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Java: Skydiving

Sorry for lack of details, I made a few edits.
I've got a problem in my java class that I can't wrap my head around.
I need to make a program that draws random numbers which are formations in a 10 round competition.
In this competition judges score you based on the formations you draw.
You can only have 5 or 6 points per round. You can only have 6 points if you draw 3 - 2 point formations.
The range of formations is 1-38.
Formations 1-16 are worth 1 point.
The rest are worth 2 points.
I tried this.
int formation;
int points;
int round;
boolean isOnePoint;
int maneuvers = 0;
public void main(String args[]){
while(points < 5){
getRandomFormation();
if(points < 5 && isOnePoint){
points++;
}
else if(points == 4 && !isOnePoint && maneuvers < 3){
points +=2;
} maneuvers++;
}
}
public void getRandomFormation(){
formation = rand.nextInt(38);
if(formation < 17){ isOnePoint = true; } else isOnePoint = false;
}
The problem I am facing is with this code that I came up with I am still able to get something like:
// example of output round with points recieved
Round 6: 1, 2, 1, 2
The problem however, is that you cannot get 6 points with anything other than getting three random 2 point combinations...
What am I overlooking / missing in my code to be able to get it right?

Based off what you have posted you seem to only want three numeric values.
Change your while(points<5) to while(maneuver<3) and increment maneuver at the end of the loop.
That would be the quickest way to solve your problem. The logic in your if statements are quite convoluted. You only check to see the number of maneuvers in the second if statement which means that you can still meet the parameters for the first if.
for(int i=0;i<3;i++){
getRandomFormation();
if(isOnePoint)
points++;
else
points +=2;
}

How to make my room sorter more random?

So I'm working on a program which is supposed to randomly put people in 6 rooms (final input is the list of rooms with who is in each room). So I figured out how to do all that.
//this is the main sorting sequence:
for (int srtM = 0; srtM < Guys.length; srtM++) {
done = false;
People newMove = Guys[srtM]; //Guys is an array of People
while (!done) {
newMove.rndRoom(); //sets random number from 4 to 6
if (newMove.getRoom() == 4 && !room4.isFull()) {
room4.add(newMove); //adds person into the room4 object rList
done = true;
} else if (newMove.getRoom() == 5 && !room5.isFull()) {
room5.add(newMove);
done = true;
} else if (newMove.getRoom() == 6 && !room6.isFull()) {
room6.add(newMove);
done = true;
}
}
The problem now is that the code for reasons I don't completely understand (something with the way I wrote it here) is hardly random. It seems the same people are put into the same rooms almost every time I run the program. For example me, I'm almost always put by this program into room 6 together with another one friend (interestingly, we're both at the end of the Guys array). So how can I make it "truly" random? Or a lot more random than it is now?
Thanks in advance!
Forgot to mention that "rndRoom()" does indeed use the standard Random method (for 4-6) in the background:
public int rndRoom() {
if (this.gender == 'M') {
this.room = (rnd.nextInt((6 - 4) + 1)) + 4;
}
if (this.gender == 'F') {
this.room = (rnd.nextInt(((3 - 1) + 1))) + 1;
}
return this.room;
}

if you want it to be more random try doing something with the Random method, do something like this:
Random random = new Random();
for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++)
{
int roomChoice = random.nextInt(5) + 1;
roomChoice += 1;
}
of course this is not exactly the code you will want to use, this is just an example of how to use the Random method, change it to how you want to use it.
Also, the reason I did random.nextInt(5) + 1; is because if random.nextInt(5) + 1; gets you a random number from 0 to 5, so if you want a number from 1 to 6 you have to add 1, pretty self explanatory.
On another note, to get "truly" random is not as easy as it seems, when you generate a "random" number it will use something called Pseudo random number generation, this, is basically these programs produce endless strings of single-digit numbers, usually in base 10, known as the decimal system. When large samples of pseudo-random numbers are taken, each of the 10 digits in the set {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} occurs with equal frequency, even though they are not evenly distributed in the sequence.

There might be something wrong with code you didn't post.
I've build a working example with what your classes might be, and it is distributing pretty randomly:
http://pastebin.com/u8sZRxi6

OK so I figured out why the results don't seem very random. So the room sorter works based on an alphabetical people list of 18 guys. There are only 3 guy rooms (rooms 4, 5 and 6) So each guy has a 1 in 3 chance to be put in say, room 6. But each person could only possibly be in 2 of the 6 spots in each room (depending on where they are in the list).
The first two people for example, could each only be in either the first or second spot of each room. By "spot" I mean their place in the room list which is printed in the end. Me on the other hand am second last on the list, so at that point I could only be in either the last or second last spot of each room.
Sorry if it's confusing but I figured out this is the reason the generated room lists don't appear very random - it's because only the same few people could be put in each room spot every time. The lists are random though, it's just the order in which people appear in each list which is not random.
So in order to make the lists look more random I had to make people's positions in the room random too. So the way I solved this is by adding a shuffler action which mixes the Person arrays:
public static void shuffle(Person[] arr) {
Random rgen = new Random();
for (int i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
int randPos = rgen.nextInt(arr.length);
Person tmp = arr[i];
arr[i] = arr[randPos];
arr[randPos] = tmp;
}
}
TL;DR the generated room lists were random - but since the order of the people that got put into the rooms wasn't random the results didn't look very random. In order to solve this I shuffled the Person arrays.

Using loops and arrays to switch between players in a quiz game

I'm in the process of writing a very simple quiz-style boardgame that moves players around the board based on if they answer the question correctly and what they roll on the dice. I'm attempting to create and pass an array mehtod that stores the scores of player 1 and player 2, but the array doesn't seem to actually keep track of the score. For example, a fragment of some of the code is as follows:
public static int[] scorearray
{
int scoreplayer1 = 0;
int scoreplayer2 = 0;
return new int[] = {scoreplayer1, scoreplayer2};
}
public static int questions(int diceroll, int[] score)
{
String textinput = input("What's 9+10?");
int ans = Integer.parseInt(textinput);
if (ans == 19)
{
output("Fantastic answer, that's correct!");
diceroll = dicethrow(diceroll); // rolls the dice
output("Move forward " + diceroll + " squares. You are on square " + score[0]);
//I need the output above to print position 0 in the above array
score[0] = score[0] + diceroll; //array stores the cumulative score
}
else
{
output("Sorry, the answer was 19. Next player's turn.")
//This is where I need the loop to switch between players
}
In addition, I need to come up with a way of switching between player 1 and 2 while also switching to the position 1 in the above array, that is, I need to add to player two's score instead of player one's. I've been combing through this code for ages now trying to figure out how to do this but I can only come up with the idea of using a for/while loop. Other than that I'm truly stumped.
Thanks.
EDIT: It appears that my array apparently still does not store the score when being used in the method questions.
Also I have now realised I can control whose turn it is by creating another method, for example public static void activePlayer() but I'm still not sure how to use a loop (or anything else for that matter) to switch between the two. Also my concern is where I use score[0] = score[0] + diceroll; in my questions method only keeps the score (or at least attempts to; see above problem) for player one. How would I switch it to keep score for score[1]? Please.

your options here seem to be either have your questions function output the score or change your score object to be a static object instead of a static function.
public static int[] scorearray = [0,0];
or
public static int[] questions(int diceroll, int[] score)

Bingo Card Game in Java

I created two methods for my Bingo Game in Java. One method creates a new board which populates the Bingo Board with integers according to the Bingo rule (1-75). My second method generates random numbers with a range of 1 - 75.
public static int drawNum(){
Random rand = new Random();
int num = rand.nextInt(75)+1;
return num;
}
public static void bingoCard(){
int [][]card=new int [5][5];
ArrayList<Integer> alreadyUsed = new ArrayList<Integer>();
boolean valid = false;
int tmp = 0;
for(int i = 0; i <= 4; i++){
for(int row = 0; row < card.length; row++){
while(!valid){
tmp = (int)(Math.random() * 15) + 1 + 15 * i;
if(!alreadyUsed.contains(tmp)){
valid = true;
alreadyUsed.add(tmp);
}
}
card[row][i] = tmp;
valid = false;
}
}
card[2][2] = 0;
//create array to make title.
String title []={"B","I","N","G","O"};
for(int i=0;i<title.length;i++){
System.out.print(title[i]+ "\t");
}
System.out.println();
for(int row=0;row<card.length;row++){
for(int col=0;col<card[row].length;col++){
System.out.print(card[row][col]+ "\t");
}
System.out.println();
}
}
What I need help with is, how do I check whether or not the drawNum() method corresponds to any values stored inside my bingoCard() array? If so, print out a new array with the integers filled in. If the condition is met for a bingo, then you win.
I hope I don't make it sound like I want you to do it for me, but I am confused as to how to start coding that part. Thank you.

This my recommendation - Learn Object Oriented Programming immediately
I see you are using objects provided in the JDK, so why not learn to make your own?
Make two classes with the following methods (-) and members (+) (PS. This is not a formal way to document code)
BingoCard
+list of numbers on card
-reset() : gets new numbers for this card
-test(BingoDrawer) : Tests to see if this card won on this drawing
-toString() : returns a String representation of this card
BingoDrawer
+list of numbers drawn
-reset() : draws new numbers
-hasNumber(int number) : tests if this number was drawn
-toString() : returns a String representation of this drawing
One more suggestions
Instead of keeping track of what you used, keep track of what you have not used, it will make things much easier because you can just choose stuff from that list randomly. Unlike your current action which is choosing (a logical number) from thin air and hoping (which causes issues) it is not a collision
If you follow my recommendation you can write code like this
public static void main(String[] args) {
BingoCard bc = new BingoCard();
BingoDrawer bd = new BingoDrawer();
while(thePlayerWantsToPlay()) { //function to be defined by you
bc.reset();
bd.reset();
System.out.println(bc);
System.out.println(bd);
System.out.println(bc.test(bd));
}
}
You can take it a step further and make a BingoGame class and do what I did in main there and just create an instance of BingoGame and call some start method on the object.

For checking if you have the number in your board, read through the board in a similar manner as you do for the already_used numbers, except with the number the user just entered.
The conditions for the user to win should be checked after the board has another number guessed.
There are a few ways to do this, a simple one would be to iterate over every possible pattern that could win, checking to see if there are tokens there.
All of this would be in a loop, that goes a little like this:
Set up board via user entering numbers.
Start loop
set either a timer to wait for, or wait for a keypress (so the game doesn't just play really fast)
Get random number
Possibly add to board
Check if winner
if winner, break the loop and do something else.
Print the new board out.
(end of loop)
If they got here, that could mean they won!
Wait to exit

You can just write it out as pseudo-code and fill in the methods after that. It usually helps to work on these things in a top-down fashion. So, for bingo you might have:
board = generateBoard();
while (!bingoFound(board)) {
number = drawNumber();
board = stampNumbers(board, number);
}
If that makes sense, you can go a step deeper and define each method. For example, bingoFound might look like:
public boolean bingoFound(int[][] board) {
boolean wasFound = bingoRowFound(board)
|| bingoColFound(board)
|| bingoDiagonalFound(board);
return wasFound;
}
Again, I've defined everything in (mostly) pseudo-code. If this looks ok, you can move a step deeper. Let's define the bingoRowFound method.
public boolean bingoRowFound(int[][] board) {
for (int row = 0; row < NUM_ROWS; row++) {
boolean rowIsABingo = true;
for (int col = 0; col < NUM_COLS; col++) {
// We have to check that everything up until this point has
// been marked off. I am using -1 to indicate that a spot has
// been marked.
rowIsABingo = rowIsABingo && board[row][col] == -1;
}
if (rowIsABingo) { return rowIsABingo; }
}
return false; // If we didn't find a bingo, return false.
}
Some of the methods (like drawNumber) will be really easy to implement. Others, like looking for a diagonal bingo might be a bit more difficult.

Feb 12 2014 Update:
Retracted code, since this was a college course assignment, and I want to prevent people just copying the code. I almost got in trouble for being accused of sharing code (which is a nono in assignments) when another student lifted my code from my Github repo and sent it in as their own.
There were two classes, one main class and a class to hold my methods and constructors.
BINGOFINAL.java was my main class.
Bingo_Card.java held my constructor and methods.
If you want to run this, make sure you create a new project called BINGOFINAL, and put Bingo_Card.java into that same */src/ extension.

Reassigning values in an array

Im trying to write a game of Yahtzee as part of an online course (not actually enrolled, just playing along at home) I have hit a bit of a wall manipulating values in the array that keeps track of the dice values. This is the section of code that seems to be causing trouble;
for (int i=0; i<N_DICE; i++){ //goes through each die.
if (display.isDieSelected(i) == false){ //checks if player wants to reroll the die.
dice [i] = dice[i];//problem line-should reassign the same value back to the die.
}
else {
dice [i] = rgen.nextInt(1, 6);
}
}
Assigning a new random number works, and if I roll all 5 dice every turn its happy.
I've changed the offending line to dice[i]=1 for testing purposes and while it takes some fun out of the game, the program works, so I'm thinking its something simple I'm doing wrong with that line.
I've tried assigning dice[i] to a temp variable (inside and out of the if loop) and then assigning temp back to dice[i].
I've tried just leaving the if loop empty.
I've tried setting it up as a multi dimesional array with a seperate array for each roll.
I've tried adding a cast (didnt think that'd do it but I was out of ideas).
All of these have had the same results.
Only been programming a few weeks, I'd be very gratefull if someone could tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Not sure what you're trying to do with that line:
dice[i] = dice[i];
Since it's a NOP, why not just omit it?

I don't really see the purpose of:
dice[i] = dice[i]
Can't you just use something like:
for (int i=0; i<N_DICE; i++){
if (display.isDieSelected(i)){
dice [i] = rgen.nextInt(1, 6);
}
}

The code looks completely correct, although I would write it a bit more compactly:
for (int i = 0; i < N_DICE; i++) {
if (display.isDieSelected(i)) {
dice[i] = rgen.nextInt(1, 6);
}
}
So your problem probably lies somewhere else. Is dice a new array, or is it always the same in the program? If it is a field in some class, it should have the final modifier, like this:
public class YahtzeeState {
private final int[] dice = new int[N_DICE];
}
This declaration makes sure that the dice array cannot be replaced later with a completely different array. The values in the array can still be changed though.

How is the dice-array initialized? I don't know your entire code but I could imagine that it doesn't work because the dice-array gets it values only in this loop?
Maybe you should try something like:
for (int i=0; i<N_DICE; i++){
if (display.isDieSelected(i) || dice[i] == null)
dice [i] = rgen.nextInt(1, 6);
}