Frood AACalc Dicey / Sim / Odds Calculator: Updates and Opinions

Yes, don’t worry. This will be a long process.

I am actually thinking I might leave the old one in place, and develop the new one at a new location (maybe even the main page of frood.net, since this gets all my traffic really for the site, or at http://aacalc.frood.net/ or something like that. This will be necessary because the new one won’t initially have all the features that the old one does, but once it is running smoothly and people are using it I will move it over. I may have to recruit some beta testers to help it along, because I can’t test every combination of features myself anymore.

And just for the record - that last glitch was totally unforeseen - it was not the result of any changes I made to the code, but because the google ads I added to the page caused the page to be invisibly run twice for each set of results. Okay, I guess I should have tested it - but still, it was a really weird glitch that I couldn’t really have expected.

Thanks for that reminder - I’ve been thinking about changing the layout of the page for that reason. I’ll see what I can do.

What I aimed for was to get it to work at 1024*768.

My display is one 12801024 and one 16801050.  :evil: One shows the map, and one shows the browser.

@Baghdaddy:

I don’t know what most folks run by my monitor chugs along at 1400 x 1050 pixels.  Getting the dicey into 700 x 1050 would be sweet.

Here’s one thing you can do in the meantime:

1. Go to the frood.net main page
2. In the “Try different design” select box, choose the “scratchy” design and click "Rest of browser session. That design is a little borked but it does place the links at the top of the page.

Whoopeee!!!

Head on over to http://frood.net/aacalc/beta/ and try the new AACalc - basically the form has been greatly simplified - just type in your battle eg. 3 Inf 2 Ftrs v. 2 Inf 1 Arm. OOL is based on the order in which units are listed.

So this gets rid of all the individual fields and much mouse-clicking. It should also fix the problem with OOL not working for some people.

The biggest benefit though will be that it is now really easy for me to add units to the game. Just for shits and giggles, I’ve added a Zombie unit - it’s worth 20 IPCs, but it attacks on a 4 and defends on a 5! Try it out at http://frood.net/aacalc/beta/.

So I expect to be adding NA units to the Calc in short order.

At present it will only accept one group of units of each type for each side. Eventually I may add support for what you are seeking. I’ve thought about it but it will involve some pretty complicated work.

However, there is already a control for land units to die last - look on the right hand side. It will also work for transports (in case you are attacking with both loaded and unloaded transports)

I think I’m going to say no to this particular request. If you wish to have a default OOL, I suggest posting it at the beginning of your game thread.

Besides, it’s not really rocket surgery - count your inf first, then your art, then your arm, etc.

Note that now you can enter separate groups, and they just get added together, with OOL being based on the first occurrence of the unit type. Also note that extraneous data just gets discarded. So I think in theory you could enter this:

3 Inf (Belo) 1 Arm WRus 2 Inf 2 Ftrs Ukraine v. 4 Inf

So far not too many complaints about the new beta in terms of bugs. There really shouldn’t be any, because it’s just a change to the input - the dicey logic is still the same. I did have to do some special coding to accommodate the addition of damaged battleships into the OOL, but that appears to be working now.

I think what I may do is put the old version in a sub-page, and put the new version in the main location, with a link to the old version for those who have problems with the new one. That way if some horrible bug comes to light, the old one is still available.

@ncscswitch:

For sim purposes, the original version is easier to use.

I would say each has a place, but I personally think the original should remain primary (as the input is what folks who use other diceys such as DAAK, AAMC, RJWare are already used to.

Hmm– I’m using the new version exclusively for sim purposes actually - what makes the old version more suitable?

I guess I don’t really care about consistency - I’m out to make mine better, not more like the others.
Adjustments - you can move around with the mouse or the arrow keys just as easily
and #3 and #4 are basically restatements of #1 and #2. I don’t think the tab key was that useful because if you wanted to change Inf and Fgtrs you’d have to hit tab like 4 times - not really any easier, I always just used the mouse.

And for speed, you can use ultra-shorthand form, eg “5i2a1f|3i2a”

Well, this is the version that will see continued development - addition of NA units, custom OOL etc. I’ll leave the old version up somewhere.

I’m interested in any bugs - OOL not working properly, or subs/artillery/amphib assaults/other special units not working properly. I haven’t noticed anything like that yet.

Okay, I’ve made the new version the default version - with a link to the old version for any luddites out there.

Once CC gets me my manuals back, I can start on adding in all the National Advantages. That will be next. And then maybe separate groups of units for OOL (eg. so UK Art can die before Russian Inf, etc.) That will be tricky though.

Well the old one is still available… sheesh! And it’s not like I’m doing this for money.

And what’s so non-intuitive about entering “2 Inf 1 Ftr v. 1 Inf” ?