Question regarding the Atkins Diet example slot machine

I'm studying the nice design doc the wizard made for the Atkins Diet machine, and having a great time trying to understand the math. Unfortunately, there is one thing I just can't figure out: How is the amount of scatter combinations calculated? How come for instance, that there is 2,936,772 combinations with 2 scatters?

It seems incredibly complicated to me. Please help :-)

A scatter symbol can appear in any location on the reels. It doesn't matter if it is top, middle, bottom, and it doesn't matter which reels they appear on. So, you can get two scatters on the following reels:

1, 2
1, 3
1, 4
1, 5
2, 3
2, 4
2, 5
3, 4
3, 5
4, 5

For each of these, you calculate the hits separately. When calculating the hits, remember that the symbol can appear in the top, middle, or bottom of each reel, so you must multiply the symbol weight by 3. If s represents the scatter weight on each reel and t represents the total number of symbols, then the first formula is:

s1*3 * s2*3 * (t3-s3*3) * (t4-s4*3) * (t5-s5*3)

Do this for all ten reel combinations above and you will have your answer.

Thanks, I got it now :-)

I got another question. It might also simply be a general slot machine rules question: What happens if I get this result from a spin: WILD, WILD, A, B, C? Do I get the payout for 3xA, the payout for 2xWILD or both?

Quote: ChronoDK

I got another question. It might also simply be a general slot machine rules question: What happens if I get this result from a spin: WILD, WILD, A, B, C? Do I get the payout for 3xA, the payout for 2xWILD or both?

On each line, you get the highest possible payout.

Quote: rdw4potus

On each line, you get the highest possible payout.

Adding that if the payout is the same, the Wizard used the one using the fewest symbols. See this post for examples on the ways to score three wilds.