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I'm posting this to guage general interest in releasing my dice tool, and if there is interest to ask for feature ideas and experienced C# programmers wanting to help

So I started playing Orks and as soon as I realised that a charging mob could require 120 dice, I decided I would make a simple program to roll the dice for me on my handy tablet pc! Well it kept growing and soon everyone at game night would be shouting from their tables "hey roll me 17 models, 3 attacks, ws 4 v 5, etc etc" and I'd tap tap tap and say back "17 wounds, 6 rending", and it was good.

Obviously you can't use it in tourneys, but who cares? How many games do you play that aren't tourneys? A lot more I hope. And I've never had a problem with an opponent questioning it.. if someone really had a problem with it I simply wouldn't play with them, because theres no zogging way I'm rolling 120 dice. I tried to make the output very simple and transparent, and even have included calculation of averages.

Heres a taste screenshot

Basically you spin the dials to the values you need and either click SHOOT or ASSAULT. The buttons on the top are presets.

What do you think?

And don't say iphone. I have an iphone, yes I agree this would be cool on it, but unless you are an iphone developer shut up.

It looks good, the interface (of course) could be more 'sorted' maybe a small panel for shooting? I'm sure it would be easy to use once I sit down and click and stuff but at the moment from looking at it with no readme although intuitive and actually in order the actual amount of information that's 'in your face' is huge.


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Onto your text dump;
Top line - great info,
All rolls with yay and ney highlighted.
And total wounds etc good.
Average results/bonus info, very nice for the information junkies

May I suggest; A spacing line between the hits/wounds, and maybe a double between new lots of rolling or a _ line, have the subtotals down one line instead of on the same line maybe, that'd depend on does it do hits/wound at once or seperately? And you totals line has lost the average hits value I want both the Avg. Hits and Wounds

Good stuff.

What pseudo-random number generator are you using? What inputs are you giving it?

I like it, though as pointed out the interface needs just a little work.

And yes, please, tell us the details. What pseudo random gen algorithm are you using?
What are you writing it in? Will it be tied to Windows (i.e. does it use .net) or will Linux users like me be able to run it nativly?
Is it Open Sauce?
Us Nerds need to know!

Since most random number generators are based on a mathmatical algorithm which uses your computers clock as the variable, it seems like a computerized system would be way to easy to take adantage of.

Catyrpelius wrote:Since most random number generators are based on a mathmatical algorithm which uses your computers clock as the variable, it seems like a computerized system would be way to easy to take adantage of.

Well yes, we know that, but we need to know WHICH ONE!

I don't have experience in C# but I do C, Java/JScript and PHP.
So the options up the top (to select Orc Slugga Boys, Shoota Boys, Opponent WS/T) are just 'easy access' to common presets?

Personally, at first glance those options confused me.
I would prefer to see a clearly defined panel of ATTACKERS stats (with appropriately large title), and a large box of DEFENDERS stats; the option to change stats at two different points had me wondering which one to use.
If you do want to have presets, perhaps have them set to 'real enemies. For example a 'Space Marine' preset, 'Guardsmen' preset, etc.
Having shoot and assault buttons at different levels also (IMO) breaks up the natural flow of information.


In my opinion, the 'problem' of psuedo-random number isn't an issue for such a small system. Possibly for security systems and *real* gambling applications, not for much else.

As an engineer I can appreciate the effort that you have put into this neat ap.

As a gamer I don't like it. Here is my reason. I like rolling dice! I think rolling dice is part of the fun of playing TT miniature games.

Mind you, for some people this type of thing would be great. Just not for me.

GG

interface + opponent presets
It looks a little complicated as is, I agree, but there are a lot of things that need to be input! It moves very smoothly when you start using it though.
Opponents only have 2 stats that you care about when rolling: toughness and sometimes weapons skill. Making preset buttons for them would just be too complicated when all you have to do is click the two 4 buttons to fight space marines, and the two 3 buttons to fight eldar, etc.
If you can describe (or better yet draw) an interface you think would be better, I'll consider it! Maybe there should be an 'advanced' interface like mine and a 'simple' that has clearly separated shooting and assaulting
As for the actual boxes, ALL the opponent's info is within the tab container that has either "Vs Guys" or "Vs Vehicle". Anything outside that container is you, the attacker. The "Hits" and the rightmost "S" boxes are filled in automatically when you click shoot or assault, they're only shown so you can calculate specific SvT or SvA scenarios if you want, since the tool gives separate buttons for each roll as well as the "Assault" and "Shoot" buttons which do everything but roll your opponent's saves

random number generator + seed
Seed is just seconds * milliseconds, which should put you sufficiently different places in the pseudorandom list
Random number generator is just rand() but I've separated the random function calls to make it easy to drop in a better random library if needed, but I'm really not concerned about its "true" randomness so long as the seed is semidecent. Not shown is a test run at the start of the program where it rolls a bunch of dice, I'll paste the output:
Testing random roll generator with 60000 rolls: 1 2 3 4 5 6 9790 9954 10071 10072 10164 9949 16.3% 16.5% 16.7% 16.7% 16.9% 16.5%

writing it in, .net, linux, open sauce
It's written in C#, so with a little retooling it will run on linux with Mono, but I havn't tried! I will open the sauce! I'd like some kind of source control system so improvements made by individuals go back to the community, but I've never done that before and havn't looked into it.

i like rolling dice
Me too! Just not 50 at a time! Well, I like rolling a lot of dice, but I don't like COUNTING a lot of dice! I decided the tool's scope should focus on cases requiring a whole lot of dice, a whole lot of mental counting and multiplying and rerolling. If you're just shooting a predator's weapons then of course you don't need to sit down at a computer for that, but if you're assaulting with orks... I have included buttons that roll a single big shoota or a single rokkit for sake of simplicity since I roll all the boys using the tool

The other scope limitation is that I don't want (at least at first) to implement a wall of checkboxes for every special option, although I did do Furious Charge. We used the tool to roll a lot of gene stealer attacks, and for rending you just look at the last line of dice rolls and see which ones were 6s, pretty simple.

Heres another screenshot showing the initial program output verifying the charts and doing the dice test.
Then I fired two groups of 15 lootas at armor 12 vehicle

Omg, a 0.3% variance from average? UNACCEPTABLE!

As for the sauce, yay sauce. Dellicious Sauce of Sauceness!

I would suggest Sourceforge. Out of all the Source controls, that one is the nicest imo.

And Bleh, Mono. Still, better than having it in Java. I despise Java with a passion.

Thanks to Android Java is undergoing something of a resurgence. I've had to get the Java books back out for it. The way that it's implemented in android is actually really good to program for.

-Grumble- If you insist. -Grumble Grumble-

As long as the GUI isn't that awful java default, I don't mind the inner working being Java

Signed up at sourceforge but havn't uploaded yet

I made a quick tour/tutorial of the program as it is now, check it out in action!

I like.

The only thing is, Lootas are Heavy D3. From what I see you set them to 1 shot each and you would roll it 3 times if the D3 was a 3 right?

And how far a vehicle moves doesn't matter for shooting!

When you click the lootas preset it sets shots each to 0 to remind you you have to roll for it. Just put the result of the roll (1-3) into the box.

The tool is pretty flexible though, you can roll 40 shots by setting models to 20 and shots to 2, or by setting models to 40 and shots to 1. Once you click the button it just uses whatever is in the boxes

On vehicle movement, correct. The Shoot button just does BS and then SvA

The Assault button does the movement ToHit check and then SvA

The presets are just to fill in numbers to the number boxes below as a shortcut, you should definitely confirm each box before you click Shoot or Assault.

Idea: Perhaps a little text box underneath the presets that tells you which preset you clicked and has had its stats imported, and then it clears whenever you alter something, just to make it easier to not make a mistake?

Gwar! wrote:-Grumble- If you insist. -Grumble Grumble-

As long as the GUI isn't that awful java default, I don't mind the inner working being Java

Nope, not one bit of it - in fact, the whole advanced windows toolkit is verboten as it's such a bloated mess. My only real complaint with the SDK is that the emulator is a bit gak - far better to have a phone plugged in, in debug mode.

I'm with GeneralGrog, I like the flukeyness of rolling dice, but I can see where you are coming from