Anyone care to take over AACalc?

[frood]

I’m getting increasing requests to update AACalc with the new AA50 rules, but I don’t have the time or interest to work on that.

I’m willing to give the source code to anyone who wants to take it over. You just have to know PHP, or be willing to learn it. It’s actually a pretty easy language to learn even as your first one.

[Jennifer]

Awe……

Shouldn’t be relatively easy to update the program though?  All the programming is in place, you just have to change the names and values a little here or there. (Bomber worth 12 instead of 20; submarines defend at 1, etc.)

[DarthMaximus]

Jen, I think you missed one key phrase in Frood’s post:   :wink:

“I’m getting increasing requests to update AACalc with the new AA50 rules, but I don’t have the time or interest to work on that.”

Easy or not, Frood doesn’t have the interest any longer.
I’d imagine AA50 updates, will lead to updates for the new '42 edition as well as people continuing to request tweaks if they see he is updating it.  Looks like he wants to make a clean break and pass it on to someone with more enthusiam for the changes needed.

[frood]

It’s been a while since I looked at the AA50 rules, but I recall there were some trickier changes with the way artillery support works, and also between subs / destroyers / aircraft. Those kinds of changes can be a real &![@#.

Even apart from the changes, I would love for someone else to take it over.

By the way, has ncscswitch disappeared? I don’t even see him listed as a member. There’s no one even close to challenging Jennifer’s post count.

[frood]

If it really is just setting some new unit values, I might be able to do that if someone tells me what they are.

[frood]

And Jen, honestly, your sigs continue to be ridiculously long. No one wants to read your entire life philosophy filling half of every screen on this board.

[DarthMaximus]

@frood:

By the way, has ncscswitch disappeared? I don’t even see him listed as a member.

Short answer:  Yes he left, he disagreed with a ruling in a tournament game he was in, he deleted his own account which is why his post count is gone and his posts come up as guest (I think is its guest).

[DarthMaximus]

@frood:

If it really is just setting some new unit values, I might be able to do that if someone tells me what they are.

Ignoring Tech issues:

Att/Def

Inf:  1/2
Rt:  2/2  (still enhance 1 inf like Revised)
Arm:  3/3
Ftr:  3/4
Bom:  4/1
Sub:  2/1 (*)
DD:  2/2
Cruiser:  3/3 can amphib (def can return fire)
AC:  1/2
BB:  4/4 (2 hit) can amphib (def can return fire)
Trns:  0/0 (can’t fight, auto killed if attack wins with one unit remaining)

• • Subs can’t be hit by a plane unless a DD is present
    First shot on Off and Def with no return fire (no DD present - similar to Revised)
    Can only hit naval units in battle
    Can still submerge (No DD)

[DarthMaximus]

But you are right OOL issues for the naval units are a nightmare.

You can assume (max defense hits):
sub, dd, ac, ca, ftr, bb

But I’d " * " it with a note to see above OOL may not apply to your battle.

[Jennifer]

Well, you already have the ability to edit the OOL, so that’s a wash, right?

Planes not hitting submarines isn’t too big a deal either, the person can just edit the results each round to account for it without too much effort.  Guess you might want to separate the results of fighters and cruisers.

You’d have to add in a new naval unit, but I assume from my limited programming knowledge, you can do most of that with copy/paste.

tech could be a nightmare, but common, tech has ALWAYS been a nightmare!  So ignore it.  Many of them can be “fudged” anyway.

You already have Hbombs.  There are no defending jets anymore, attacking jets can be put in like normal bombers.  Transports don’t defend, so don’t even have a column for them (hey, make it the new navy ship!).  Things like Imp Factories, Imp Shipyards, War Bonds don’t need programming.

Radar is possible, but that can be done by fudging too, just program in infantry vs bomber or whatever. (Make sure you have = number of infantry per attacking aircraft being AA’d).

[Jennifer]

@frood:

And Jen, honestly, your sigs continue to be ridiculously long. No one wants to read your entire life philosophy filling half of every screen on this board.

It’s only 5 lines long, Dan.

Granted yours is only 1 line long, but still, I don’t think 5 lines is that much to tell the truth.

[frood]

Jen, I count 26 lines in your signature.

Yeah, those changes are more involved than just adding a new set of unit values. They would involve significant structural changes to the program and that’s just not happening, at least not by me.

[Jennifer]

I don’t count the horizontal rule, thus, there are only 5 lines of text in my signature.  That’s not overly much.  Many people have significantly more.  Hell, I used to have every character allowed as text in my signature.  I don’t see a need to drop it more.  Heck, none of it is “my personal philosophy” it’s all quotes followed by who said them!

---

As for the program, why is it that much more? It should, theoretically, just be a matter of removing Transports as a combat unit and adding Destroyers, the rest of it is already there. (just don’t support tech.  We can fudge the rest there.)

If you do that, you only have to alter 1 unit, Submarines defend at 1 instead of 2.

[frood]

I count all the lines, because they all take an equal amount of space on my screen, and once I’ve read them once, they are all equally interesting.

On the program: I don’t believe in doing a half-assed job, and I don’t have the time to put in dozens of hours of work on a program for a game that I no longer play.

[BadSpeller]

Frood, thank you for the AACalc(s) that you have made.  :-)

They have been a big help over the years.  :-D

[Jennifer]

Yea, it’s a great program as is.

I was just curious why it was extra work to convert it for Anniversary is all.  I believe it is, I was just wondering. (I’m not a programmer, I’ve taken programming classes - C+; Java; Fortran but never long enough to be fluent in them.)

It just seemed like a job that could be cut/paste and/or copy/paste with a few minor text edits to work.

[frood]

I guess the only way to see the difficulty is to try programming it yourself. You can’t just cut and paste. The work involved is not trivial. Perhaps not huge, either, but I just don’t have any time for this.

[MrMalachiCrunch]

Hi people, this is my first post in many years since I was a member under the name BigBlocky I think it was.  It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is for non-programmers to determine programming complexity.  Hey Frood, what is the status of this thread and kudos for taking it as far as it has?  I’d love to pursue the source-code though I really don’t think I’m going to promise anything.  There shear number of rules/values from the various games becomes a combinatorical nightmare nevermind the OOL implementation.  Perhaps after enough time with the project rattling around in my head……who knows.  I’m a semi-retired software developer but it was mostly database programming, I would have several learning curves to bend.

[frood]

See this thread:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=16243.msg541878

and

www.campusactivism.org/aacalc/

If you still want the source, e-mail me at djnrempel on google’s famous email service.

[gamerman01]

You can turn off signature viewing in your profile settings.  So Jenn can make her sig 100 lines long, and I’d never even know it.