Oldfast wrote: Also, what a cool store you've got there! Most of the stores around me seem to carry only a handful of safes. There's a couple stores that actually have quite a few - but most tend to be either keypad or direct entry now.
Agreed! This chain of stores is good for practice because the employees aren't all that helpful so that means you tend to be left alone! I found another store that specialized in safes here, and I went in and gave him a big smile and a weird story about "testing" my future safe's security against some shit I learned on youtube. Ha! He basically got real stonefaced and weirded out, and off I without any practice. There is another store that specializes in liberty safes that has several higher end models. I reaaaally want to open some $4K flagship model or something, but I haven't tried it yet--I want to get a little bit faster first since I seem to be averaging 45-65 minutes and I doubt they'd wait that long.Oldfast wrote: So first off I agree with others... I just LOVE your wording and the way you lay it all out as to what went down....
Thanks, Mike! I'm glad you guys are getting some laughs. I got a reeeeaaaallllyyy good one coming up from my open yesterday. Beyond that, I've really appreciated the detail, thoughtfulness, and humble tone of your posts as well. Honestly, not to take anything away from all the other great folks on here, but you have taught me more than anyone else!Oldfast wrote:Are you parking w1, then working wheels 2 & 3? Or are you re-dialing w1 each time?[/color]
Yes, I park W1 and just move 2 and 3 as you discussed. I just expressed it as a R-L-R combo to be specific on the direction the first number was being parked. You are right to ask, however, as I used to redial every time when I first started...ugh!!Oldfast wrote:BUT, I'd still suggest investigating w3 FIRST. As you've already touched on several times here, we're always battling time, for with it comes fatigue. Not only is w3 the most likely, it's also the easiest and
quickest to eliminate. If you have even the slightest of doubts, THEN check out the other wheels.[/color]
So I'm glad you brought this up. I was honestly considering NOT sharing this with the group because I will end up making myself look like an
ENORMOUS nerd, but I have spent the last couple of days modeling various manipulation sequences in Excel. Perhaps I'll share a little now and if you guys find this interesting I'll post more??
This all started when I did a root cause analysis of my manipulation failures and came to a startling realization. In over 100 documented manipulations, over 90% of my FAILURES could be attributed to one mistake and one mistake alone--putting W2's number on W3 or vice versa. I was always catching an authentic gate on my first spin, and if I placed it properly, I typically caught the second gate (although not always). The real problem lay in my ratfuck of hi/lows and isos that happens immediately after the first gate is found. I started thinking hard about hi/low testing, and then I noticed something else--my accuracy rate on a hi/low with ONE gate known was shit, but with TWO gates known, it kicked ass. So that caused me to think about ways of avoiding hi/low testing until two gates are known. And then it got fucking nerdy.
I began thinking about the menu of possible techniques when manipulating a lock, and how different approaches and assumptions cause us to choose different menu items. So then I put it in Excel and modeled three approaches and applied expected value theory to calculate a theoretical time to manipulate a given lock. Sidenote: in this context, time is merely being used as means of comparison. These times are not necessarily realistic, things don't always go in such an orderly fashion, etc. But to make an apples-to-apples comparisons, I used time. In a future version, I plan to use DIAL REVOLUTIONS. HA! That'd be some shit. Okay, so....
My overarching assumptions driving the calculations were as follows:
APPROACHES: "
Conventional"--basically find a gate, do a hi/low, find a gate, do a hi/low, brute force.
"
W3 Optimized"--Find a gate, immediately assume W3, spin for next gate on W1 or W2, do a 2-wheel hi/low, BF
"
W1+W2 Optimized" aka UNCONVENTIONAL and MY NEW FAVORITE: Find a gate,
immediately assume W1 or W2, spin W3 in iso and find second gate or IMMEDIATELY DISCONFIRM assumption, go from there....this is my new shit boys!
I mathematically applied these methods against the different read orders and their associated probabilities:
READ ORDER:3,2,1 @ 54%: Most people say W3 reads first 70% of the time. In my documented manipulations, it has actually read first 54% of the time, and always in a 3,2,1; never 3,1,2. However, I do not have much experience and have only worked with about 20 locks so far.
2,3,1 @ 44%: This one reads surprisingly often for me. There have been three safes I have failed to open in Academy and in every case it was W2 that read first but I blew it after that.
1,2,3 @ 2%: I've had W1 read only 2% of the time in my manipulations.
3,1,2 | 2,1,3 | 1,3,2 : Negligible. I ignored these in the analysis because they have never happened to me, although I know they are possible!
So the next step was to create the menu. I created a list of ALL possible actions when manipulating a lock and then assigned them a time to do the entire dial (where appropriate). Note, in a moment you will see expected times to complete given manipulation. Please note that for consistency, I always assumed the entire dial was being checked (i.e. 100 increments) although I often stop when I have a solid gate indication.
(Sorry for these shitty screenshots--PM me if you want the source file to play with and customize for yourself.)
Next, I used each approach described above and pitted it against each of the read orders. I tried to estimate what my next decision would be after the result of each test. This allowed me to calculate an expected total time for each approach applied to each type of lock. For example, here is the W3 optimized approach.
You'll notice that at the top there is an "expected total time" of 50.24 minutes. This was calculated by applying the read order probability to the time each read order takes: i.e. (54% x 47min)+(44% x 54min)+(2% x 55min) = 50.24 min. Changing the probabilities actually does not change the expected time very much. For example, if I put 70%, 20% 10% in the model I get a total time of 49 minutes.
Again, keep in mind that the times I am showing here are kind of arbitrary. A lot of shit can go wrong, and I tend to do A LOT more steps. The purpose of this exercise was to use time as a dimension of measure, to see if it REALLY mattered which approach I take....
So now, lets look at my new favorite....Take the first gate and ASSUME immediately that it belongs to W1 or W2, NOT W3:
The expected total time got cut off there, but it's 51.3 minutes...
So why pick the W1 or W2 assumption?
Well, for me it all stems from the unreliability of the high-low test and the amount of time it actually takes to do one to completion. I put 5 minutes in the model for 3 wheel hi/low test, but that's only if shit goes perfectly. If I get weird conflicting results, then I find myself in a giant fucking time-consuming, inconclusive gangbang where no one blows their load. It takes more than 5 minutes.
BUT, if I park W1+W2 at the suspected gate, I can take W3 in iso for a full spin fast as fuck--probably as fast or faster than the hi/low gangbang, especially since I may not need to take the dial all the way around. Moreover, I am actually accomplishing the work of searching for a second gate at the same time. It's like finding your first gate, and then finding a second one during the hi/low you would do in a conventional approach. Jackpot. And for me, taking W3 around by itself is the most definitive way to determine if the first gate belonged to W3. If it stays flat and I don't see shit--I will assume the gate was W3's and proceed. If a second gate appears on W3, I have W3's gate known, and the first one on W1 or W2. A quick 2-wheel hi/low, which I know WORKS, will tell me the answer to that question.
The process gets a little sticky if it was actually W1 that read first. In that case, you will normally mistake the first gate found for being W3's and shit will get kinda tricky. The Hi/Low will eventually sort it out although it will take a little longer. The good news is, W1 reading first is in the extreme minority for me.
One last point, searching W3 in iso (W1+W2 @ Rx, W3 LA) is faster than searching W2 in iso like you would if you started out with a W3 optimized approach (W1 @ Lx, W2 RA, W3 @ Lx or W1+W2 RA, W3 @ Lx). In my approach, you don't have to park a wheel before each CP read.
So that's why it makes sense TO ME.
In my limited experience, the fact that W3 reads first more frequently, does not mean that a W3 optimized approach equals a faster, more reliable open. So, in a nutshell: Find a gate, assume W1 or W2 own it, park W1 + W2 at that location, take wheel 3 in isolation, find a second gate or disconfirm original assumption, proceed!
GUYS: I am reeeeallly putting myself out there with this one. Like I said, I wasn't even planning on sharing this, but since Oldfast brought up the W3 thing, I thought I'd toss this out there for you to poke holes. I know I am a total newb and have only been at this since September, but it's become a little all-consuming....so please realize I am not trying to sound like a know-it-all. I'd love to hear from the guys like Oldfast and Alta who actually know what they are doing...Looking forward to the debate this might create!