8 minutes ago, PanchoX1 said:

I also wonder if/how age, wear and tear all come into it. All in all, it's an interesting topic and study.

When I learn of or think of an exploit, my brain immediately starts looking for possibilities. Not even ones I want to act on, just oh, the possibilities ! I think it's because I'm a programmer and that's just my job: look for crazy edge cases, exploits, etc.

Like, consider heat/pressure damage. Place your dice with crit facing up and leave them in the sun for a while. Or put them in the oven at a not-too-hot temperature and put some weight on top. With a few tries and improvements, you could add a subtle millimeter or so of distortion to favor the opposing crit and hit sides, presumably refining the process to the degree that it's hard to tell anything has happened to the die. Now you're actively loading the die, instead of looking for dice that were accidentally loaded in the manufacturing process. Same result, more direct path.

Should anyone do this? No. But this is what my brain decided to fixate on today.

16 minutes ago, Wazat said:

The general conclusion is yes, the dice are not a problem unless someone deliberately builds a pool of good dice by doing a bunch of testing. If they do that, they're not going to be willing to randomly exchange dice: they put a ton of work into getting that competitive advantage. Someone in this thread has already refused to share dice pools because they want to keep that advantage. So people can hedge against their own bad dice by trading around, but that only solves your dice.

It's the people who are willing to put in the work to make a victory dice pool that are the problem. With prizes, fame, and even just competitive ego on the line, people will do it. Not everyone, but it just takes a few.

The variation of any common dice pool is going to be very muted, but a well-assembled victory dice pool can roll so well it'll be like having a free lock/focus on every roll. That's the concern.

@punkUser

I guess I'm just not worried since these people are clearly edge cases, and if you spend that much time to cheat you're probably not that good anyway. To them who would do this I would say; Why spend dozens of hours testing dice when you could just learn to fly your ships and actually have fun doing it?

2 minutes ago, Dr Moneypants said:

I guess I'm just not worried since these people are clearly edge cases, and if you spend that much time to cheat you're probably not that good anyway. To them who would do this I would say; Why spend dozens of hours testing dice when you could just learn to fly your ships and actually have fun doing it?

For the same reason athletes dope. Yes they're training their hearts out, but they'd also like an additional edge. Whether they can win legit isn't as important as winning.

And as we've seen in this thread, as with sports, merely the threat or rumor that others are doing it means many players will pick up the practice to compete with the cheaters. Or at least use that as their excuse.

What if they were also sometimes really good players that also played really well?

Also, for me, it's literally logistically easier to share dice, now that I've tried it for a few months.

@punkUser Regarding your 3D-Printed dice, how much does weight really matter? Are lightweight dice a problem?

Here's why: Would it be better to construct the dice hollow (and thus lighter), but with very dense outer shells, so that all the mass is on the outside? I'm thinking about how that would affect rotational momentum and the die's propensity to land on some plane due to edge flaws. Maybe they'd roll better with the mass all shoved outward. Or maybe that would exacerbate the problem by skipping past good edges and finally coming to a stop on the slightly curved edge. Being hollow may change how the die rebounds from the table too...

There's also the problem of strength and crushing. A hollow shell can deform more easily due to abuse, while a solid die survives compression and impact extremely well.

1 hour ago, Dr Moneypants said:

I guess I'm just not worried since these people are clearly edge cases, and if you spend that much time to cheat you're probably not that good anyway. To them who would do this I would say; Why spend dozens of hours testing dice when you could just learn to fly your ships and actually have fun doing it?

To be clear, I agree with you here... there's no reason to freak out! I hope the article doesn't come off that way when reading it because that was not the message. The suggestion about "considering" sharing dice "at higher levels of competition" is just a suggestion to get ahead and mitigate any potential future issues. People may or may not be abusing this much today (I agree that I doubt they are doing it well although we know some are trying), but the unfortunate effect of publishing this research is that it does give some direction to how one might do it more easily if properly motivated.

1 hour ago, Tlfj200 said:

Also, for me, it's literally logistically easier to share dice, now that I've tried it for a few months.

Right, as I noted elsewhere after "trying out" sharing dice for a few months I don't think I'll go back even if the dice were perfectly fair. It's both simpler and there's less complaining about dice.

If it were some big burden to share dice I agree the results don't make a strong argument that we should do it anyways, but it's arguably simpler to share than to not share One of the few win/wins in the game IMO.

1 hour ago, Wazat said:

@punkUser Regarding your 3D-Printed dice, how much does weight really matter? Are lightweight dice a problem?

I don't imagine it matters a ton. Dice have to be heavy enough to roll/tumble enough given a "reasonable" initial velocity/angular velocity. Light dice just don't feel as satisfying to roll which is why I mentioned it. With 100% infill the 3D printed dice still feel slightly lighter than conventional ones but I doubt it affects their performance much (indeed the indication is that they are more accurate if anything, but that's likely due to more consistent shape).

Quote

Here's why: Would it be better to construct the dice hollow (and thus lighter), but with very dense outer shells, so that all the mass is on the outside? I'm thinking about how that would affect rotational momentum and the die's propensity to land on some plane due to edge flaws. Maybe they'd roll better with the mass all shoved outward. Or maybe that would exacerbate the problem by skipping past good edges and finally coming to a stop on the slightly curved edge. Being hollow may change how the die rebounds from the table too...

The risk there would be that you emphasize any shape error. Filled dice are likely easier to manufacture, have less of a chance of having highly skewed centers of gravity and are likely more durable for equivalent weight as you noted. In any case with consumer 3D printing it's not really an option to make the "shell" denser per se without a different material. PLA is fairly light so the densest you can get is 100% infill. (effectively the whole thing is the shell).

Would be interesting to see people follow up with more tests to nail down the specifics of all of this even better. I do intend to test some Gravity Dice when I get my hands on them in any case which will add another set of interesting data!

@punkUser No, your article definitely does not come off that way. And thank you for your work. It's very interesting. I would say the reactions to the work may lean a little towards "freak out" or "the sky is falling" or sometimes even "X-Wing is broken forever"

1 minute ago, Dr Moneypants said:

@punkUser No, your article definitely does not come off that way. And thank you for your work. It's very interesting. I would say the reactions to the work may lean a little towards "freak out" or "the sky is falling" or sometimes even "X-Wing is brok   en forever"

Yeah I mean, internet and all... that said it has actually been less freak out than I was expecting TBH

Just now, Dr Moneypants said:

@punkUser No, your article definitely does not come off that way. And thank you for your work. It's very interesting. I would say the reactions to the work may lean a little towards "freak out" or "the sky is falling" or sometimes even "X-Wing is broken forever"

You're not wrong. It just seems a little weird.

It's so comically easy to share dice; we suspect cheating is rare. It's just logistically easier, and eliminates most inter-player variance.

It also just so happens to also accidentally partially mitigate potential cheaters, with basically no effort or need to figure out who they are.

But the focus has swiftly been on cheating, and "nuh uh, not touching MY dice!"

https://youtu.be/zbkizy-Y3qw?t=101

Seeing this thread, I can't help but think of a Star Trek: TNG Episode - "The Royale"...

On 6/18/2019 at 10:36 AM, punkUser said:

To date I have tested 30 X-Wing core set dice (17 red and 13 green) spanning from the initial X-Wing first edition release up to and including the second edition core set. Each die was rolled at least 20,000 times for a combined total of over 600,000 rolls. These dice have been set aside and labeled and will never be used in a game of X-Wing since their distributions are now known.

Why would you do this? If your not going to use them will you sell red die # 6, 15, 17 and green die # 8? I would love to know that my dice are fair!

@punkUser would you be interested in painting the faces of one of the known fair dice, and testing it?

Here's my question.

Should we not use better, genuinely better dice? Dicerolls are one thing but genuinely, here, guys... consistent dicerolls help reward good flying.

I don't know. I'm not going to say I don't see the problem, but if you have crap dice, you should be allowed to do something about it.

I'm fine with fixing crap dice and getting back toward fair dice, but not going beyond that to make an unfairly good dice pool. (finding more fair dice is discussed a bit back in the thread, btw)

I only had one opponent ask to share dice with me at a tournament today, it didn't really seem like a big deal. I think he was doing it to see what would happen, and nobody today I saw got annoyed at him. It didn't seem to affect the game much. I didn't do anything gross to my dice beforehand so there were probably no diseases spread (although we both had two ship lists which is a sort of disease, but I digress...)

I guess what I'm saying is that having actually encountered it at a tournament, this sort of seems like a non-issue. Share dice if you care I guess, it's not a big deal.

16 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Here's my question.

Should we not use better, genuinely better dice? Dicerolls are one thing but genuinely, here, guys... consistent dicerolls help reward good flying.

I don't know. I'm not going to say I don't see the problem, but if you have crap dice, you should be allowed to do something about it.

Is that a serious question?

34 minutes ago, Chumbalaya said:

Is that a serious question?

What a useful answer, 10/10! Gave me exactly what I sought!

If you're going to reply with that, don't reply at all.

Everyone should have the same chances to roll above/below average result via sharing dice.

I have never asked to share dice but, for fairness, i'll start.

1 hour ago, Captain Lackwit said:

What a useful answer, 10/10! Gave me exactly what I sought!

If you're going to reply with that, don't reply at all.

Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers.

I asked my opponents today if we could share dice. All said this was fine.

I got pretty average results all day, which is an improvement on my normal dice results!

Happy with that outcome, so thank you for all that research. Long may it continue.

On 6/22/2019 at 1:38 AM, Wazat said:

Also  , reading the article comments  

If into the comments section you go, only salt you shall find.

Hackaday comments are at least as bad as FFG forum complaint threads. Any time someone uses an arduino, grumpy commenters complain that it's "not a hack" and that they should have used a 555 timer instead. It's a good site but it has never needed a comments section

8 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:

What a useful answer, 10/10! Gave me exactly what I sought!

If you're going to reply with that, don't reply at all.

It's...... not an answer

🤔

Sounds like Alex read the article at least And certainly reasonable replies.

I actually know someone in the X-Wing community who tested all of his dice for a few thousands rolls each and has a set of dice that "perform best," which is why he rolls a mixture of various prize dice. It's not to use one of each of his favorite styles of dice but because he believes those particular dice will roll the best for him. He's a multiple-time Regional Champion and has frequently Top 4'ed big events. I always said it seemed kind of shady and unfair, but he insisted that it was allowed and he that he was using (but not modifying) official legal game products.

He also said he was sure other players had done the same, so by not doing so he'd be at a disadvantage. That always seemed unlikely to me, but then there are people who eat, breathe, and sleep X-Wing. People who have all of their social media profile and background pictures be of them playing X-Wing or holding X-Wing trophies. People who practice on Vassal for hours every night. People who take 1-2 weekends a month off of work/family to travel for X-Wing, even to marginal events. People who spend countless hours making or listening to podcasts. It's probably not unreasonable that some such folks could find a few hours here and there to test their and cull their dice, given they are sinking so much time and effort into the hobby anyways.