Currently, I am working on creating a battle ship game in VBA using excel. I have made a 10 X 10 sheet of command buttons and have the following codes working (as far as the 10X 10 sheet goes):

reset of playing field
Ship Placement

The problems I am running into are:

* resetting only ONE ship. So, if a user places 4 ships, if they are out of range on the 5th one, the whole board resets. I'm using various loops because my code is set up alphanumerically.
* Checking if a ship is already placed. Once a ship is placed, the command buttons turn color based on the ship placed.

Here's a part of my code, checking for the left direction.
I am trying to figure out a way to check the color of a command button, so if it is a certain color, a ship will NOT be placed there. 

y = Mid(StartingPoint, 1, 1) 'alphabet letter
z = Mid(StartingPoint, 2, Len(StartingPoint) - 1) 'number
    
If direction = "left" Then
    For i = 0 To 4 Step 1
    
        For j = 9 To 18 Step 1
        
        
        If Sheet3.Cells(j, 1).Value = y Then
        y = Sheet3.Cells(j, 2).Value
             
        End If
        
        If Sheet3.Cells(j, 1).Value = 0 Then
        MsgBox ("Out of Range")
        Battle.AirCraftCarrier.Locked = False
        Call Reset
        i = 5
        End If
        
        Next j
                
        If Sheet3.Cells(y + 1, 2).Value > 0 Then
              
            If i = 0 Then
                y = Sheet3.Cells(y - 1, 1).Value
            
                If Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbBlue Or Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbMagenta Or _
                Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbYellow Or Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbCyan Then
            
                MsgBox ("There is already a ship here!")
                Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbBlack
                End If
                
                
                'y = Sheet3.Cells(y - 1, 1).Value
                Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbMagenta
            Else
                
                y = Sheet3.Cells(y - 1, 1).Value
                
                If Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbBlue Or Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbMagenta Or _
                Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbYellow Or Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbCyan Then
            
                MsgBox ("There is already a ship here!")
                'y = Sheet3.Cells(y - 1, 1).Value
                Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbBlack
                End If
                
                'y = Sheet3.Cells(y - 1, 1).Value
                Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbMagenta
            End If
        
        Else
        MsgBox ("Out of Range")
        Battle.AirCraftCarrier.Locked = False
        Battle.Controls(y & z).BackColor = vbBlack
        'Call Reset
        i = 5
                                        
        End If
        
        For j = 9 To 18
            If Sheet3.Cells(j, 1).Value = y Then
            y = Sheet3.Cells(j, 2).Value - 1
            End If
        Next j
        
        If Sheet3.Cells(y + 1, 2).Value > 0 Then
        y = Sheet3.Cells(y - 1, 1).Value
        End If
        
        If i = 4 Then
        Battle.AirCraftCarrier.Locked = True
        End If

    Next i
        
End If
Because I am a student, it doesn't have to be super intricate. I can simply give a warning of not placing ships on top of another, but I need to be able to tell the user there is an error if they do attempt to do so.

Any help is greatly appreciated.