Join the tournament for a thrilling game of Battleship in 1 dimension. We will keep track of all your moves using an array, comparing them to your latest input for

Question

Join the tournament for a thrilling game of Battleship in 1 dimension. We will keep track of all your moves using an array, comparing them to your latest input for

As a beginner programmer, I have recently delved into learning JavaScript on my own. One of the projects I tackled was creating a simple battleship game. However, I encountered an issue where if the user hits the same location three times, the battleship sinks prematurely. To address this problem, I implemented an array called "userchoices" to store user inputs and added a for-loop to cross-check whether the user has already fired at a particular location. Unfortunately, the current implementation leads to the if statement being executed each time, which is not the intended behavior.

I would appreciate it if you could take a look at the code snippet below and provide suggestions for improvement. Thank you for your assistance.

var randomloc = Math.floor(Math.random() * 5);
var location1 = randomloc;
var location2 = location1 + 1;
var location3 = location2 + 1;
var guess;
var userchoices = [];
var hits = 0;
var guesses = 0;
var issunk = false;

function battleship() {
while(issunk == false)
{
    guess = prompt("Ready, Aim, Fire! (Enter a number 0-6):");

    console.log("User's input = " + guess);

    if (guess == null)
        break;

    if (guess < 0 || guess > 6){
        alert("Please enter a valid cell number. Number of guesses has been incremented.");
    }
    else{
        guesses++;
        userchoices[guesses] = guess;
        console.log("User's choices = " + userchoices);
    }

    /* for(var i = 0; i <= guesses; i++)
        {
            if(userchoices[guesses] = guess)
            console.log("You have already fired at this location");
        } */

    if (guess == location1 || guess == location2 || guess == location3){
        alert("Enemy Battleship HIT");
        hits = hits + 1;

        if (hits == 3){
            issunk = true;
            alert("Enemy battleship sunk");
        }
    }
    else{
        alert("You missed");
    }
}
if (issunk){var stats = "You took " + guesses + " guesses to sink the battleship. Your accuracy was " + (3/guesses);alert(stats);}
else{alert("You Failed!"); issunk = false;}
}

This section appears to be causing the error:

for(var i = 0; i<=guesses; i++)
{
if (userchoices[guesses] = guess){
console.log("You have fired at this location already");
}}

The intention behind the above if statement is to notify the user only when they fire upon a grid number they've previously targeted, regardless of hitting or missing the battleship.

javascript arrays appcelerator

Answer 1

Answer №1

Ensure you are accessing the array using the correct index. Try userchoices[i] instead of userchoices[guesses]. Remember that equality comparisons require 2 equal signs, like this: ==:

for(var i = 0; i<=guesses; i++)
{
  if (userchoices[i] == guess){
    console.log("you have fired at this location already");
  }
}

You can simplify it by doing:

  if (userchoices.includes(guess)){
    console.log("you have fired at this location already");
  }

Also remember to increment guesses after adding the first value:

    else{
      userchoices[guesses] = guess;
      guesses++;
      console.log("users choices = " + userchoices);
    }

EDIT

There is a logic error in your code as you are checking the array for the element after inserting it. Make sure to perform the check in the else statement before inserting the element. Combining all of the above:

else if (userchoices.includes(guess)){
  console.log("you have fired at this location already");
} else {
  userchoices[guesses] = guess;
  guesses++;
  console.log("users choices = " + userchoices);
}

Answer 2

Ensure you are accessing the array using the correct index. Try userchoices[i] instead of userchoices[guesses]. Remember that equality comparisons require 2 equal signs, like this: ==:

for(var i = 0; i<=guesses; i++)
{
  if (userchoices[i] == guess){
    console.log("you have fired at this location already");
  }
}

You can simplify it by doing:

  if (userchoices.includes(guess)){
    console.log("you have fired at this location already");
  }

Also remember to increment guesses after adding the first value:

    else{
      userchoices[guesses] = guess;
      guesses++;
      console.log("users choices = " + userchoices);
    }

EDIT

There is a logic error in your code as you are checking the array for the element after inserting it. Make sure to perform the check in the else statement before inserting the element. Combining all of the above:

else if (userchoices.includes(guess)){
  console.log("you have fired at this location already");
} else {
  userchoices[guesses] = guess;
  guesses++;
  console.log("users choices = " + userchoices);
}

Answer 3

Answer №2

With the valuable assistance of Avin Kavish and some tweaking on my part, I am pleased to share a solution to my own query for the benefit of future viewers.

Update: This is more like my finalized program

function battleship() 
{
var guess; //Stores user's guess
var userchoices = []; //records user's guess until ship is sunk or user chickens out
var issunk = false; //status of ship
var hits = 0; //number of hits
var guesses = 0; //number of guesses
var randomloc = Math.floor(Math.random() * 5); //Random Number Generator
var location1 = randomloc; 
var location2 = location1 + 1;
var location3 = location2 + 1;

while(issunk == false)
{
    guess = prompt("Ready,Aim,Fire! (Enter a number 0-6):");
    console.log("users input = " + guess);

    if(guess == null) // If users presses 'OK' without entering anything or the 'Cancel' this would break the loop.
        break;

    if (guess < 0 || guess > 6){
        alert("Please enter a valid cell number. No of guesses has been incremented.");
guesses++; //Gotta punish the player.
    }
    else if (userchoices.includes(guess) == false) /*instead of doing what i did yo u 
can change this line to "else if (userchoices.includes(guess)) and then put the 
following oprations in its else clause. */
    {
        guesses++;
        userchoices[guesses] = guess;
        console.log("User choices = " + userchoices);

        if (guess == location1 || guess == location2 || guess == location3)
        {
            alert("Enemy Battleship HIT");
            hits = hits + 1;
            if (hits == 3)
            {
                issunk = true;
                alert("Enemy battleship sunk");
            }
        }
            else
            {
                alert("You Missed");
            }
    }
         else
        {
            alert("you have already fired at this location.")
        }
    if (issunk) //writing issunk == true is overkill
    {
        var stats = "you took " + guesses + " guesses to sink the battleship. You 
accuracy was " + (3/guesses);
        alert(stats);
    }
}
if(guess == null && issunk == false)
console.log("You failed");  //Humiliate the user for chickening out.
userchoices = []; //Empties the array so user can start over again without relaoding the page
issunk = false; //sets issunk to false for a new game
var randomloc = Math.floor(Math.random() * 5); //creates new random numbers for ship coordinates
}

Stay tuned for the upcoming 2D 7X7 version. It will be shared here.

Answer 4

With the valuable assistance of Avin Kavish and some tweaking on my part, I am pleased to share a solution to my own query for the benefit of future viewers.

Update: This is more like my finalized program

function battleship() 
{
var guess; //Stores user's guess
var userchoices = []; //records user's guess until ship is sunk or user chickens out
var issunk = false; //status of ship
var hits = 0; //number of hits
var guesses = 0; //number of guesses
var randomloc = Math.floor(Math.random() * 5); //Random Number Generator
var location1 = randomloc; 
var location2 = location1 + 1;
var location3 = location2 + 1;

while(issunk == false)
{
    guess = prompt("Ready,Aim,Fire! (Enter a number 0-6):");
    console.log("users input = " + guess);

    if(guess == null) // If users presses 'OK' without entering anything or the 'Cancel' this would break the loop.
        break;

    if (guess < 0 || guess > 6){
        alert("Please enter a valid cell number. No of guesses has been incremented.");
guesses++; //Gotta punish the player.
    }
    else if (userchoices.includes(guess) == false) /*instead of doing what i did yo u 
can change this line to "else if (userchoices.includes(guess)) and then put the 
following oprations in its else clause. */
    {
        guesses++;
        userchoices[guesses] = guess;
        console.log("User choices = " + userchoices);

        if (guess == location1 || guess == location2 || guess == location3)
        {
            alert("Enemy Battleship HIT");
            hits = hits + 1;
            if (hits == 3)
            {
                issunk = true;
                alert("Enemy battleship sunk");
            }
        }
            else
            {
                alert("You Missed");
            }
    }
         else
        {
            alert("you have already fired at this location.")
        }
    if (issunk) //writing issunk == true is overkill
    {
        var stats = "you took " + guesses + " guesses to sink the battleship. You 
accuracy was " + (3/guesses);
        alert(stats);
    }
}
if(guess == null && issunk == false)
console.log("You failed");  //Humiliate the user for chickening out.
userchoices = []; //Empties the array so user can start over again without relaoding the page
issunk = false; //sets issunk to false for a new game
var randomloc = Math.floor(Math.random() * 5); //creates new random numbers for ship coordinates
}

Stay tuned for the upcoming 2D 7X7 version. It will be shared here.

Join the tournament for a thrilling game of Battleship in 1 dimension. We will keep track of all your moves using an array, comparing them to your latest input for

Answer №1

EDIT

Answer №2

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