Questimator - An Excel and VBA-based difficulty approximator

[Count Mohawk]

Just you wait, Excel junkies. I'm reasonably sure the Excel version is 90-95% caught up with the VBA version, but there are so many bugs and errors to catch that it's taking forever!!

The above image is about how far I've got so far. No link yet; that comes later. Back to coding!

[Anderas]

Looks good

I will not continue on this topic. Not sufficient time, sorry! The more i appreciate your work on this!


Some feedback in case you want it. If not, don't read it

hard failures:

* a secret door across a hallway (doors across hallways - ok. Secret doors across hallways - nok)
* A door ending in a blocked field
* A door in the middle of a room

Suggestions:
* A room filled to more than 50%; the small 3x2 Room. That's of course possible, but i would consider that a style error, except exceptions
* No entry nor exit (maybe that one door at the blocked square was intended as entry?)
* Tree structure labyrinth with lots of branches (again, this is possible but shall be considered part of the story; e.g. as option tickbox or such. Options could be: Loops or not? Main way with Branches, and how many? "Bush" labyrinth without main way?)
* No furniture, double doors or other more-than-one-field stuff (i guess that is on the worklist?)

[Count Mohawk]

I believe I've fixed all the door issues now, so I chose to upload v0.9 of the Excel Questimator, which is now just about caught up functionality-wise with the VBA version. Check the first post for the download links.

That said, although there are a number of improvements I still want to make to both Questimators, I will be setting this project down for a while in favor of some of the other hobbies I've been neglecting over the past few months. So don't expect anything new on this front before April at least.

[Anderas]

I was downloading that last version. It is really cool!
Thanks to have let the code open.

[Count Mohawk]

Greetings, fellow calculators! (by which I mostly mean Anderas, but whatever)

April has arrived, and so I have decided to pick up where I left off on this project. New to the Excel version is the following feature:


That's right, you can now add traps and furniture to your randomly-generated Quests! Each room is currently capable of parsing up to four items of furniture and up to 12 traps. Bug testing is, as always, a work in progress, but furniture should not block doorways, and monsters should not share squares with furniture or traps.

I'll update the first post later, but for now, here's a link to the current Excel document. Warning: probably requires xl2007 or hire.

[Anderas]

Hey cool!
You know what? We should find a way to integrate all that into Heroscribe as a menu option. Is the code of Heroscribe available or hidden?

Here in my company that integration would not cost more than 100 000 Euro.
Maybe it's better not to do it in my company.

[Anderas]

While working on Kellar's Keep, i was fed up that the Excel Based Questimator took more than 10 seconds to calculate a quest.
So i accepted the challenge and translated your dice probabilities and your RSC sheets into pure VBA code.

Now i know why you were thinking about using Python for it! You are absolutely right, in Python it would have been A LOT EASIER. The code that i have now is not very long, but to get my brain around all the indexing was not easy at all. However, that made me appreciating your work twice as much than before! Do you know if one could call an ironPython module from within Excel VBA? The other way round it workds, ironPython can call Excel.

Well. Another day maybe.

Now that i have the dice calculation in VBA, i add options for rerolling dice.

Sarcasm: Yes. I am so much working on Kellars Keep. /Sarcasm I think i would have already finished that book if i wouldn't update the Questimator.
I will publish my version as soon as it is ready.

[Jade]

So, I downloaded the excel version, but I don't see any way to generate random quests? Have I misunderstood what you were talking about when you referred to the program being able to add things to random quests?

[Gewitsch]

I know the last post is "old", but when I read VBA Tool, looked at the code, I had to make an account and contribute a little bit.

I love the idea, I like your approach, but the code ... I am nowhere to say things about other peoples code, but you are not really making usage of VBA. Anderas Post in HQ-Cooperation Forum let me here (I am still trying to get an account there, but due to my Spamfilter I never got Flints answers ... )
You haven't used one class, when the problem has many steps where objects will help you.

For example the dice. It is six sided and three different type of values. So when you throw a die, you must know what the objective was (skull, hero defense, monster defense). You could make a huge class for all of the possible colors or make a class for every color. It has three function (attack throw, hero defense throw and monster defense throw). Those functions would return the result. Voila an "easy" way of integrating this.
The other thing are monsters. In your sheet you have a template for all of the monsters. This template can be worked in a class.

If you like to, I could provide you with help for this tool. I maybe new to Heroquest, but my passion is very big and love to help here, because I am the GM of my group and I fear not making good quests.

Edit:
I only realized now that you posted a new version on page 3
Do you still work on this project?

[Dreadaxe]

I wanted to know if this project was still relevant and if you have found solutions for its conversion and without Excel