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 ! :-)