I play a game called Heroclix that lets you build armies of superheroes up to a certain point value. I've written the shell of a program to read in the point values of each figure, but I would like some pointers on the best way to write an algorithm that builds every possible combo of figures up to a given value. Any assistance would be much obliged. 
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;

print "how many points?:";
my $maxpoints = <STDIN>;
chomp $maxpoints;
my %roster;
my $total_figs = 0;
while(<DATA>){
        chomp;
        my ($name, $rank, $value) = split /:/;
        $roster{"$name($rank)"} = $value;
        $total_figs++;
};
my @groups;
foreach my $key (keys(%roster)){
        print "$key: $roster{$key}\n";
        #build armies here!
}
__DATA__
blastaar:v:138
mr fixit:u:104
daredevil:r:30
blob:v:51
boomerang:e:34
wolverine:e:61
skrull commando:v:18

[download]
I suppose I should just build every possible combination and then discard the teams over $maxpoints, but I thought there might be a more elegant solution. I'm going to sleep on it and see if that, and your insights help.

dan shahin
hijinx comics

In reply to army building by dshahin

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