Digest Number 838

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There are 11 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Re: Still stumped
From: Justin Pearl <poody3699@yahoo.com>
2. Re: Problem with child unit costs
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
3. Re: Problem with stat formula calculation
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
4. RE: Problem with stat formula calculation
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
5. Re: Still stumped
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
6. Re: Problem with child unit costs
From: "Kerinst <kerinst@yahoo.com>" <kerinst@yahoo.com>
7. Re: Problem with child unit costs
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
8. Re: Problem with child unit costs
From: "Kerinst <kerinst@yahoo.com>" <kerinst@yahoo.com>
9. RE: Problem with stat formula calculation
From: "Michael Earley" <ace@madbomber.net>
10. RE: Problem with stat formula calculation
From: "Badicus O'Shea" <mad-dog-of-michigan@cogeco.ca>
11. Re: Still stumped
From: Justin Pearl <poody3699@yahoo.com>


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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 17:47:31 -0800 (PST)
From: Justin Pearl <poody3699@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Still stumped


im not sure how to post files could you tell me?



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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 19:05:43 -0800
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
Subject: Re: Problem with child unit costs

At 04:01 AM 2/19/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>OK I am creating a point system based off my local groups Stargrunt
>campaign... the problem is we like to have leaders with a different
>weapon and options than their unit... not to te point of 40K or
>warzone... but a leader with a slightly better sensors and hand
>weapon is nice but here is the problem and maybe somebody can
>tell me a different way to do it...
>
>I created the notes for my squad.. automatically added a leader to it
>and cloned it so when the squad improves armor or quality so does the
>leader... but AB does not recalculate the points for the leader based
>off the new quality or armor... any suggestions??

I'm assuming from the above that you used the 'clon' attribute to give the
leader the same options as the unit he leads. This is fine, but it won't
mean that whatever he selects, they select - you need to use the 'mirr'
attribute to do that.

For example, if both the leader and the unit have the option 'hello'
available, just give the leader the attribute 'mirr:hello' and when the
unit selects the option, he will too. If you give him the 'hello' option
with the 'auto' link nature, it'll look disabled, which provides valuable
feedback to the user over why it doesn't respond when he/she clicks it.

Does that help?


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



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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 19:10:01 -0800
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
Subject: Re: 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



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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 19:14:04 -0800
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
Subject: RE: Problem with stat formula calculation

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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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 19:15:11 -0800
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
Subject: Re: Still stumped

At 05:47 PM 2/20/2003 -0800, you wrote:

>im not sure how to post files could you tell me?

Go here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/files/armybuilder/

(You might have to log into yahoogroups first) and click 'Add File'. You
can then just upload a file and tell us where it is.


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



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Message: 6
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 03:42:53 -0000
From: "Kerinst <kerinst@yahoo.com>" <kerinst@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Problem with child unit costs

> I'm assuming from the above that you used the 'clon' attribute to
give the
> leader the same options as the unit he leads. This is fine, but it
won't
> mean that whatever he selects, they select - you need to use
the 'mirr'
> attribute to do that.
>
> For example, if both the leader and the unit have the
option 'hello'
> available, just give the leader the attribute 'mirr:hello' and when
the
> unit selects the option, he will too. If you give him the 'hello'
option
> with the 'auto' link nature, it'll look disabled, which provides
valuable
> feedback to the user over why it doesn't respond when he/she clicks
it.
>
> Does that help?
>
>
> --
> Colen McAlister (colen@w...)
> Lone Wolf Development
www.wolflair.com

OK I tried this and it still did not add his points... I uploaded the
2 files I have so far... the datadef and the wwg humans to wargrunts
folder... if you build a squad then up their armor or quality the
leaders raises as it should... but does not cost anymore than te 5
original points for making an unexperienced soldier... the program
is still in infancy as is the game so sorry there is not much else
there to spur te imagination of the scale we are playing



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Message: 7
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 20:52:21 -0800
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
Subject: Re: Problem with child unit costs

At 03:42 AM 2/21/2003 +0000, you wrote:

>OK I tried this and it still did not add his points... I uploaded the
>2 files I have so far... the datadef and the wwg humans to wargrunts
>folder... if you build a squad then up their armor or quality the
>leaders raises as it should... but does not cost anymore than te 5
>original points for making an unexperienced soldier... the program
>is still in infancy as is the game so sorry there is not much else
>there to spur te imagination of the scale we are playing

OK. The 'mirr' attribute does not work in conjunction with the 'tabl'
attribute. So if you have the 'qual' option using the 'tabl' attribute, the
leader won't be able to mirror it. If instead you just attach all 4 options
individually and 'mirr' them all, the leader will keep track of his rank
correctly. (if you do it like that, you'll also need to use something like
conflict groups and validation rules to make sure users only select a
single rank.)

Also, I note that when you select the heavy weapons trooper, Army Builder
throws up an error. This is because the heavy weapons trooper has a minimum
unit size of 1, while the 'ratp:max=1:5' attribute he has is trying to
force his unit size to 0 when there are less than 5 models in the parent
unit - 0 and 1 cannot be turned into the same number, so AB gives up. What
are you trying to achieve with that attribute?


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



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Message: 8
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 07:41:41 -0000
From: "Kerinst <kerinst@yahoo.com>" <kerinst@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Problem with child unit costs

> OK. The 'mirr' attribute does not work in conjunction with
the 'tabl'
> attribute. So if you have the 'qual' option using the 'tabl'
attribute, the
> leader won't be able to mirror it. If instead you just attach all 4
options
> individually and 'mirr' them all, the leader will keep track of his
rank
> correctly. (if you do it like that, you'll also need to use
something like
> conflict groups and validation rules to make sure users only select
a
> single rank.)
>
> Also, I note that when you select the heavy weapons trooper, Army
Builder
> throws up an error. This is because the heavy weapons trooper has a
minimum
> unit size of 1, while the 'ratp:max=1:5' attribute he has is trying
to
> force his unit size to 0 when there are less than 5 models in the
parent
> unit - 0 and 1 cannot be turned into the same number, so AB gives
up. What
> are you trying to achieve with that attribute?
>
>
> --
> Colen McAlister (colen@w...)
> Lone Wolf Development
www.wolflair.com

First thanks for trying to help me... I am still stumped.. the heavy
weapon I thought I deleted he mistake in there it is gone in my
personal version now the mirror still does not fix my original
problem though... using the mirror or clone work just fine to change
the appropriate attribute... but neither one is changing the cost of
the leader or heavy weapon when I do them... the leader should cost 5
points to take as a green... 15 as a regular and so on...

this works fine for the unit but I do not know how to make the child
calculate the costs... right now for testing we are just subtracting
1 guy from the group to represent the leader... using the 5 points he
keeps costing as just a privelage of taking him sort of thing



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Message: 9
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 09:17:18 -0500
From: "Michael Earley" <ace@madbomber.net>
Subject: RE: Problem with stat formula calculation

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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Message: 10
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 09:39:25 -0500
From: "Badicus O'Shea" <mad-dog-of-michigan@cogeco.ca>
Subject: RE: Problem with stat formula calculation

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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Message: 11
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2003 15:17:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Justin Pearl <poody3699@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Still stumped


ok, my file is on there, its "Tanith.40k". Any input would be helpful.



thanks



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