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Thread: A thought on A and B Damage Decks

  1. #1

    Default A thought on A and B Damage Decks

    I was playing a game recently and something occurred that got me thinking about the special damage...

    The A damage deck has 35 cards of which the special damage is :-
    1 x smoke, 1 x fire, 1 x engine, 1 x explosion, 2 x red jam, 2 x green jam, 2 x left rudder, 2 x right rudder and 2 x crew hit.

    The B damage deck has 44 cards of which the special damage is :-
    2 x smoke, 2 x fire, 1 x engine, 1 x explosion, 3 x red jam, 3 x green jam, 2 x left rudder, 2 x right rudder and 2 x crew hit.

    What happend in the game was that the 'B' firing Sopwith triplanes were able to inflict 2 fires on the Albatross DVa where the 'A' firing DVa could only ever set 1 fire unless/until the card is shuffled back in the pack.

    Obviously the 'B' gun does less damage on average so is the addtional fire to make up for this ?

    Also as there are more jam cards in the 'B' deck this means the gun could jam more than an 'A' gun.

    I was using a 2 on 1 scenario but it would still apply in other encounters.

    Are there any reasons?

  2. #2

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    First thoughts:
    B deck was meant to be used with early war kites, which were less sturdy and much more prone to catch fire (but the B deck is used in late war two seaters and fighters as well...)
    Maybe machine guns and their mechanisms of the early war period were less efficient/effective, thus more jams are in the B deck. I'm not expert on guns at all

  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nightbomber View Post
    First thoughts:
    B deck was meant to be used with early war kites, which were less sturdy and much more prone to catch fire (but the B deck is used in late war two seaters and fighters as well...)
    Maybe machine guns and their mechanisms of the early war period were less efficient/effective, thus more jams are in the B deck. I'm not expert on guns at all
    I think you may have a point, problem is B deck is used for observers guns which probably should jam less as they have no sync mechanism....

  4. #4

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    Did you account for all the zeros in both decks?
    If you draw A damage from fire, you do have a chance of pulling a 0 damage.
    Also explosions lol. I thought it was 2 per deck?

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by sbutton View Post
    I think you may have a point, problem is B deck is used for observers guns which probably should jam less as they have no sync mechanism....
    Unfortunately, the MG action, cartridges, and belt/magazine had more to do with jamming than the synchronization gear.

    But this has got me thinking about a house rule about synchronization gear failure and shooting off your own prop...hmmmmm

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by HTRAINo View Post
    Also explosions lol. I thought it was 2 per deck?
    Hayden,
    No, there is only one per deck. I checked. It just seems like there are more when I play.

    And others shuffle two or more decks together for large games, so it is possible for more than one to pop up together, in those cases.

    I just seem to find them ALL, early!

    Mike:-)

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by sbutton View Post
    I was playing a game recently and something occurred that got me thinking about the special damage...

    The A damage deck has 35 cards of which the special damage is :-
    1 x smoke, 1 x fire, 1 x engine, 1 x explosion, 2 x red jam, 2 x green jam, 2 x left rudder, 2 x right rudder and 2 x crew hit.

    The B damage deck has 44 cards of which the special damage is :-
    2 x smoke, 2 x fire, 1 x engine, 1 x explosion, 3 x red jam, 3 x green jam, 2 x left rudder, 2 x right rudder and 2 x crew hit.

    What happend in the game was that the 'B' firing Sopwith triplanes were able to inflict 2 fires on the Albatross DVa where the 'A' firing DVa could only ever set 1 fire unless/until the card is shuffled back in the pack.

    Obviously the 'B' gun does less damage on average so is the addtional fire to make up for this ?

    Also as there are more jam cards in the 'B' deck this means the gun could jam more than an 'A' gun.

    I was using a 2 on 1 scenario but it would still apply in other encounters.

    Are there any reasons?
    Statistically speaking (and branding myself a nerd for saying that) you have about a 2% greater chance of drawing a jam with the B deck. The chance of fire is also about a 2% increase as well. However, you have a 42.86% chance of drawing a special damage card with the A deck, and a 40.91% of drawing a speical damage card from the B deck. So it seems there is more special damage in the B deck, but it's actually the other way around.

    Now as to why the B guns jam more and cause fire more, I think it is an artifact of game balance rather than an attempt at modeling any real world situation. The early guns may have jammed more, but in the late war the emphasis for ammunition manufacturing was quantity not quality. There were far more bad cartridges that would jam a gun in the late war from everything I have read.

  8. #8

  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by somaliavet View Post
    But this has got me thinking about a house rule about synchronization gear failure and shooting off your own prop...hmmmmm
    One of the crit deck cards describes this... Shooting your own prop off certainly strikes me as catastrophic enough to warrant a BOOM card.

  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by diceslinger View Post
    Statistically speaking (and branding myself a nerd for saying that) you have about a 2% greater chance of drawing a jam with the B deck. The chance of fire is also about a 2% increase as well. However, you have a 42.86% chance of drawing a special damage card with the A deck, and a 40.91% of drawing a speical damage card from the B deck. So it seems there is more special damage in the B deck, but it's actually the other way around.
    Problem I see is that your stats are based on a full deck, once a card is taken the odds change i.e. for the first damage in the A deck you have a 1 in 35 chance of causing fire and in the B deck it is a 1 in 22 (2 cards in 44) once the fire card is taken as damage from the A deck there is a 0% chance of another one, however if a fire card is taken as damage from the B deck there is still a 1 in (however many cards are still in the deck) chance of causing fire.

  11. #11

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    Is it possible the decks got switched in production?

  12. #12

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    Andrea has stated that the B deck has more special damage cards in it to make the % chance to draw one as close to the same as the A deck as possible. There are more cards in the B deck, so there needed to be more special damage cards in it as well. As for the statistics once any number cards have been drawn, you really can't extract it like that as the card drawn is random. There would be no way to balance out the two decks with the, I don't know how many thousands of probability outcomes. If you are using both A and B decks in a game, just use a double A deck and you are fine (the deluxe sets came with double A decks, so it's legal).

  13. #13

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    Thanks Herr Oberst,

    Sound advice, I like the idea of using double A deck it would kind of even things out, but I think I would remove one of the "Boom" cards.

    I know it increases the Jam, engine and rudder cards but that sits ok for A guns in my mind.

  14. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by sbutton View Post
    Thanks Herr Oberst,

    Sound advice, I like the idea of using double A deck it would kind of even things out, but I think I would remove one of the "Boom" cards.

    I know it increases the Jam, engine and rudder cards but that sits ok for A guns in my mind.
    I use double "A" decks all the time... and sometimes triple. Typically the cutoff is 6+ aircraft: if more than 6 "A" gunned kites, I'm using three decks. And I keep all the Boom cards in... I want the threat of the Boom to remain after it's been drawn once.


  15. #15

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    Right Chris. Nothing makes the game as spicy as XP cards still awaiting in the deck. I think of reshuffling them after drawing just to make players uncertain till the last minute of the engagement.

  16. #16

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    I must admit I always re-shuffle the boom card back in as soon as its drawn so there is always a chance of it coming up....

  17. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Nightbomber View Post
    Right Chris. Nothing makes the game as spicy as XP cards still awaiting in the deck. I think of reshuffling them after drawing just to make players uncertain till the last minute of the engagement.
    Quote Originally Posted by sbutton View Post
    I must admit I always re-shuffle the boom card back in as soon as its drawn so there is always a chance of it coming up....
    Nice! Haven't done that yet... but will. Especially since I've begun using the crit cards... a Boom doesn't necessarily result in the death of a pilot...

  18. #18

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    I have been playing WoG for just over 3 years (yes I know, new to the Squadron) and have never had any problems with the satistics of the game cards and yes I always use the boom card as I like it (although I always seam to draw it). So, not to critisize those who want to play with modifications as you have raised some good points, but I will be leaveing things just the way they are.

  19. #19

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    Quote Originally Posted by Oberst Hajj View Post
    Andrea has stated that the B deck has more special damage cards in it to make the % chance to draw one as close to the same as the A deck as possible. There are more cards in the B deck, so there needed to be more special damage cards in it as well. As for the statistics once any number cards have been drawn, you really can't extract it like that as the card drawn is random. There would be no way to balance out the two decks with the, I don't know how many thousands of probability outcomes. If you are using both A and B decks in a game, just use a double A deck and you are fine (the deluxe sets came with double A decks, so it's legal).
    That explains my thoughts on 2 boom cards.
    I was preset in deluxe WoW mode.

  20. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by fast.git View Post
    I use double "A" decks all the time... and sometimes triple. Typically the cutoff is 6+ aircraft: if more than 6 "A" gunned kites, I'm using three decks. And I keep all the Boom cards in... I want the threat of the Boom to remain after it's been drawn once.

    This happened to me today. I was finally able to play the first scenario in OTT - Final Months. One of my pilots had the Lucky Git ace ability. In the first round of combat, one of the enemy planes drew the Boom card. My ace drew a 5 point with pilot injury card, but knowing there was still a Boom card (2 decks), I chose not to use the Lucky Git. Afterwards, I questioned my choice, but during that round, witnessing a plane go down on the first firing of the game, I wanted to hedge my bets.

  21. #21

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    http://heavymetalpro.com/RUS_Features.htm -- I plugged all the decks/chits into this, then use it to generate results. (Some people I've run across have converted the WW1 decks to "chits", using labeled poker chips -- draw, note result, return to container, draw again if needed.) Useful tool for generating large number of results quickly, or to make sure drawing the big-number cards doesn't let people assume they're now free of worry.

  22. #22

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    Well, I use those instead of cards. I don't put them back, but it gives me illusion that choice isn't pre-determined, as I feel it is when I draw from deck
    Attached Images  

  23. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by csadn View Post
    http://heavymetalpro.com/RUS_Features.htm -- I plugged all the decks/chits into this, then use it to generate results. (Some people I've run across have converted the WW1 decks to "chits", using labeled poker chips -- draw, note result, return to container, draw again if needed.) Useful tool for generating large number of results quickly, or to make sure drawing the big-number cards doesn't let people assume they're now free of worry.
    I like the idea of the chips and placing them back in the bag. Each hit, then, has the same probability of causing different types of damage. For example, if the initial probability of damaging a rudder on a hit is 5%, why shouldn't it be 5% on every hit? Once a certain card is drawn without replacing it, though, the probability of drawing it again is 0%. It does't matter if there are more than 1 card of a given type in a deck. Once a card is drawn, it can't be redrawn which affects subsequent probabilities. It is the difference between simple and conditional probabilities. This would definitely have an impact on play, but I think for the better - more stress if you will.

  24. #24

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    Who cares about the stats, I'm sure MvR didn't when he was shot down. If your time is up, your time is up. That's the beauty of the game, you ride your luck as long as you dare and when the dreaded card, or cards come out then lady luck has deserted you in favour of someone else. I'm sure pilots of WW1 thought along the same lines following the thoughts of Capt. W E Johns (Biggles books) who writes about his exploits at the beginning of 'Here come the Camels'. In fact he stated he crashed from 6,00ft and walked away with no injuries, whilst a friend of his taxiing on landing hit the tarmac of a road crossing the runway, flipped his plane and broke his neck. We have no rules about landing and take off, or for the calamitous nature of the Sopwith Camel that killed more allied pilots than the enemy did.

    We all add in little house rules to enhance the game as we see it, the beauty of the boom card are the explosion decks and critical damage cards for collisions that various people have uploaded into the files section. I'm sure anyone could come up with other solutions for explosions and collisions that work equally as well. That's the beauty of the game. Its simplicity enables us to expand the game how we like it within the guidelines of the rulebook itself.

    I never like statistics (I was crap at maths at school) of how often this or that card comes out, because with hidden damage on some cards you never know what has already come out of the pack. Then again I always try to put in a stall card to bluff an opponent when I have taken damage but I have no engine damage.

    As I have stated earlier the beauty of the game is its simplicity and room for expansion with in house rules to suit certain individuals or groups. Above all else have fun and enjoy and the stats will sort themselves out.

  25. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    Who cares about the stats
    Indeed, if you do then you realise just how inappropriate a card-drawing system where cards are retained really is. Enjoy it for what it is, a fun game that works well the way it is.

  26. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by David Manley View Post
    Enjoy it for what it is, a fun game that works well the way it is.
    I am of this mind... I don't sweat the stats, I just enjoy the brilliant simplicity of this game.

  27. #27

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    Wonder where I've heard that chit pick idea before?

  28. #28

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    we've also used play sheets marked off with hit boxes so cards could be put back into decks. The usable deck and the return deck. Once the usable deck is exhausted the return deck was shuffled and we started all over again. I'm sure somewhere I've got a copy of these sheets if I get time I'll post them in the files section. Lamanated they last forever.

  29. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by fast.git View Post
    I am of this mind... I don't sweat the stats, I just enjoy the brilliant simplicity of this game.
    I think it is very easy to over-analyse this and other game systems. I recall seeing a wonderful analysis of one of my sets of modern rules, ascribing all sorts of brilliance to the way it neatly captured corner speed aspects and other various elements of jet fighter aerodynamics. Of course absolutely none of that was in my mind when I wrote what was, as far as I was concerned, a fast play and fun set of rules. If it did manage to do that it did so by luck

    With another set I was amused to see some very deep analysis on how I had apparently determined the stats for a particular group of weapons - analysis that ran for several pages and was then treated as gospel by some (after all, that HAD to be how I did it) - and then some abuse because some other weapons clearly didn't fit the model. At that point I stepped in to remind those concerned that "it only a game" and that the stats had been determined by following the TLAR principle

  30. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by Skafloc View Post
    we've also used play sheets marked off with hit boxes so cards could be put back into decks. The usable deck and the return deck. Once the usable deck is exhausted the return deck was shuffled and we started all over again. I'm sure somewhere I've got a copy of these sheets if I get time I'll post them in the files section. Lamanated they last forever.
    I like this idea. It doesn't monkey with the original system, and it clean up the play area. Nice!



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