Better display (part 2)

Here is the second part concerning information display, mostly thanks to your comments !

• When creating squads, the information on each squad has been reorganized: all stats are more clearly displayed on the left, on the right you can destroy the unit (cross), duplicate it (when non unique) or see its dial (arrow). When you add an upgrade, you can see now a longer list of items, corresponding to the upgrades. Finally, the points shown near the pilot name include the cost of all the upgrades given to the ship. 

• Asteroids: when you have created or selected a squad, you can associate to it 3 asteroids. Just click on the "Asteroid" button and the following sub-window will open. Select 3 asteroids. The next time you select the same squad, it will come with the same asteroids (only works with squads that are not among the Top 10 or Prebuilt). You can change multiple times of course. Coming soon: debris cloud...

• Damage deck: In the settings, choose the damage deck you wish to use. The new criticals are implemented, feel free to experiment ! You can now loose a stabilizer, have a major explosion, a major hull breach, all weapons failure or the pilot may be shaken.
• Bigger buttons in the "Manage squad" table.
• R4 Agromech action now triggers during combat, and you can choose first to add a target lock or not (red target lock), and then to consume this target lock, in the same attack. 
• A better way to select your background for the combat. This has no impact on the combat, it's just for having a change from the black background ! The two special maps, including the one with  the DeathStar trench, have been removed (temporarily). BTW, who has tried them ?? Do you want maps for scenarios, for testing a squad agility, training your skill in maneuvering or just the plain maps ? Please, give your opinion in the comments below.

• Better compression for background images, reduced size for icons, removal of unnecessary displayed areas, loading of the only sound effects concerning the squads that are in combat. All this should speed up the loading time (hopefully). 
• Finally, when you play the combat, the maneuvers of the AI are not revealed before their turn. This way, you cannot adapt your move or maneuver, before the enemy move occurs.

In addition to these modifications, the Top 10 list has been updated (manually) according to the Miniranker web site, and the battlelog has been updated to include the most recent battles. The battles are stored by pages of 2000 battle records, and now there are 4000+ battles available through battle logs ! 

Better display, all Wave 8 units in v0.8.4

Ruthless Freelancer

I just received the Ghost, Punisher and TIE Adv. Prototype boxes (in French) ! 

So this 0.8.4 update is essentially for improving display, adding a few units that were missing. 

I added the French translations for all these cards, and a few units/cards I missed: Baron of the Empire, Lothal Rebel, Ruthless Freelancer and Gand Findsman. I added their corresponding images, for use in the squad builder.  Electronic Baffle and Overclocked R4 are also added, not yet implemented.The squad builder has been slightly changed, to better fit the window.

In the previous versions, it was easy to miss an effect requiring the selection of a unit. The units were only highlighted in gray, and if you pressed the  "next phase", the game was probably stuck. Now, they are flashing ominously, this should help.

The mines dropped have now a different animation, with a line turning around the mine.

Tokens, hull and shield points  received and lost by pilots are shown on screen, as animation. I think this significantly improves the understanding of what happens during the game. 

In the navigation bar, a gear icon opens a setting window, where you can choose the volume for all game effects, you can show/hide  the console and show/hide movement traces. All units leave a trace of their faction color, actions such as barrel roll and boost leave dotted lines.

A few bug corrections for this update: 2 criticals were causing stalls, deploying units was stalling, mines were not functioning properly. This is better now.  Tel Trevura has been corrected.

The import button no longer exist. You just have to type or paste a list into one of the textarea for squads #1 and #2 to import the list. XWS3.0 imports are now possible again, just paste your squad list in this format and it will appear automagically as a plain list, and be integrated in your squad lists.

Translation Corner

So far, Squadron Benchmark is only in French and in (nearly correct) English. If you want to translate the whole interface into another language, you are most welcome !

To keep this simple, you just have to download this JSON file that contains all translations from English to French:
https://gist.github.com/anonymous/35ac8ed57cd1b98671ba
and then clone it, or download it and modify it, and send it back to me. You can edit with a text editor, this is a simple text file essentially.

The format is the following, you have several records:  ships, pilots, upgrades, criticals, css, ui.
Each corresponds to a table of translations.

• For ships, css, ui, simply rewrite the French version into your preferred language. 
• For pilots and upgrades, each entry looks like this (for Proton Torpedoes):
  

   "Proton Torpedoes": {
          "name": "Torpilles à protons",
          "text": "<strong>Attaque (acquisition de cible) :</strong> utilisez votre acquisition de cible et défaussez cette carte pour effectuer cette attaque. Vous pouvez échanger 1 de vos résultats %FOCUS% contre 1 résultat %CRIT%."},

  with two entries: name and text, that can be optional. Name is the translation of the name of the card and text is the translation of the card description. In the translated text, you can use HTML (fewer is better) and special words like %CRIT% and %FOCUS% as in the above example. They will be replaced by special symbols (for a critical and a hit). Don't put text for "Limited", "Rebels only" or this kind of restriction, since it is taken into account by the squad builder. The list of special symbols is (left moves are not shown):
  %ACTION%,%ASTROMECH%,%BANKRIGHT%,%BOMB%,%BOOST%, %CANNON%,
  %CREW%,%CRIT%,%ELITE%,%EVADE%,%FOCUS%,%HIT%,%ILLICIT%, %MISSILE%,%ROLL%,%STOP%,%STRAIGHT%,%SYSTEM%, %TALONRIGHT%,%TARGET%,%TEAM%,%TORPEDO%,%TURNRIGHT%, %TURRET%,%UTURN%

For some pilots, there is no entry at all (no translation available yet in French). Feel free to fill it if you know the translation.

Cheers  !

JumpMaster5000 pilots

Version v0.8.2 has a number of new features and corrections.

 

 

 

New ships and upgrades

Pilots implemented: Zuckuss, Maranno, Contracted Scout, Tel Trevura, Dengar

Hera with a docked shuttle 

Upgrades implemented: 'Zeb' Orrelios, 4-LOM, Agent Kallus, Guidance Chips, Hound's Tooth, Juke, Kanan Jarrus, R4-B11, R7 Astromech, Sabine Wren, Tactical Jammer, Targeting Astromech, Targeting Coordinator, TIE/D, TIE/x7, Weapons Engineer, Punishing one, Attani Mindlink, Rage, 'Gonk', Ghost, Phantom, Tractor Beam.

For Hound's Tooth, a Nashtah Pup is added to the squad list automatically. It is docked on the YV-666 and will be active once deployed. For Ghost, Phantom is not automatically added. You have to create a list with both Ghost and an attack shuttle. The Phantom title is not added automatically. 

For the tractor beam, the token is shown as a red V in the status of the unit.

Battle Log

The list of the different combat is available now for each unit, in the main window. Just select the book icon to view all combats that have involved the squad. For each combat, the first number of the score corresponds to the score of the squad, while the second value is the opponent score. 

The score is in bold font if the squad was played by a human, in normal font if played by the AI. 

** The battle log is working again ! The previous battles, and the previous links are not longer working however ! Sorry for the inconvenience !
Everything is not completely lost however, at some point, I can try to correct the previous links so that they work again, at least in the battle log.
Let's see first if there are other bugs appearing...
For those interested, the log of all battles can be found on google drive:

• Current spreadsheet of battle logs

The spreadsheet changes every 2000 entries. 

Modification of interface

In the main window, Squad #1 and #2 indications have been replaced by 1 and 2 in colored circles. 

New interface for managing squad lists

In the combat, there is a new subphase during combat:

• When attack dice are rolled, the defender can first apply effects (such as Elusiveness), and then the attacker applies modifiers
• When the green dice are rolled, the attacker can first apply modifications (such as R4-B11) and then the defender applies modifiers.

When there is no modifier, the subphase is silently skipped. 

In the  squad builder, it is now possible to clone a non-unique unit. All non-unique upgrades are also copied. 

All fonts have been modified, to provide a more controlled layout. The interface is a bit more responsive than before. 

Several new maps are available, corresponding to different background images

There are also several bug corrections, thanks to your reports, and thanks for the contributors ! Any feedback welcome, bug reports, suggestions !

Battle log: Watch all other combats, show your tactics or learn from others !

You have access to all previous finished combats in the "Battle log". Watch other tactics, evaluate the strength of a squad/unit in combat, replay a particular combat if you think you can obtain a better score, or learn from others !

The Battle log can be consulted from the main screen. First select the pilots you want to see in combat, press "View" in the bottom table, and then pick one of the combat involving these pilots in the top table, with different upgrades and setups. For each combat registered, the number of views is displayed, the score and who played each side (Human or computer).

You can also try to obtain a better score if possible. or change sides. For this, view the battle full screen and then, press the "Replay" button, behind the score.

The Battle log is still in alpha stage, there are probably many bugs.
The log only displays the last 100 battles, for now.

Share and replay your combats

With this new update, no bug correction but the possibility to share and replay combats ! Simply finish a combat and then you have a short url such as
http://bit.ly/1U5UBUm
that can be shared with email, facebook, twitter or reddit. This can be used to show your tactics, challenge your friends or show bugs...

When the animation has finished, you can see the score and decide to replay it, or to restart the game from the initial setup (to outperform previous score).
To include the animation in a page, simply create an iframe of less than 300px x 300px (only the main area is kept visible), with source the short url. A button "replay" is then automatically displayed at the end of the animation.

Enjoy !

A new squad builder

Happy new year 2016 and plenty of nice games for you !

There are plenty of novelties in X-Wing miniature for the end of 2015/Jan. 2016, with G-1A description, TIE Advanced Prototype, Imperial Veterans. Most of them have been integrated in Squadron Benchmark, with some additional features and bug corrections !

New squad builder

Its features are:

All units available in a few mouse moves

A new pilots with all its characteristics and upgrades

• All units of a faction can be browsed quickly, comparing their statistics. For a given ship, all pilots are listed with their cost, skill and elite slot (if any). Pilot characteristics are available within just a few mouse moves (or with a few clicks for an ipad).  
• New pilots, including the Inquisitor, VCX-100 pilots, Assault Shuttle pilots, G-1A pilots.   All pilots have now their own picture ((c) FFG).
•  You can either see for each unit/pilot the ship image, as used in the combat simulator, with its shields/hull/agility or the dial of its maneuvers. Simply click on the image/dial to switch.



Type your squad composition and use autocompletion (tab/shift+tab)

•  Alternatively, you can directly type your squad composition, or modify an existing one, in the text areas. Use the autocompletion, with TAB / shift+TAB keys for cycling through possible completions. When finish, press "Import" to add the squad to the list of squads. This works in English and French. XWS3.0 format has been disabled for now (temporary).
• Alternatively, you can directly select squads (from version 0.7)  from the list of 70+ squads from the community.

Maps 

A Turbolaser turret

For combat, from version 0.7.3, you can now pick the map you wish to use, among 4 existing maps. You cannot create a map (yet) or a mission. Among the maps, the Death Star itself and its trench (not straight  section, for increased difficulty). Put a few turbo laser turrets and a heat exhaust port at the end of the trench, and try to destroy it with Proton missiles while an AI Vader is trying to shoot you ! May the force be with you, you will need it !

New units and upgrades

 The units from Wave VIII: G-1A, VCX-100, Attack Shuttle, TIE Adv. Prototype are now available in the app. Most of the pilots, shown by FFG, are fully implemented. New upgrades are also available, with the first Dual upgrade, Adaptability, working in particular. TIE Shuttle is also fully functional, Just select them in the squadron builder, the help will tell you whether there are implemented or not, or look at the console.
A turbolaser turret and an Exhaust port for Empire have appeared also for the fun of playing in the trench of the Death Star :-) The exhaust port costs 100points, so the rebels can win even if they are nearly all destroyed. 

 Artificial Intelligence Player

The AI improves, even if it's still simple. To determine its moves, it proceeds as follows:

• Find viable positions, that are positions that allow the unit to stay on the area for 2 turns. Preference is given to positions that do not collide obstacles.
• Compute the "average" viable position of all enemy units. This does not take into account 180degree turns.
• Select among the viable positions the one that minimizes the number of dice the enemy can throw, when they will be in their "average" position, and maximizing the number of dice of an attack (all weapons considered). Priority is first given to defense, not exposing the unit, and then to maximise attack.

To fire, the AI considers its missiles, torpedoes, turret, cannon, only if the prerequisites are fufilled (such as a focus, target lock, ...). For actions such as accelerate and barrel roll, positions are evaluated as before.  Mines are not yet used by the AI.
By selecting a unit and pressing "m", you can see its "mean" position. Pressing "p" reveals all possible positions with colors (green: ok, white: collision with unit, yellow: obstacle, red: out of area, this turn or the following).  shift+p removes these positions.

Stability and bug corrections and reports

  Many bugs, including some deep ones that halted the app, have been corrected. Bugs for many units also have been corrected, including bugs occurring with the interaction of different units/upgrades (additional moves such as "Stay on target", ionization, bombs for a few).

Thanks for all of you who have made a bug report !  This helps greatly !
If your bug is not yet corrected, this is just a matter of time :-)
The app is much more stable now, even if they are for sure some remaining bugs. Some things that were working before are sometimes broken for a time. This is because I'm refactoring some code, rewriting it to make it nicer to read for external contributors :-)
Please, continue to send bug reports, here in this blog or in the different forums where announces for Benchmark Squadron are posted (boardgamegeek, FFG, sw-xwing).

Thanks also for all of you who have made posts about this app ! Users and testers are essential when the number of upgrades and pilots to test grows.

Feel free to leave comments on the features or the features you would like !

If you appreciate the app and you use it, feel free also to donate (top right menu in Squadron Benchmark, > Donate)  what you wish or send encouragement, bug reports, suggestions, they all will be appreciated ! :-)