Sim FAQ Where can I buy this sim? What's the difference between aggression and killer instinct? What do the "control" points in my setup do? How do endurance and stamina affect fights? How do the defense ratings affect fights? How do injuries happen? What determines the type of punches thrown? Is there a "last round" effect? What's with these blankety-blank judges? Can the sim play favorites? Last modified: November 16 2000
	Where can I buy this sim?
	You can't! It's a home-brew project written just for me by a friend. I originally joined the WEBA to get some new ideas for his "hobby" sim by seeing how a boxing league used one! And EricVT started the fed with another, commercial, boxing sim. But Eric found he had to write most of the WEBA action text himself, there was no female-oriented action, and the other sim's author wasn't entirely cool about Eric using it for a Web-based league. So when the WEBA's first scheme for running the cards began to come unglued, I offered to run them using my friend's sim because it made fight files that could be emailed almost "as is". But the sim is still only a hobby project, not a would-be commercial package. It's text-only, doesn't have a nice interface, and it's now been set up just to make some routine things that I do for the WEBA go faster. It won't be distributed beyond me any time soon....
	What's the difference between aggression and killer instinct?
	A key ingredient in each fight is "control". There's a chance for a punch to be thrown every second or two. For your fighter to throw a punch she must be momentarily "in control" relative to the other boxer. She can keep control for several seconds by landing a hard punch that rocks her opponent (or puts her on the ropes or into a corner). But in "normal" action control goes back and forth rapidly between the two boxers. It's done by random numbers "loaded" in ways that depend on factors that are calculated at the start of each fight from the two boxer setups and are then modified as the fight progresses. Your fighter's "aggression" strongly affects whether she takes control when she answers the bell for each round, or when action resumes after a clinch or other stoppage. Other things being equal, a more aggressive fighter will take control more often than a passive fighter during normal action. So, her aggression creates chances to throw punches. Her "killer instinct" affects only situations where she lands a big punch that rocks her opponent. High values increase how long she keeps control when this happens. So, when other things are equal, a more aggressive fighter is more likely to win control throughout the round, while a fighter with a big "killer instinct" is more likely to capitalize on big opportunities to dominate rounds or to set up a knockout. If a fighter doesn't create many big opportunities for herself, having a high "killer instinct" won't do her much good. Being very aggressive will increase the number of big opportunities, as  will punching very hard or very accurately. Every fighter gets some aggression and killer instinct from their Part 2 skills, but you can also add to them in Part 3.
	What do the "Control" points in my setup do?
	The sim program uses many more parameters for your boxer than you specified directly. Her fighting style is based on many attributes that get calculated from the values that you specify. The Part 2 inputs make a "basic boxer" who is enhanced by your Part 3 inputs. One item that is calculated from all of your inputs is a rating called "ability to control a boxer". Another is "ability to control a slugger". Every boxer starts every fight with her "basic" control factor, slightly different when she's facing a boxer than when she's facing a slugger. These "basic" control values for beginning WEBA boxers are usually in the range 11-17. When the sim runs, each fighter gets many opportunities in every round to throw punches. She must be momentarily in "control" of the action to land a punch. Whether or not she keeps control at that instant depends on (a) what effect her punch has if it lands and (b) a combination of her control factor and her opponent's control factor at that moment in the fight. If she lands a big punch that knocks her opponent silly, or into the ropes, she may keep control no matter what. But if she lands an "ordinary" punch, what happens next is governed by the "control factors". The greater her control factor relative to her opponent's at that moment, the better her chance to put several punches together and so to win a round on points, or to make something exciting happen! In training, you may add directly to your fighter's basic control against a boxer for $70,000, or to her control against a slugger for another $70,000. Doing so will increase both the number of punches she will land per round and her ability to put a string of punches together and so get her opponent in trouble. We think added control is more valuable than simply adding +1 to her punching power (for example), but not as valuable as adding +1 to her basic ring generalship or general boxing skills. So added control is priced in between these two possibilities. Control points are considered to be within Part 2 of the boxer setup for training and retraining purposes.
	How do endurance and stamina affect fights?
	Every boxer starts each fight with her full capabilities. But taking punches and, to some extent, landing them, will tire her out. Past a certain point, she begins to lose her mobility and punching power, her gloves may come down, making her easier to hit and more vulnerable to knockouts, etc. Her endurance rating controls how quickly this loss of performance occurs. The basic (Part 2) endurance rating also affects some other behavior, but the added (Part 3) stamina goes right into staving off loss of performance, and nowhere else. A "typical" WEBA fighter goes six to eight "average" rounds before losing much ability, but even one punishing round in can make a big difference to the losing fighter.  There is also a big range in endurance among WEBA fighters: some are getting through long fights without much loss of performance while others are tiring after only a few rounds.
	How do the defense ratings affect fights?
	Good defense reduces the fraction of the opponent's punches that land. Your boxer's initial defense rating is calculated from a blend of her other skills, then it is improved by any "extra defense" setting you give her in Part 3 of the setup. Also, when your boxer is backed up onto the ropes or in a corner, her opponent's ability to land punches is increased, but you can compensate for this using the "corner fighting" part of the setup.
	How do injuries happen?
	Every time a hard punch lands somewhere vulnerable, the sim looks at the possibility of an injury, such as a cut opening up. Each boxer's resistance to cuts comes from a mix of her setup parameters, including but not limited to, the "not cut" ability, and her opponent's current punching power. Severe injuries like broken noses and jaws are possible but rare (they may become more of a factor as WEBA boxers improve their punching power through training!). Fouls like head butts, backfists etc. can also produce injuries. And a fighter who lands a hard punch can also injure herself while doing so ("hurt hand"). Cuts are more likely to widen once opened than they are to open in the first place. And fighters with higher foul rating will concentrate more on making this happen, especially when they get behind in the fight! Injuries reduce a boxer's defense and effectiveness depending on where they are (above an eye is more serious than below) and on whether the corner can work on them between rounds (facial cuts can be closed, but not a bloody nose or mouth). So injuries are a result of your boxer's condition and her opponent's punching power and foul rating, plus exactly where hard punches land.
	What determines the type of punches thrown?
	The sim uses different punching patterns for boxers and sluggers. Boxers throw more jabs and combinations, sluggers throw more crosses and uppercuts. Beyond this, the fraction of punches that are "hard" is adjusted by the punching power rating, and the fraction that are combinations is adjusted by the "combination" rating. Only "hard" punches can produce knockouts, send an opponent into the ropes, open cuts legally etc. (fouls like head butts do not score as punches but can open cuts illegally!). The mix of longer-range punches like jabs and crosses, and of shorter-range punches like hooks and uppercuts changes during the round according to whether the boxers are fighting inside or outside. As the scorecards are based on the number of punches landed, boxers who throw more combinations may have some advantage over one-punch sluggers. But sluggers may be more aggressive.  The sim has been set up so that the average boxer and the average slugger (same points everywhere in the initial setup) are very closely matched, so there is no built-in advantage to being a boxer versus a slugger.
	Is there a "last round" effect?
	Yes. Fighters get some of their original punching power back in the final rounds, though their (reduced) defense stays the same. This can let a fighter who is winning put her opponent away in the late going to keep a fight off the scorecards. A fighter who is far behind can also fight more desperately near the end, in a "go for broke" mode where she can land more big punches but will also take more in return. This feature can produce exciting finishes in close fights, allow dominant fighters to keep fights away from the scorecards with late kayoes, or make stunning reversals of fortune in the late going. So you may often see some extra effort  near the ends of fights, on the side of increased offence without increased defense, and hence we do see "extra" late kayoes in WEBA action!
	What's with these blankety-blank judges?
	They are deliberately a bit screwed up, so that we get a range of scores, split decisions, etc. and the occasional travesty, just like real boxing! They try to score rounds by counting legal punches landed, as in amateur boxing. Every punch that lands counts one and combinations count two or (rarely) three. To make the judges disagree and allow for occasional "crazy judges", small random numbers are added or subtracted from the punch tallies for each round to deliberately mess up the counting. These will even out over many rounds and many fights, and no individual boxers are favored in any way by them. The random factor does mean that you have to win a round convincingly to be sure of winning it in all three judges' scorecards, however. The judges do take account of knockdowns, but it depends on whether the knockdown is part of the trend of the action. A boxer who takes a short count in a round that she otherwise wins won't lose the round automatically just because she was knocked down. However, a boxer who is decked hard in a round that she is already clearly losing will lose by a bigger margin because of a knockdown (10-8 or even 10-7 against 10-9). Standing eight counts are scored like knockdowns that result in eight counts, so a standing eight count will usually cost the fighter the round on the scorecards (unless the action is very see-saw with both fighters taking counts!). A few players have asked why this sim uses "amateur" type scoring that does not directly reward "hard" punching or aggression. Our sim writer justifies this approach because "hard" punching and aggression are already rewarded inside the sim by increasing the hard-puncher's "control" of the ring situation, so this should work out in the end.
	Can the sim play favorites?
	The fighting part of the sim does not use the boxers' names, home towns or past records in any way to determine either the action or the scoring. The action depends strictly on the setup numbers at the start of the fight, and the changes to the fighters' conditions produced by the action that takes place during the fight. At the action level of the sim, everything is just "Fighter1 hits Fighter2 hard/soft in the whatever" and "Fighter 2 reacts". The fighters' ring names are added only as the lines of text that describe what has just happened are written out to a file. They are not used in any way to influence the action. Any fighter may suffer injustice in a particular bout because the sim deliberately uses random numbers to mess up the judges' scoring and to also to decide when referees hand out standing eight counts, or points deductions, or stop fights. Many fight details also depend on random numbers, to make every fight different, even between identical fighter setups. Injustice can occur when random numbers don't even out fairly over the two boxers in a fight. We can get unfair decisions by judges or inconsistent behavior by referees. This is deliberate, to make this sim more like real boxing, only without the bribes! But because the sim does not use your fighter's name in any way internally, no fighter can ever be singled out for "bad calls", and the sim will be unbiased over many fights. The WEBA also runs just one sim per fight. It uses the result of that sim no matter how strange or unfair it may seem. You can have a run of tough luck, as in any game of chance, but over the long haul it is your fighter setup and training that determines how well she performs. Fighters are welcome to role-play their outrage at a bad call in the WEBA bulletin boards, but there is in fact no appeal against any bad call by the officials, except to challenge your opponent to a rematch! The agony of unfair defeat is part of the WEBA experience, but it is not selective!

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