lucacr / diceball

A simple "Dice Baseball" implementation in QuickBasic 4.5

diceball

This is a simple implementation of "dice baseball" in QuickBasic 4.5. I started out with this board, i.e. the outcome of the play is determined by rolling two six-sided dice. However, I found out that this distribution resulted in way too little base hits and I had to improve the odds somehow. As you can see from the image

out of 21 total combinations only 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 and 6-6 result in base hits, while 4-4 is walk and 5-5 is hit by pitch.

So, if you were to take the On Base Percentage definition by Wikipedia

OBP = (H+BB+HBP)/(ATBAT+BB+HBP+SACFLY)

This would result in an OBP of

OBP = (4+1+1)/(21+1+1+1) = 6/24 = 0.25

Which is frankly too low. So what I did was nudge the figures a little bit. In my version, the combinations 1-1, 1-6 and 2-6 all result in a single. This results in a more sensible OBP

OBP = (6+1+1)/(21+1+1+1) = 8/24 = 0.33

The code can be quickly converted to other BASIC dialects, as long as it has random number generation capabilities. Hopefully this file will help.

• The Setup() SUB performs a number of housekeeping tasks
• The main loop is where the action happens. This loop calls, in sequence
  • the Roll() FUNCTION to roll the dice and identify the play (Single, Fly Out, HBP etc.)
  • the PlayBall() SUB to determine the outcome. PlayBall() in turn calls
    • The Advance() FUNCTION which puts players on base, and updates R/H/E as needed. Runs are updated via the AddRun() FUNCTION
  • The After() SUB which determines what happens after the play. If Outs=3 then the NewFrame() SUB is called, unless we are at the bottom of the 9th and the score is not tied. If the score is tied, extra innings are played until the score is no longer tied.
    • When this happens, the EndGame() SUB is called, which prints the final line score and ends the program.
  • The BoxScore() is then invoked, which recaps R/H/E, runners on base and outs.