Yes - and this can be AWESOME. In a deterministic engine, anything not affected by player input can be forecast accurately - by the computer, not the human user

Yes - and this can be AWESOME. In a deterministic engine, anything not affected by player input can be forecast accurately - by the computer, not the human user. For NBA Inside Drive 2000, I developed all the ball physics to be deterministic and "reasonably" accurate (25 years ago, in a world without physics engines). This meant that after a player made a shot and the ball left their hands, the trajectory, scoring or bouncing off the rim, was purely controlled by deterministic physics. This in turn meant that we could foresee what was going to happen, and feed the player AI with that while the ball was in flight. Obvious use was to move characters with high rebounds stats towards the place where the ball would bounce after not scoring, so they're more likely to pick the rebound. [edit: for shooting the ball, the instant the ball would leave the player's hands I computed the perfect trajectory to hit a shot, and then based on the player stats, I'd nudge the trajectory off center. It was then purely up to the physics to determine if the ball went in or what]