Next Project: WuWa Planner

Fall quarter started a few weeks ago and I’ve been picking a portfolio project. I wanted something with actual technical problems to solve, not another CRUD app.

The two options I took seriously were a calisthenics app to track progressive overload and a Wuthering Waves planner. The workout app solves a real problem I have, but the technical work is pretty shallow. The planner has two things I want to figure out: a materials calculator built on a nontrivial pre-seeded database, and a gacha simulator with real probability logic (soft pity, 50/50 guarantees). I finished a Statistics course this summer and I’m currently in Databases, so both of those line up well right now.

Calisthenics app on the left, Wuthering Waves planner on the right.

Stack is Ruby on Rails with PostgreSQL. For deployment I’m using Kamal on a DigitalOcean droplet instead of something managed like Render. I want to know how to run my own deployments, so I’m doing that part first rather than leaving it for the end.

The plan breaks into four phases:

Phase 0 is getting a Hello World app live and stable on that stack. Infrastructure before anything else.

Phase 1 is the ascension planner. A form to pick a character, current level, and target level, and a materials shopping list as output. No user accounts yet. I want the calculator working before adding auth.

The shopping list problem Phase 1 is built around.

Phase 2 is the gacha simulator. The probability logic for soft pity (rates increase after 65 pulls) and the 50/50 system is the part I’m least sure about. It lives mostly on the frontend with StimulusJS.

The pity and probability system behind these pull buttons is what Phase 2 is about.

Phase 3 is user accounts via Devise, inventory tracking so the planner subtracts what you already have, and expanding the calculator to cover weapons and skills.

Starting with Phase 0. Writing as I go.