Race specific rules - how?

[Stephan]

I am new to creating new army lists for AB 3.0. I noticed on existing army lists, that you can add race specific rules. How do you do it? I checked the definitions file, the augmentation file and the data file, but I can't find the right spot.

Thanks
Stephan

[deathlynx]

Pretty much use an "if" statement...Something like;

if (tagis[roster.<race>] > 0) then
. . .
elseif
. . .
else
@valid = 1
endif

The "else @valid=1" is important since it makes every other race ignore this rule...Hope this helps...

[rob]

Are you talking about race-specific RULES or are you interested in
composition profiles? I'm going to assume the former, but I wanted to be sure.

For race-specific rules, the technique to use is a ruleset of type "core".
Assign this ruleset a Legality tag expression that makes it only valid for
the desired race (e.g. "roster.myrace"). Then write your rule normally and
assign it to the ruleset. By assigning the rule to the ruleset, the rule
will only be evaluated when the ruleset is valid, and the ruleset will only
be valid for the race. This technique eliminates all the race-specific
handling within each rule, plus it eliminates all the processing overhead
to evaluate all the race-specific rules when they don't apply.

Hope this helps,
Rob

At 09:06 AM 6/13/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>I am new to creating new army lists for AB 3.0. I noticed on existing army
>lists, that you can add race specific rules. How do you do it? I checked
>the definitions file, the augmentation file and the data file, but I can't
>find the right spot.
>
>Thanks
>Stephan


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (408) 927-9880
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com

[Stephan]

My wording was not the best. Let me try to explain the issue again with a proper example. For WH40K, when you open the Necron rooster, and if you select to display "Race Specific Rules" you will see a unit called "Race Specific Rule - Necrons" which is just used to display the special rules for that race. Checking the data file and the augmentation file for these races, I cannot figure out how you make this "unit" appear in the rooster.

[Stephan]

Finally found it. The Race Specific Rules can be found in the W40K file generalstuff.dat.

[rob]

OK, I'm now confused. Since I'm not a 40K player, I don't regularly look at
the 40K data files myself, nor do I typically have a clue whether the 40K
files are being implemented optimally. However, this situation clearly
strikes me as odd.

What is the purpose of the "Race Specific Rules" unit? The utility of such
a unit utterly escapes me, so I'm concerned that there is a better way of
solving something that needs to be explained. I just don't grok what the
objective is, so I can't even figure out what it is that needs explaining.

Please explain the role of the "Race Specific Rules" unit to an ignorant
sod....

-Rob


At 04:45 AM 6/14/2005 -0400, you wrote:

>My wording was not the best. Let me try to explain the issue again with a
>proper example. For WH40K, when you open the Necron rooster, and if you
>select to display "Race Specific Rules" you will see a unit called "Race
>Specific Rule - Necrons" which is just used to display the special rules
>for that race. Checking the data file and the augmentation file for these
>races, I cannot figure out how you make this "unit" appear in the rooster.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (408) 927-9880
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com

[Stephan]

In W40K races, such as Tyranids, Orks, Space Marines, have special rules which apply to all untis. For example Tyranids all have the "Move through cover" ability. As you already mentioned, an easier way to implement this would be to include this information in the actual unit description. Don't ask me why the W40K creators used this way as a solution. As I want to keep my race rules adaptable to the existing W40K rules, I wanted to use the same way of implementing race specific rules.
Race specific rules have nothing to do with equipment units can take which will influence the statistics of that unit.
I hope that this explanation brings some light into this whole subject.

[harkan]

Stephan - the units show by having the appropriate race tag and a membership statement which matches the specific ruleset when enabled, i.e. the roster option for displaying this info. Therefore when the user selects that ruleset it is shown in the appropriate roster.

Rob - all the races in 40K have their own little 'tweaks', i.e. Orks have Power of the Waagh, Space Marines have 'And they shall know no fear' etc. These were implemented in a variety of ways such as splash screens on loading etc which resulted in the user getting a view of the rule but not having anything on the print out to act as a reminder (specifically for newbies etc).

Instead of applying the rules as a description to every unit, which even if using a macro reference could mean a significant amount of ammendments as well as a lot of duplication across all units when printed out the 'rules unit' is one unit that lists the race specific info as options so the user can have a reminder if they choose by enabling the appropriate ruleset and using it on the print out. These are also planned to act as a 'carrier' for other specific info in the future, such as Necron fade out total ot number of brute squads in a brute team available to the opponent etc, which if on a normal statcalc would show all the time for every race and end up with a lot of extra print at the bottom of all rosters.

Instead of carrying these in the def file where all the races are defined, they are carried seperately so that individual maintainers can make alterations to them without affecting the def file and ensuring that there is only one version about instead of multiple versions.

[deathlynx]

Originally Posted by rob

For race-specific rules, the technique to use is a ruleset of type "core". Assign this ruleset a Legality tag expression that makes it only valid for the desired race (e.g. "roster.myrace").

So would you suggest that authors create rulesets for every race regardless of whether there are sub-lists? It's not a bad idea just something I hadn't anticipated for my current project as there is only a single list for each race...

[harkan]

I think this was a case of Stephan using the term 'rule' as a game rule and not a ruleset sense