Paul- that would be on the Template sheet regards my last comment

lamont

the weapon had Extra Hull Damage as well-

The CR is off by one (shipyard vs shipbuilder)on 2nd and 3rd batteries

regards to SU

adding batteries Y and Z to X, with single arc, single weapons, show 2 and then 4 less SU respectively in shipyard relative to shipbuilder

if i add a second weapon of same type to each battery, shipyard SU now equals 557 vs shipbuilder SU of 569, difference of 12

third weapon addition: shipyard SU left = 305, shipbuilder SU left = 323, difference of 18

looks like a simple math thing here that is multiplied by multiple arcs and weapons

lamont

Steve-

i suspect that the lack of a CR calculation is due to a formatting error that Excel somehow inserts when it opens from Paul's OpenCalc version of the spreadsheet. The SU calculation obviously requires numbers, but some important cells get formatted as text, and the program cannot add "abc" to "1.34" for example.

The symptom of this problem can be seen on the Nations sheet- look for little green triangles in the upper left cells, particularly in the ACC column (this is where I found them), which indicate a number that is formatted as text. These are text because they are input from a number table that is also formatted as text.

That table can be found on the "Tables" sheet as the To HIT table. Cells B19 through B25 may also show the green triangles. If so, simply highlight those cells, punch "Format Cells" as "Number"- all SU are then correctly calculated- at least this is what occurred in my case.

If you version of Excel has a different affected site, the principle is the same- trace the green triangle cells back to their source data, re-format those data to numbers-- should work

lamont

i will try to answer my own question-

(1) absence of a number in the move order could be the equivalent of a "0", meaning application of enough thrust to negate vector of motion from last move

(2) as there is no indication of the ability, or need, to write "-3" in a move order, (1) must be an operative statement

(3) under these conditions, and likely as a matter of simplification, it is impossible for a ship in Starmada to conduct retrogade motion with respect to its front facing

seems logical to me anyway

lamont

got the Template cell correction at BB38- thanks

I found an old .xls file where I stored previous ship sheets, which allowed me to recall how i did it: you can copy a region of cells as a picture, and paste special as a picture to a new sheet in another workbook, or even the nation template workbook; this creates a non-editable image, but does not require template sheets to go with the ship sheet; i think i may try to write a subroutine that will store ship sheets in this form by punching a button-

with regard to the text vs numerical format issue-

when opened, v1.5 (and earlier) has three weapons built in the Nation sheet; all of the stats for the weapons show normal (no green triangle in upper left corner) and SU calcs are fine--

if I change a number in the ACC column on this sheet (by validation on your dropdown list), a green triangle shows and the cell indicator says it is formatted as text or the number has an apostrophe in front of it-

when I trace the ACC input list to the TO HIT table on the Tables sheet, I find that numbers 1-6 are also marked with green triangles and indicated as TExt formatted (cells B20-B25 on this sheet)- this of course messes up the numerical calculations of SU on the Nations sheet; when I reformat those cells to numerical and reenter the numbers, the green triangles go away everywhere and SU calcs are fine on the NAtion sheet-

I suspect this is just a quirk of Excel 2007 opening your version of the sheet, but others may encounter this if they use Office 2007 as well

I have seen other oddities- I use Visual Basic to display the fire arc images in the battery regions of the Starmada sheet- in Excel 2003, the images would displace up or down a bit in a regular way that depended only on sequence in a given battery- regardless of what I told the system to do in the subroutine; when I upgraded to Office 2007, all images went right where they were supposed to-

thanks for your work on this spreadsheet- it is a great tool, central to the way I play Starmada; I have sent it to a couple other players in our club so they can design their own ships for the games we play

lamont

                                                                                                               
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thanks to oldngrey

i have used this sheet for almost a year now, creating factions or races that are technically set and saving them;

I have modified the program to place graphic images of each weapon fire arc in the battery area- these visual aids help gamers like me not have to think each fire arc out (getting slow in my old age); it only fits 10 arcs per battery, but then I have never built a ship with more than ten in a single battery- too many dice to roll can be a bit ridiculous (consider combining ten guns with Repeating, ROF3, and 3+ to hit- seen it done- seemed like 15 minutes of rolling dice for one battery!)

is there an easy way to save "sheets" within a shipyard such that they do not respond to changes in the template, thereby creating a real shipyard from which I can recall already constructed vessels?

lamont anderson
CSGA
http://csga.webng.com/