[DGD] Damage Weapons and Stuff (Math and Code)

[White, Ben]

From: Ben Chambers [mailto:bjchamb at bellsouth.net]
>
> http://www.taygeta.com/random/gaussian.html
> 
> The code found there follows:
>          float x1, x2, w, y1, y2;
> 
>          do {
>                  x1 = 2.0 * ranf() - 1.0;
>                  x2 = 2.0 * ranf() - 1.0;
>                  w = x1 * x1 + x2 * x2;
>          } while ( w >= 1.0 );
> 
>          w = sqrt( (-2.0 * ln( w ) ) / w );
>          y1 = x1 * w;
>          y2 = x2 * w;
> 
> As the websites explains, ranf is a function to return a 
> random number in
> the range [0, 1].  The problem is the number of calls that 
> occur to ranf.
> There is the potential that a lot of calls would be made.  
> How would DGD
> handle this?  How fast is the random generation function in DGD?
> 

The area of the square in which the number is being uniformly
generated is 4 (2 * 2).  The area of the circle in which the
numbers are chosen is 3.14159... (pi * r**2).  So you have a
better than 75% chance of getting your number first pop.
This does the same thing as one version I posted before, only
with the looping instead of a cos/sin...

Ben.

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