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I am wanting to continue to improve my free program, Playing the Odds, which can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/17GsAMT , but I am wondering what the community thinks should be changed.

EDIT: This program is a probability program for Warhammer 40k, so you basically tell it which models you want to fight, and it will tell you which squad would win. You can also input your own squads, because there are quite a few armies that it has old stats, or no stats at all for.
If you have a suggestion that is not in the list, please suggest it here.

Note: The reason why I did not add the option to make it be an app for iOS is because I do not have the ability to develop for iOS, due to a lack of resources.

What...is this? An army list?

No, sorry I should have put a better description in the first post, its a probability program for Warhammer 40k, so you basically tell it which models you want to fight, and it will tell you which squad would win. You can also input your own squads, because there are quite a few armies that it has old stats, or no stats at all for.

Right now it is missing alot of the special rules for models though, so it is not 100% correct when any of those special rules are involved.

Well, I downloaded it and tested it out. My computer couldn't detect anything fishy with it, for those who are wondering whether or not this is legit.

It's a really nice idea.

Unfortunately, this is a really, really early version. Too early to really be of any use. Most armies aren't loaded into it. In addition to not being about to account for special rules, it can't even account for the basic equipment loadouts of the armies it does have. (It won't let you take a combi-weapon and a melee weapon on a Space Marine Sergeant, for instance.)

I had difficulty getting every function to work correctly. While it has some definite functions that I like, (the step-by-step questions for creating a unit, f'rex) it has some real problems too. A more instructive set of directions in the read-me might help alleviate that. A 'back' button would also not go amiss.

Something else that occurs with alarming frequency is models with random attacks. Talos engines, wyches with Hydra Gauntlets, and Penitent Engines, just to name a few. There doesn't seem to be a way to indicate that. I tried making a Wych squad with Hydra Gauntlets, and didn't seem to have any luck with entering 1-6 for number of attacks, or entering 3.5 (the average).

There's a lot of potential here, but this is a really rough version. It looks good, don't get me wrong, but I think there is still a long way to go before it's something that would be a useful tool. Still, if you get a version with completed stats and special rules, I'll be the first person in line to download it. Seems like it could definitely come in handy.

As a total side note, something that would be fairly easy for a project like this to do is to generate a 'typical statline,' that averages the stats of the various units across the armies, based on the frequency with which they can be encountered (so it would weight Space Marine tactical squads more than, say, Ortan Cassius) so that you can see how a particular unit/equipment loadout will fare overall.

 Jimsolo wrote:

Unfortunately, this is a really, really early version. Too early to really be of any use. Most armies aren't loaded into it. In addition to not being about to account for special rules, it can't even account for the basic equipment loadouts of the armies it does have. (It won't let you take a combi-weapon and a melee weapon on a Space Marine Sergeant, for instance.)

I had difficulty getting every function to work correctly. While it has some definite functions that I like, (the step-by-step questions for creating a unit, f'rex) it has some real problems too. A more instructive set of directions in the read-me might help alleviate that. A 'back' button would also not go amiss.

Something else that occurs with alarming frequency is models with random attacks. Talos engines, wyches with Hydra Gauntlets, and Penitent Engines, just to name a few. There doesn't seem to be a way to indicate that. I tried making a Wych squad with Hydra Gauntlets, and didn't seem to have any luck with entering 1-6 for number of attacks, or entering 3.5 (the average).

There's a lot of potential here, but this is a really rough version. It looks good, don't get me wrong, but I think there is still a long way to go before it's something that would be a useful tool. Still, if you get a version with completed stats and special rules, I'll be the first person in line to download it. Seems like it could definitely come in handy.

Thanks for trying out my program, and your suggestions. I agree that it is an extremely early version, I am now debating not releasing any of the updates I make to it to the general public because it has so much work left, but instead possibly just to a smaller group who is interested in testing it. I'll need to think more about this though, and possibly see if there are any people who are interested in do so.

I agree that I will need to spend more time on the readme, because using the program seems so natural to use for me (since I made it) that I thought the readme was sufficient.

And I actually never thought of having random attacks, because the armies I play don't even have them, so I'll add that in quickly.

As a total side note, something that would be fairly easy for a project like this to do is to generate a 'typical statline,' that averages the stats of the various units across the armies, based on the frequency with which they can be encountered (so it would weight Space Marine tactical squads more than, say, Ortan Cassius) so that you can see how a particular unit/equipment loadout will fare overall.

So by averaging models stats based on how times those specific models occur in an army, there should also be a feature to compare the particular squad against each army, 40k units overall or both right?
I like that idea, probably never would have thought of too, thanks.