Evol. Banjo: how to get the roll patterns to work properly

[tunefoolery]

I'm learning how to use the picking patterns under the Strum tab in Evol. Bluegrass Banjo. It's taken a while to get it to sound properly, so I have some questions:

First of all, under the Chords tab, does the setting need to be on "automatic chords?" Otherwise, under "disabled," I get single notes plus chord strums, or sometimes just a repeated single note. Same thing with "held notes only."

I'm confused about whether I'm supposed to play four- or three-note chords. Should one always be playing three-note chords? Does this have something to do with the "1-2-5" or "1-3-5" designations in the pattern names (sorry, but I'm quite ignorant here)? What do those mean? I'm not sure why I hear all three notes on some three-note chords but not on others (where I hear just the top and bottom notes). That seems to happen a lot.

I appreciate the great detail in which you can edit the patterns. I'm just trying to get them to play!