Digest Number 982

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for Your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at Myinks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/l.m7sD/LId...sNAA/IMSolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this group, email

armybuilder-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are 5 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Re: Need some expert assistance on a complex situation (long post)
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
2. Re: Strange things going on with appended option sorting
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
3. Re: Two quick questions
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
4. Re: Two quick questions
From: "Russell" <rjs@inorbit.com>
5. Re: Two quick questions
From: "jlmartin_excel_net" <jlmartin@wi.rr.com>


__________________________________________________ ______________________
__________________________________________________ ______________________

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 22:48:09 -0700
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
Subject: Re: Need some expert assistance on a complex situation (long post)

At 11:36 AM 8/18/2003 +0200, you wrote:

> ## Hts Spd Trn Shd Arm Trt Ldr
>Escort Squadron 1 - - - - - -
> +Iconoclasts+ 2 1 30cm 90° 1 4+ 1 -
> Weapons battery 30cm - 3 - Left/Front/Right
> +Infidels+ 2 1 30cm 90° 1 5+ 1 -
> Weapons battery 30cm - 2 - Left/Front/Right
> Torpedos 30cm - 2 - Front
> +Infidels+ 2 1 30cm 90° 1 5+ 1 -
> Lance battery 30cm - 1 - Front
> Weapons battery 45cm - 2 - Left/Front/Right
>
>Problem #1. How to get the weapons for each type of escort to appear under
>the escort entry that has been added as a child unit? Please note that in
>Example 1 the weapons appear in the correct order for each escort (they're
>all sorted by option category, so that lances come before weapons and
>longer ranges appear before shorter, etc.), they've all just been lumped
>together at the end.

I'm afraid that, as far as I know, this is impossible using options.

The 'apnd' attribute always appends options to the end of the unit. This
was originally done so that if I have 4 different child units with bolters,
the Bolter option only appears once at the end.

If you want the weapons to appear under every ship, you'll have to use
items to model them.

>Problem #2. Ship limits. I want to allow any combination of the 3 ships
>that doesn't exceed 6 ships in total but I can't seem to find the right
>combination of attributes to use for this when the ships are added as options.

The only way I can think of to do this is to define a hidden statistic, for
the sake of argument called 'MaxSize'. Set the "Escort Squadron" unit to
have a MaxSize of 6, and define a stat comparison using lcmp (unit external
attribute) that makes sure that MaxSize is always >= 0. Then, have each of
the child units (Iconoclasts, Infidels, etc etc) decrease the MaxSize of
their parent (prnt option attribute, I think) by 1. Thus, if you ever have
a negative MaxSize, there will be 7 or more models in the unit, making it
illegal, and an appropriate validation message can be displayed.


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




__________________________________________________ ______________________
__________________________________________________ ______________________

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 22:49:03 -0700
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
Subject: Re: Strange things going on with appended option sorting

At 03:08 PM 8/20/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>I still haven't been able to find a solution to my problem with option
>sorting when the options are part of a unit added as a child via an
>option. Further, I'm really confused on how the option sort order is
>working since the following is happening:
>
>Unit Name ## Hts Spd Trn Shd Arm Trt Ldr Cost
>Corsair Squ. 1 - - - - - - 175
> Corsair 1 1 1 40cm 90° Shadowfield 4+ - [50]
> Corsair 2 1 1 40cm 90° Shadowfield 5+ 1 [60]
> Corsair 3 1 1 35cm 90° Shadowfield 5+ 2 [65]
> Cor3 Wpns 1 Cor3 Weapons 1 -
> Cor3 Wpns 2 Cor3 Weapons 2 -
> Cor1 Wpns 1 Cor1 Weapons 1 -
> Cor1 Wpns 2 Cor1 Weapons 2 -
> Cor2 Wpns 1 Cor2 Weapons 1 -
> Cor2 Wpns 2 Cor2 Weapons 2 -
>
><snip>
>
>With this sorting, ~how~ are the weapon options for Corsair 3 being
>appended ~before~ those for Corsair 1 and 2? I'm 100% ~certain~ that 'Cor1
>Wpns 1', 'Cor1 Wpns 2', 'Cor2 Wpns 1' and 'Cor2 Wpns 2' are set to higher
>categories like I describe above. How exactly does the sorting for
>appended options work?

Strange; could you post the data files in the Files section of this group
so that I can have a look at them?

Thanks,


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




__________________________________________________ ______________________
__________________________________________________ ______________________

Message: 3
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2003 22:58:53 -0700
From: Colen McAlister <colen@wolflair.com>
Subject: Re: Two quick questions

At 04:33 PM 8/22/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>I need to do two different things in a file I'm building and am
>running into problems in that I can't find the right attribute to
>use:
>
>First, a unit can take multiple options which affects their Close
>Combat stat. For example, a short sword is CC=1 while a long sword
>is CC=2. How do I have army builder use the best CC stat from the
>options selected?

Is it possible for a unit to have a short sword *and* a long sword? From
what you've said, it doesn't make any sense for a unit to have both, so the
simple solution is for the options to belong to the same conflict group or
disable one another if selected.

>Second, a unit is allowed to take Rocks. A unit can have up to 3
>Rocks for free, after that they must pay 1 point for every three
>more. IOW, if you take 0-3, the cost zero, from 4-6 the cost is 1
>point, etc.

The simple way is to make two options - 'free rocks' and 'extra rocks'.
Both go from 0-3, while the free rocks are free, and the extra rocks have a
cost of one.

The complex way is to make one option, 'rocks'. Have this option cost 1
point, and go from 0-6. Also create a new stat, called 'NumRocks' for the
sake of argument, and have the option increase this stat by 1 (this means
if 4 rocks are taken, the NumRocks stat will be 4). Then define two other
options, called 'RockFree' and 'RockCost', that are given to the unit if
the 'Rocks' option is selected (using 'more:RockFree=auto' and a similar
rule for RockCost). RockFree should have a cost of 0 and these attributes:

hide
usta:NumRocks<=3
cost:stat@NumRocks*-1

This means that when the NumRocks stat is <= 3, the option will subtract
that NumRocks points from the unit cost, effectively cancelling out the
cost of the 'Rocks' option.

RockCost should have a cost of -3 and these attributes:

hide
usta:NumRocks>=4

This means that when the NumRocks stat is >= 4, the option will always cost
-3 points, effectively cancelling out the first 3 Rocks taken.

Hope this helps,


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




__________________________________________________ ______________________
__________________________________________________ ______________________

Message: 4
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 06:15:39 -0000
From: "Russell" <rjs@inorbit.com>
Subject: Re: Two quick questions

--- In armybuilder@yahoogroups.com, "jlmartin_excel_net"
<jlmartin@w...> wrote:
>
> Second, a unit is allowed to take Rocks. A unit can have up to 3
> Rocks for free, after that they must pay 1 point for every three
> more. IOW, if you take 0-3, the cost zero, from 4-6 the cost is 1
> point, etc.

I needed two extra stats to make this work, but it works :-)
There may be a better way to do this.

You will need two extra stats, T1 & T2 (temp1 and temp2 :-)
Make sure the # of decimals is 0 for T2 (in the stats section of the
def file).
Now you need to change your Rocks option to increment the T1 stat
everytime you add a rock.
So the attributes will be:
rang:0-99 (or whatever your maximum is)
base:T1+1 (if the cost is more than one, change this value to the
cost)

Now create another option with Priority of N/A or Last - as long as
it's after the Rock options priority. This option needs to be
assigned to the same unit(s) as the Rocks option and should have the
following attributes:
hide
usta:T1>3
base:T2=(T1-1/3)-rounddown
cost:stat@T2
cost:single (unless you want the cost to be multiplied by the number
of models in the unit - in which case leave this one out)

Enjoy,
Russell.
--
Russell Sparkes, rjs@inorbit.com, http://www24.brinkster.com/rjsoz
"Experience is what you get just after you needed it" - Unknown



__________________________________________________ ______________________
__________________________________________________ ______________________

Message: 5
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 16:30:14 -0000
From: "jlmartin_excel_net" <jlmartin@wi.rr.com>
Subject: Re: Two quick questions

--- In armybuilder@yahoogroups.com, Colen McAlister <colen@w...>
wrote:
>
> Is it possible for a unit to have a short sword *and* a long
sword? From
> what you've said, it doesn't make any sense for a unit to have
both, so the
> simple solution is for the options to belong to the same conflict
group or
> disable one another if selected.
>

I must apologize since my example was bad. You see, in my file a
unit can take the following say:

Long Sword, Pistol, Rocks, Rifle, Entrnching Tool, Bayonet, etc.

Of the unit's total equipment, one option is going to have the
highest CC score and I wanted this score to show up on stat line as
the CC ability score for the unit.

I could have made a note for each option listing the CC score that
would print out on the roster BUT other units have a CC ability
score 'built in' so it made sense to make it a stat line sort of
thing.

> The simple way is to make two options - 'free rocks' and 'extra
rocks'.
> Both go from 0-3, while the free rocks are free, and the extra
rocks have a
> cost of one.
>

This sounds like the way to go I think. It isn't possible to make
an option cost 1/3 of a point but round up the unit's cost, is it?

Thanks to everyone for your help, I've gotten a lot of food for
thought here.
John



__________________________________________________ ______________________
__________________________________________________ ______________________



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/