Okay, so the other day I was playing Fortnite with my buddies, and we were getting kinda bored of using the same old loadouts. You know, the usual AR, shotgun, maybe a sniper if you’re feeling fancy. It was getting stale. So, I thought, “Why not spice things up a bit?”
That’s when I had this brilliant idea: a random loadout generator! I mean, how hard could it be, right? Famous last words, I tell ya.
The First Attempt (aka “The Disaster”)
I started off all gung-ho, thinking I could just whip something up in, like, an hour. I grabbed a pen and paper – yeah, I’m old school like that sometimes – and started jotting down all the weapons and items in the game. Man, there’s a LOT of stuff in Fortnite these days.
After what felt like forever, I had this massive list. Then came the “fun” part: figuring out how to randomly pick stuff from it. My first idea was to just number everything and use a random number generator website. Super basic, I know.
It… kinda worked. I mean, it gave me random numbers, and those numbers corresponded to weapons, but it was clunky. And it didn’t account for, like, rarity or anything. I could end up with five common pistols. Not exactly ideal.
Leveling Up (with a Little Help from My Friends)
So, I hit up my buddy who’s a bit more tech-savvy than I am. He laughed at my pen-and-paper approach – deservedly so – and suggested using a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets! Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?
We spent a good chunk of the evening putting everything into a spreadsheet. We categorized items by type (shotguns, ARs, etc.) and rarity (common, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary). It was tedious, but the end result was looking promising.
My friend then showed me some basic formulas we could use to randomly select items from each category. It was like magic! Suddenly, we had a working prototype.
The Final Product (and Some Future Plans)
We ended up with something pretty cool. The spreadsheet, to be used, we just hit “refresh”, and boom! A brand new, totally random loadout appears. It’s not perfect, but it’s way better than my initial mess.
- First column: Weapon Type (Shotgun, AR, SMG, etc.)
- Second column: Rarity (Common, Uncommon, etc.)
- Remaining columns: Specific weapons within that type and rarity.
We use some formula-voodoo to pick a random weapon type, then a random rarity, and then a random weapon from within those constraints. Simple, effective, and surprisingly fun.
I’m already thinking about ways to improve it. Maybe add in consumables and throwables? Perhaps even account for different game modes? The possibilities are endless!
It’s funny, this whole thing started because we were bored, and now it’s become this mini-project. Shows you what a little bit of boredom and a lot of random weapons can do.
