Issue adding a Racial Ability

[tatteredking]

In a friend's Sundered Skies game, he allows everyone to start with a d6 in Boating. I thought I would code it as a Racial Skill, but am unsure how to add it to all races, only when playing in his game. I was considering bootstrapping it to a Mechanic, but that isn't working. Thoughts?

[rob]

Here's how I'd solve this...

Start by defining a new Source for your friend's game, giving it a name like "Fred's SK Game". The Source will appear in the Configure Hero form, allowing you to toggle it on/off.

Then define a new Mechanic that grants the skill. You can use an existing racial ability as your template for this. You may also want to limit the Mechanic to only apply to PCs and NPCs so that creatures don't also receive it.

Assign the Mechanic to be dependent on the Source you defined.

At this point, when the Source is enabled, all characters will start with Boating at d6.

Hope this helps!

[tatteredking]

thanks Rob, this is what I was trying to do, but was running into an error.

1> created additional user file to handle his game.
2) Created new source "Ruben's Sundered Skies"
3) Created Mechanic, Sourced it to only Ruben's Sundered Skies,
4) bootstrapped the boating skill (which is how I have done it in other racial skills)

When I Compile, I get an error "Specified thing is actively in use. All references must be deleted before changes can be applied"

I delete the bootstrap, and I still get the error.

[rob]

That sounds the steps I would use. Is the error occurring when you merely *compile*? Or it is occurring when you attempt to *test now*? I'm guessing the latter.

Mechanics are very fundamental to the way HL operates, so they are a bit more persnickety sometimes. Try using the steps you outlined above to add the Mechanic, but don't use the "Test Now" button. Instead, exit the Editor, go to the Develop menu, and select the option to Compile Data Files (or press <ctrl+C>). You shouldn't get any errors. Once that's done, go again to the Develop menu and this time select the option to Quick Reload Data Files (or something like that). It's tied to <ctrl+R> as a keyboard shortcut, which is all I'm remembering at the moment.

This should trigger a complete reload of the SW data files, after which your Mechanic should be in place and work as you intend. If there are problems, you'll probably need to do the separate steps of compile and reload after making changes via the Editor, using the process I've outlined above.

Hope this helps...

[tatteredking]

Thanks Rob, got this working...now...to determine if I can figure out how to fix the other issue!