few errors in the stock campaign, right at the end of the campaign.xml file. There are a number of events defined by the roll of die. The section is very useful as you can work out syntax like gt is grand total, and == is "exactly equal to". In the stock xml, there is a little inconsistency in the use of the syntax and that can be tidied up.

[Daiwilletti]

Oh, and if you have 12 spawns in the .spawns file, and you are using 2D6, obviously spawning event 1 will never happen. In that case, I just bung in any old thing at position 1, as it will never be used.

[65olschool]

I find it helps to picture a real dice when working it out. If you have 2 6 sided die, you cannot throw a 1, the lowest you can get is 2 (1+1). If you roll 3 die, the lowest number you can get is 3 (1+1+1).

If you have 1D12=6, you have only one out of twelve chance of the event happening (throwing a 6). If you have 2D6=6, you have more chance of the spawning event occurring, (1+5, 2+4, 3+3, 4+2, 5+1).

Also the context of the die roll is relevant. When it is in a positional context, like a facility-die-roll, sometimes you don't want the spawn to appear in sector one (there are twelve positional sectors like hours on a clock). Then you can use 2D6 instead of 1D12, and you can ensure that sector one is never engaged.

I haven't been trained in or studied syntax, all I've done is look at the way it is used in the campaign file and spawn files. Someone who has studied this stuff can give you a more academically precise explanation no doubt.

There are a few errors in the stock campaign, right at the end of the campaign.xml file. There are a number of events defined by the roll of die. The section is very useful as you can work out syntax like gt is grand total, and == is "exactly equal to". In the stock xml, there is a little inconsistency in the use of the syntax and that can be tidied up.

Thanks for taking the time to explain this Daiwilleti I can grasp the 1d 2d 3d 4d etc part now.

If I understand you right and forgetting about the probability %, the low and high level altitude overriding conditions and the modifiers, If I have 12 spawns in the spawn table and having the die set to 1d12, each time it rolls I should have 1 of the 12 things in the table happen ie at every roll something from the table should happen? Is that correct?

Mick

[Daiwilletti]

yes, that is correct. And I deliberately didn't start to talk about modifiers, lowagl, etc .

That assumes all is well with the spawning objects concerned. Take ships, for example. If your ship spawn set includes a random entry #patrol, and the country set to spawn does not have a patrol boat, this can mean that the spawning event fails to occur. However quite recently for the first time, I saw a partial formation where only some of the ships spawned. That is pretty unusual though.

Having the random modifier (#) used in a spawn xml file is great for variety and immersion, but it does mean that all the possible set of vehicles or ships must be working well, otherwise there can be times when the formation fails to spawn. Sometimes I use the entry #ships, but you can get some funny vessels spawning, and all the available ships need to be ship-shape. I put the modifier #vehicles into some groundspawns, and ended up with some wacky results. All rail bogeys are vehicles, and once I got a big 800mm Dora gun trundling down the road!! (courtesy of Airfighter55). So I curb my excesses and call for #tracked or #wheeled if I want a bit of variety in ground formations.

[65olschool]

Thanks Daiwilletti

Mick

[Daiwilletti]

No problems, 65olschool. I'm thrilled to read that you enjoy tweaking files (xml, xdp etc). There are not many out there apart from myself, prepared to admit to this

Seriously, PM me anytime on any tweaking you get stuck on and we can get stuck on it together.