Problem with stat formula calculation

Ok--here is my stats section from a file I recently helped a friend
create:

Stats
Edge | 1 | 1 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~27
EMB | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~28
MOV | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~29
WV | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~30
AV | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~31
WVB | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~32
AVB | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~33
TUB | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~34
ETB | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~35
EUB | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~36
TWT | 2 | 1 | 20.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~37
X2 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 99.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
&TUB-&ETB-&EUB~38
DX1 | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
&WV+&WVB+&EUB~39
HX1 | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
&AV+&AVB+&EUB~40
Att | 2 | 1 | 3.0 | 20.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
&TWT-&WVB~41
Def | 2 | 1 | 3.0 | 20.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
&TWT-&AVB-&X2~42
Mor | 2 | 1 | 3.0 | 20.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
&TWT-&EMB-&X2~43
MP | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
&MOV+&TUB+&EUB~44
Dam | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 99.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
.~DX1*# 45
Hits | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 99.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
.~HX1*# 46

The problem is with the last 2 stats--right now I have them commented
out so I cna keep using the file. But when I try the formula

DX1*#

where the calculation is to take teh stat DX1 and multiply it by the
unti count, it doesn't work--it says "Invalid Arithmetic Stat
Expression".

Any clues what I'm doing wrong? I wrote the formula exactly as it
appears in the Construction Kit manual.


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The friend he's helping is me :-)

If one needs to see the original unit stats/formulae, they can be found here
http://home.cogeco.ca/~shattered-sph...ules/military/ Some adjustments
have had to be made to accomodate ABCreator.

As an aside, as a completely new entrant to this program I must say that the
Manual to ABCreator is incredibly hard to use if not virtually useless
without a guiding hand. If it wasn't for Mike E's help so far on this, I'd
be completely lost intead of the just supremely confused the way I am right
now. While I never had an illusion it'd be easy... I didn't think it'd be
this hard either. Maybe somebody at the company might want to look at
creating a slightly more user friendly version of the manual. One that uses
a bit more plain english than engineer-ese.



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[Colen]

At 08:00 PM 2/19/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>Ok--here is my stats section from a file I recently helped a friend
>create:
>
>Stats
> Edge | 1 | 1 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~27
> EMB | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . | .~28
<snip snip snip>
> MP | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
>&MOV+&TUB+&EUB~44
> Dam | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 99.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
>.~DX1*# 45
> Hits | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 99.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
>.~HX1*# 46
>
>The problem is with the last 2 stats--right now I have them commented
>out so I cna keep using the file. But when I try the formula
>
>DX1*#
>
>where the calculation is to take teh stat DX1 and multiply it by the
>unti count, it doesn't work--it says "Invalid Arithmetic Stat
>Expression".
>
>Any clues what I'm doing wrong? I wrote the formula exactly as it
>appears in the Construction Kit manual.

When you're using 'DX1' and 'HX1' in the last two expressions, you need to
prefix them with either $ or &. As you've used the & prefix above, it means
'adjusted value of the stat' - $ prefix means 'base value of the stat'. So
for example, your last two rules might look like:

$DX1*#
$HX1*#

(this is on page 21 of the construction kit .rtf manual, by the way).


--
Colen McAlister (colen@wolflair.com)
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com


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[Colen]

At 10:38 PM 2/19/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>The friend he's helping is me :-)
>
>If one needs to see the original unit stats/formulae, they can be found here
>http://home.cogeco.ca/~shattered-sph...ules/military/ Some adjustments
>have had to be made to accomodate ABCreator.
>
>As an aside, as a completely new entrant to this program I must say that the
>Manual to ABCreator is incredibly hard to use if not virtually useless
>without a guiding hand. If it wasn't for Mike E's help so far on this, I'd
>be completely lost intead of the just supremely confused the way I am right
>now. While I never had an illusion it'd be easy... I didn't think it'd be
>this hard either. Maybe somebody at the company might want to look at
>creating a slightly more user friendly version of the manual. One that uses
>a bit more plain english than engineer-ese.

If you're a beginner at writing datafiles, we recommend you take an
existing file and just adapt it for your needs, rather than starting 'from
scratch'. I wrote datafiles for AB for years, and every time I needed to
create a new game system, I just took an existing one and modified it. The
manual as it stands is 84 pages long; if you have any specific suggestions
for improvements we'll take them into consideration, but for some reason we
really don't feel like going through and rewriting the whole thing right
now.

If you have any further questions, feel free to post them here for advice.


--
Colen McAlister (colen@wolflair.com)
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com


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Well, color me stupid. I hate it when I miss something obvious like that.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Colen McAlister [mailto:colen@wolflair.com]
>Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 10:10 PM
>To: armybuilder@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [AB] Problem with stat formula calculation
>
>
>At 08:00 PM 2/19/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>>Ok--here is my stats section from a file I recently helped a friend
>>create:
>>
>>Stats
>> Edge | 1 | 1 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
>. | . | .~27
>> EMB | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
>. | . | .~28
><snip snip snip>
>> MP | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 20.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
>>&MOV+&TUB+&EUB~44
>> Dam | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 99.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
>>.~DX1*# 45
>> Hits | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | 99.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | . | . |
>>.~HX1*# 46
>>
>>The problem is with the last 2 stats--right now I have them commented
>>out so I cna keep using the file. But when I try the formula
>>
>>DX1*#
>>
>>where the calculation is to take teh stat DX1 and multiply it by the
>>unti count, it doesn't work--it says "Invalid Arithmetic Stat
>>Expression".
>>
>>Any clues what I'm doing wrong? I wrote the formula exactly as it
>>appears in the Construction Kit manual.
>
>When you're using 'DX1' and 'HX1' in the last two expressions,
>you need to
>prefix them with either $ or &. As you've used the & prefix
>above, it means
>'adjusted value of the stat' - $ prefix means 'base value of
>the stat'. So
>for example, your last two rules might look like:
>
>$DX1*#
>$HX1*#
>
>(this is on page 21 of the construction kit .rtf manual, by the way).
>
>
>--
>Colen McAlister (colen@wolflair.com)
>Lone Wolf Development
>www.wolflair.com
>
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, email
>
>
>armybuilder-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
>http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>

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Colen McAlister wrote:

If you're a beginner at writing datafiles, we recommend you take an
existing file and just adapt it for your needs, rather than starting 'from
scratch'. I wrote datafiles for AB for years, and every time I needed to
create a new game system, I just took an existing one and modified it. The
manual as it stands is 84 pages long; if you have any specific suggestions
for improvements we'll take them into consideration, but for some reason we
really don't feel like going through and rewriting the whole thing right
now.

If you have any further questions, feel free to post them here for advice.

--
Colen McAlister (colen@wolflair.com)
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------

Considering that the Army Builder cost me about a weeks worth of groceries,
or about $60 Dollars (I'm Canadian, so the exchange is a factor.) and so
that's a fair chunk of change. I certainly haven't felt I've gotten my worth
out of the product yet. I'm not a WH40K player nor am I a player of most of
the games that existing files cover. Modifying existing files doesn't do me
much good when one still needs to understand how the game you're modifying
works, which I don't. Even the sole Battletech file wasn't much help because
it's far more complicated than anything I understand from the manual.

The Construction Kit Manual isn't much good. You can toss me allot of "It's
right here in the manual" comments, but while the information maybe there it
isn't that readily apparent to a newbie like me. It's technogabble for the
most part. Sure to someone who may understand already the in's and out's of
the program and programming in general might not have a problem with it but
they're not the ones who absolutely need a manual. I've picked up on most of
what's been taught to me so far quite readily but that doesn't mean the
manual doesn't have it's gaps. It really needs to simplify it's language or
have a section added in with such language, explaining the process better.
It's like where I have my game's statistics and the game rules. The
statistics are straightforward but they still require an english explanation
and without one, the overall game isn't much good. The same applies to Army
Builder in this case.

Regardless, you've heard the gripe and it's up to the company to decide if
it's worth acting upon. I won't press the issue any further.

- TMX
Email: mad_dog_of_michigan@cogeco.ca
ICQ: 6434166
AIM: Terminax01


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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[Colen]

At 09:39 AM 2/21/2003 -0500, you wrote:

>Considering that the Army Builder cost me about a weeks worth of groceries,
>or about $60 Dollars (I'm Canadian, so the exchange is a factor.) and so
>that's a fair chunk of change. I certainly haven't felt I've gotten my worth
>out of the product yet. I'm not a WH40K player nor am I a player of most of
>the games that existing files cover. Modifying existing files doesn't do me
>much good when one still needs to understand how the game you're modifying
>works, which I don't. Even the sole Battletech file wasn't much help because
>it's far more complicated than anything I understand from the manual.
>
>The Construction Kit Manual isn't much good. You can toss me allot of "It's
>right here in the manual" comments, but while the information maybe there it
>isn't that readily apparent to a newbie like me. It's technogabble for the
>most part. Sure to someone who may understand already the in's and out's of
>the program and programming in general might not have a problem with it but
>they're not the ones who absolutely need a manual. I've picked up on most of
>what's been taught to me so far quite readily but that doesn't mean the
>manual doesn't have it's gaps. It really needs to simplify it's language or
>have a section added in with such language, explaining the process better.
>It's like where I have my game's statistics and the game rules. The
>statistics are straightforward but they still require an english explanation
>and without one, the overall game isn't much good. The same applies to Army
>Builder in this case.

We understand your concerns regarding the quality of the documentation, but
unfortunately we're heavily engaged in other projects right now; there
simply aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done that we'd like
to. The next time we revise the documentation, we'll do our best to improve
it and incorporate your suggestions.

Incidentally, my apologies if I came over as uncaring and flippant in my
original post, but we're coming up to a major release date here and things
are (as always) a bit hectic.

And again, if you have queries feel free to post them here and I or someone
else will do our best to help out.

Thanks,


--
Colen McAlister (colen@wolflair.com)
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com


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[rob]

Greetings,

I'm the one who has to make the decisions around here about what
does/doesn't get done and when, so I thought I should share my thoughts on
this one. :-)

First of all, I'm sorry the Construction Kit documentation hasn't been
overly useful to you. I'm the one who wrote it, so you can point the finger
at me.

There's a LOT of sophistication within Army Builder, and that translates
into a lot of potential complexity if you want to utilize all the power.
I'm a techie, and all of the early data file authors were also techies, so
the documentation is written to that target audience. That unfortunately
makes for a very steep learning curve for non-techies (and even a
moderately steep one for techies). To offset that, we do our best to
provide helpful suggestions on this forum, answering specific questions
that users submit.

The current manual is a reference manual, with very little in the way of
"walkthroughs". A tutorial is present, but that only covers the basics to
get someone started. I'm assuming you've gone through that already. If not,
it's definitely worth a look, as it answers many of the basic questions
that come up.

Here's the problem on this end. We're a TINY company. As of 6 months ago,
our staff consisted of only TWO people. We've thankfully grown a little bit
since then, adding a marketing consultant and Colen as a developer. Please
realize that this staff has to cover sales, marketing, finance,
development, support, the website, blah, blah, blah. We also have TWO
products now, so both need to be serviced. Since we don't have a huge staff
around here, it is a constant juggle to decide what we work on. We have
users clamoring for new features, plus we have authors asking for better
tools and/or better documentation. There are not enough resources around
here to do everything we'd like, so we have to take our best guess as to
what's going to be the optimal course. Regardless of what we choose,
someone is going to be unhappy with the result, and that includes us, since
we honestly would like the product to be a great experience for everyone.
The reality is that that's just not possible, so we do the best we can and
strive to fill in the holes with good technical support (that's the goal,
at least).

Writing good documentation is VERY time-consuming. Writing good tutorials
is even more time-consuming. I'm not sure if you've done either task
before, but it's a huge drain of resources - the same resources that add
new features to the products. Lots of users would argue we should spend
more time adding features. Authors like yourself contend we should improve
the documentation. So it's a juggling act.

When we next update AB, we will definitely work to enhance the
documentation. But we can't do that overnight. In the meantime, please post
your questions to this forum and we'll do our best to answer them. The more
information you can provide about your game, the better we can assist you.
You're welcome to ask open-ended questions, such as "here's the game
mechanic, how should I best model this within AB?". The folks here (which
includes many other data file authors) can usually offer good guidance,
pointing you at the features within AB that you need to utilize for your
game. From there, you can focus in on those features, learn how they work,
ask additional questions as necessary, and ignore all the other stuff that
you don't need. That makes your time with AB as efficient and productive as
possible. :-)

Hope this helps,
Rob

At 09:39 AM 2/21/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Considering that the Army Builder cost me about a weeks worth of groceries,
>or about $60 Dollars (I'm Canadian, so the exchange is a factor.) and so
>that's a fair chunk of change. I certainly haven't felt I've gotten my worth
>out of the product yet. I'm not a WH40K player nor am I a player of most of
>the games that existing files cover. Modifying existing files doesn't do me
>much good when one still needs to understand how the game you're modifying
>works, which I don't. Even the sole Battletech file wasn't much help because
>it's far more complicated than anything I understand from the manual.
>
>The Construction Kit Manual isn't much good. You can toss me allot of "It's
>right here in the manual" comments, but while the information maybe there it
>isn't that readily apparent to a newbie like me. It's technogabble for the
>most part. Sure to someone who may understand already the in's and out's of
>the program and programming in general might not have a problem with it but
>they're not the ones who absolutely need a manual. I've picked up on most of
>what's been taught to me so far quite readily but that doesn't mean the
>manual doesn't have it's gaps. It really needs to simplify it's language or
>have a section added in with such language, explaining the process better.
>It's like where I have my game's statistics and the game rules. The
>statistics are straightforward but they still require an english explanation
>and without one, the overall game isn't much good. The same applies to Army
>Builder in this case.
>
>Regardless, you've heard the gripe and it's up to the company to decide if
>it's worth acting upon. I won't press the issue any further.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (559) 658-6995
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com


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