• 2007 AAR League

    I’ve never used DAAK and I don’t know how it works, but I can say mine works by generating random numbers from 1 to 6. If it’s a 1, the AA gun hits. More specifically, the PHP expression used is mt_rand. mt_rand is supposedy better than the rand function, more random somehow. I wonder how DAAK does it, but I haven’t heard of random number generators with a bias toward lower or higher numbers - that’s not really random!

    Maybe DAAK (or the programmers) thinks its more exciting when there is more hits, so they give AA guns a +1 bonus or something crazy like that. But to do that they’d have to be honest about it.

    That sounds kind of weird.


  • the worst thing is when your lone bomber or fighter gets killed by a transport and you don’t even hit it.


  • Haha, I once lost a fighter AND a bomber on the same attack on one transport without killing it.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    FROOD:  It’s my contention that DAAK first see’s if you get a 1 then works its way up through the numbers.  That’s why if I’m doing a massive infantry push, I’ll gladely use DAAK because I know I’m going to get closer to about a 30% hit rate with my infantry.  If I’m doing an SBR, I know to avoid DAAK like the plague because there’s a good 30% chance I’m going to loose my bomber.  (It’s actually worse, I think my bomber loss rate on DAAK is much closer to about 80%)

  • 2007 AAR League

    It would be good to actually document that track record with DAAK. Has anyone questioned them on this? I speak German, maybe I should look into it.

    Not sure I understand what you mean - that DAAK rolls all the dice, and then assigns all the 1s to your infantry? Or how do you mean, “works its way up through the numbers”?

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    It seems to me, and I can’t get them to give me the source code, that first they see if you roll a certain number out of the maximum amount of numbers available.

    6 out of 6 - 16.67%
    5 or 6 out of 6 - 33.33%
    4, 5 or 6 out of 6 - 50%
    3, 4, 5 or 6 out of 6 - 66.67%
    2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 out of 6 - 83.33%
    1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 out of 6 - 100%

    So basically, if you DONT roll a 2-6 then you got a 1 and that skews the numbers.  You’ll end up with more '1’s then any other “random” number in that method because you are eliminating results, not determining a random result.

    For instance, if you have a 4 out of 6 chance of hitting (say a battleship) you actually have (50% + 66.67% + 83.33% + 100%) / 4 or 75% chance to hit, not a 66.67% chance to hit.  If you have an infantry, say, attacking then instead of a 16.67% chance to hit, you have 58.33% chance to hit.  This explains why AA Guns have an insane accuracy rate and why you almost always seem to win a 2 infantry vs 1 infantry scenario at DAAK.

    Now, as I said, I do NOT have their code, I have never SEEN their code, I cannot prove this theory in a court of law.  However, it seems to fit the results.  And yes, I have tracked the number of bombers that hit.  I’ve done too many infantry assaults to track those.  However, let me put it this way, if I had 20 infantry without armor or fighters and I wanted to attack someone, I would use DAAK because I’d get 8-14 hits out of 20 infantry almost every time.

    Back on topic, I’m finding with JSP that 4 bombers for the allies seems to be optimal.  You loose a lot of bombers to AA fire over the course of the game, but you’re talking 14 IPC a round in damage to Germany in return. (Assuming an average score of 3.5 IPC damage dealt per bomber.)    That’s the equivalent of removing Germany from control of Africa and if you add that in with territorial conquests that really, really puts a damper on Germany…

    Though, I have to admit, if you are blocking the Japanese navy by closeing the Suez, make sure to garrison it adequately to KEEP it closed so some stupid german artillery unit doesn’t walk in, open the door and let the Japanese fleet in to sink 33% of your american fleet, including your only Battleship!!!

  • Moderator

    Just to add my two cents about DAAK, I don’t really agree with Jen’s assessment that it is skewd, or that it is delibrately skewd.  Now I too have seen my share of weird results in terms of good and bad rolls and I remember seeing a recent incindent where NoMercy (I think) lost like 4-5 ftrs to aa fire in one turn.

    But these types of things can happen.  I remember seeing lots of weird stuff playing Yahtzee as kid including rolling Yahtzee on one roll etc.

    If you want to avoid the the dice, play LL.  That is why it was created.

    I think many people cling to bad DAAK results b/c it is the most commonly used roller around here at the moment, so yeah if you use the roller enough you are going to see a wide variety of the good and the bad.

    As a sample, I just ran this battle 5 times, 90 inf vs. 50 inf.  I should have done 90 inf vs. 90 bombers though, but nevertheless here are the results I got.

    For the purposes of this, I list the defender even though that is 1’s and 2’s but I’m going to focus on the attacker and the 1’s.

    Base line LL results
    Att              Def
    units/hits       units/hits
    90/15             50/17
    73/12             35/12
    61/10             23/8
    53/9               13/5
    48/8+              4/2

    Now the DAAK results (ADS)
    Test 1
    90/13            50/18
    72/7            37/16
    56/11            30/8
    48/8              19/8
    40/7              11/4
    36/4+             4/1

    Test 2
    90/15            50/10
    80/13            35/10
    70/8              22/8
    62/13           14/4
    58/1+             1/0

    Test 3
    90/13            50/13
    77/14            37/10
    67/12            23/6
    61/11+          11/3

    Test 4
    90/16            50/17
    73/14            34/18
    55/12           20/7
    48/6               8/3
    45/2+             2/2

    Test 5
    90/16            50/13
    77/13            34/18
    59/10            21/5
    54/3             11/1
    53/4              8/3
    50/4+             4/1

    Okay, now what does this all mean?  In the LL base line the battle goes 5 rds with a take of 46.  Of course that can be upto a +/- 10 if you include an attacker roll up/down combined with the the defender roll up/down.  But I’m not really concerned with the overall result as I am with the individual dice rolls.

    Only rarely did I see what I would consider an “extreme” skew and these happened to be skewed down.  (bolded them in red)

    [(edit)  I highlighted a few of the skew-ups in green]

    I’ll have to look a bit closely, but the majority seemed to be right in the sweet spot of +/- 2 hits or so.  There were one or 2 defender skews that resulted in one 4 rd battle and some takes with 57, 58 units.

    Also taking the total attacking rolls for each round minus the final killing roll where DAAK doesn’t display the results once the last defender is killed I had a total of 1492 rolls (attacker only).  This does include the 61/11+ one b/c in that case there were only 2 dice that didn’t get rolled.
    in those 1492 rolls there were 239 hits.

    That means 239/1492 = 16.02% hits.   Hmmmm….
    1/6 = 16.67%

    Seems pretty close to me.

    Again, I’ll scan through my results maybe highlighting some more things if I think it is necessary, maybe I’ll try the 90 inf vs. 90 bom, but overall I think the results fall in line with what you would expect from a random number generator.

    I understand that everyone gets screwed from time to time but that is the nature of the dice and we can all recount our horror stories but I have also been “screwed” using the in house roller, the AAMC roller, FoE roller and hand tossed dice.  It happens.

    The other options are to play LL or No Luck.


  • I kinda have to agree with Jen that the DAAK AA gun must have heat seeking missiles some of the time, because when I was playing steady online against others, the majority of the times I tried SBR’ing, I’d be roasted duck.  I’d be willing to get back in the saddle again and play online against someone to test out my SBR campaign, just to see how … liberal DAAK is with shooting down me precioussss bomberssss.

  • Moderator

    @Jennifer:

    So basically, if you DONT roll a 2-6 then you got a 1 and that skews the numbers.   You’ll end up with more '1’s then any other “random” number in that method because you are eliminating results, not determining a random result.Â

    For instance, if you have a 4 out of 6 chance of hitting (say a battleship) you actually have (50% + 66.67% + 83.33% + 100%) / 4 or 75% chance to hit, not a 66.67% chance to hit.  If you have an infantry, say, attacking then instead of a 16.67% chance to hit, you have 58.33% chance to hit.  This explains why AA Guns have an insane accuracy rate and why you almost always seem to win a 2 infantry vs 1 infantry scenario at DAAK.

    Now, as I said, I do NOT have their code, I have never SEEN their code, I cannot prove this theory in a court of law.  However, it seems to fit the results.  And yes, I have tracked the number of bombers that hit.  I’ve done too many infantry assaults to track those.  However, let me put it this way, if I had 20 infantry without armor or fighters and I wanted to attack someone, I would use DAAK because I’d get 8-14 hits out of 20 infantry almost every time.

    Just to follow up on my last post.  This is not true.  While I don’t doubt it may have happened to you, it certainly isn’t the norm

    I just ran 4 battles of 20 inf vs. 20 boms (to look at 1’s rolled).
    units/hits         units/hits

    Test 1
    20/3                 20/3

    Test 2
    20/4                 20/4

    Test 3
    20/2                 20/4

    Test 4
    20/3                 20/0

    Not once out of 8 tries did I even come close to even 8.  The closest I got was on one when I rolled 17 and got 6 hits.

    Total results for the tests
               hits/rolls (both inf and bom)
    Test 1 - 32/217 = 14.7%
    Test 2 - 34/172 = 19.8%
    Test 3 - 25/156 = 16.02%
    Test 4 - 32/215 = 14.9%

    Total - 123/760 = 16.18%

    Again, I’m not finding a giant skew with DAAK.  I don’t doubt that the weird results may occur, but I do doubt that it is common place enough to say you almost always see….  
    I saw a 20 - no hit, an 18 - no hit, 16 - no hit, but I don’t consider that normal for DAAK which would refute your claim that you constantly get 8-14 hits with about 20 or so inf.  The Best/Worst I got were two 17/6, and two 16/5, two 17/5  but I have a ton of 1-3 hitters in there.  IMO, it basically all evens out.

  • Moderator

    @General_D.Fox:

    I kinda have to agree with Jen that the DAAK AA gun must have heat seeking missiles some of the time, because when I was playing steady online against others, the majority of the times I tried SBR’ing, I’d be roasted duck.  I’d be willing to get back in the saddle again and play online against someone to test out my SBR campaign, just to see how … liberal DAAK is with shooting down me precioussss bomberssss.Â

    The AA gunners may be a different case.
    But I was scared off a long time ago on the those. :-D

    The old CD seemed to hit at will.  I’d put it at like 75%.  Ugh.

  • 2007 AAR League

    It’s hard to imagine why they’d use a different randomizer for the AA Guns than for other attacks.

    It may just be observation / confirmation bias -  those times when your bomber is shot down really stick out in your mind, because it hurts so much when you lose that bomber, whereas the times when nothing happens we don’t remember it because it’s no big deal. But everytime your bomber is shot down you think to yourself “Ah ha! This proves that they always hit!”

  • Moderator

    That’s a great point Frood.  I know I remember my disasters much more than my successes.  I can easily recount times of losing 2 planes to one transport or having the lone “Rambo” inf that seems to kill everybody.  But I can’t really pinpoint the battles that took without loss.
    Just like I have an easier time recalling the games I lost then those I won.

    And just to finish up on some more of the rolling (can anyone tell I’m bored at work today  :-D    )

    I ran 4 battles with 20 planes (10 ftrs, 10 bom) vs. aa fire.

    Test 1 - lost 4 (3 ftr, 1 bom) - 4/20 = 20%
    Test 2 - lost 3 (3 ftr, 0 bom) - 3/20 = 15%
    Test 3 - lost 3 (3 ftr, 0 bom) - 3/20 = 15%
    Test 4 - lost 2 (1 ftr, 1 bom) - 2/20 = 10%

    Total - 12/80 = 15% hit rate.

    It’s a small sampling but still right around the 1/6.

    I also tested SBRs specifically.  20 bombers vs. aa gun

    Test 1 - lost 3 - 62 damage, 15% hit rate
    Test 2 - lost 6 - 45 damage, 30% hit rate
    Test 3 - lost 1 - 74 damage, 5% hit rate
    Test 4 - lost 1 - 63 damage, 5% hit rate
    Test 5 - lost 3 - 52 damage, 15% hit rate
    Test 6 - lost 4 - 53 damage, 20% hit rate

    Total - 18/120 = 15% hit rate.

    Since we have it and this is an SBR thread here is:

    Test    Bom/Avg damage per bom    Boms (20)/Avg damage all boms
    Test 1 - 17 for 3.65                              20 for 3.1
    Test 2 - 14 for 3.21                              20 for 2.25
    Test 3 - 19 for 3.89                              20 for 3.7
    Test 4 - 19 for 3.32                              20 for 3.15
    Test 5 - 17 for 3.06                              20 for 2.6
    Test 6 - 16 for 3.31                              20 for 2.65

    So to focus on the expected damage per bom I’ll use the second column only and come up with 120 boms for 349 damage.  So you can expect to do about 2.91 IPC damage per bom.
    And (102/349) about 3.42 IPC damage per surviving bomber (first column).

    Since the hit rate is 1/6, your looking at for every 6 bombing runs either:
    A)  (5 * 3.42) = 17.1 damage  or
    B)  (6 * 2.91) = 17.46 damage

    So, you spend 15 on a bom and you’ll probably need to be lucky to get up to 16, 17, 18 damage with it before it gets shot down.

    Of course the risk could be worth it to essentially trade UK or US income for German income.

  • 2007 AAR League

    That’s also a good final point - just like in chess, even trades are to the advantage of the player with the material advantage. As both sides lose an equal amount, it represents a bigger loss for the player who has fewer IPCs to begin with. And it’s easy for the UK player, there’s nothing Germany can do to stop it except hope his AA gun works. I may be warming up to the idea of SBRs after all.


  • :-o :-o
    I hail thee DM and thoust homework you have done.  Wow, those numbers sure tell a tale.  Thanks for that.  I think actually seeing some numbers and examples helped put things into perspective.


  • I think much of the DAAK AA issue is selective memory.

    EVERYONE remembers the BOM shot down, but not the successful runs.

    And then the cases like 4 FIGs out of 4 being shot down (as one of my gunners did in a game recently) also stick out while all the flights with NO hits are quickly forgotten…

  • 2007 AAR League

    Still, how much money do you want to bet that the first 8 people that read this thread and decide to start SBRs again discover their bombers have met with the afterlife prematurely :)


  • LOL!  Since it would take a large number of games for the averages to even out, and with selective memory remembering only the failures… quite a few :-)

  • 2007 AAR League

    in my game right now i sent 2 japan bombers to moscow, daak rolled snake eyes.
    then jsp sent 2 USA bombers to berlin, the in house roller rolled snake eyes. 
    you get what you get live with it.


  • Yeah, but, how often does the AA gun get super accurate when it comes to F2F play?  It’s never that accurate when playing with people as opposed to on the computer, which seems to have delayed fuses and the like, and maybe magnetic flak.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Well, you can do all the tests you want, but it’s been my personal experience that if I want to do an infantry only push, I use DAAK.  If I want realistic results I use FROOD.  If I have to, I use the FOE or In house roller, both are fair, but hte in house one is a pain to use sometimes because of the typing and the FOE one you have to have an FOE game to use.

    And yes, I’ve seen many of my 20+ infantry pushes score 30-60% accuracy on DAAK.  I see it almost routinely.  I’ve also seen 15 armor, 6 fighters score 0 hits on DAAK. (Same battle no less as the 60% accuracy on the infantry!)

    I’ve oft thought of how pointless it is to bring armor, artillery, fighters or bombers to war with the DAAK server because those units miss more often then my attacking infantry.

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