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Duggan
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Old July 11th, 2017, 11:02 AM
I recently picked up the Planet Mercenary books through their KickStarter and it's exciting enough that I bought a copy of the Authoring Kit to see if I could implement their (fairly simple) character creation system.

Hoo boy... I was not expecting half of the wiki documentation to be redlinks. I'm trying to follow along with Savage Worlds, but they keep making reference to parts of the wiki that haven't actually been fleshed out as best I can tell.

To start with something really simple, there are files for things like Attributes and Skills, but I can't figure out where in the main definition it says "there are attributes and skills" other than that it's part of the displayed character output. Or is it a matter of "all .dat files are processed and the display elements and output files determine what's actually used"?
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Duggan
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Old July 11th, 2017, 08:28 PM
Alright. I've made a start. I've figured out how to remove Attribute linkage (there are no non-derived attributes) for the Skills, although I'm not quite at the point of fixing the interface. And I have tentative approval from the author of the system. ^_^
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AndrewD2
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Old July 12th, 2017, 04:06 PM
Even though it's very different I'd still recommend going through the included walk-thru for Savage Worlds. You will learn a lot that will help later.
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Duggan
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Old July 12th, 2017, 07:05 PM
{nods} In my opinion, it's still missing a lot of context, but access to the completed content and a good search engine (Notepad++ FTW in this case) lets you find that out.
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Duggan
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Old July 13th, 2017, 04:43 AM
Because all of the cool kids seem to be doing it, the parameters of the system:
  • Skills (They have a rank from 0 to 9 at character start, and a selection of specialties. Command Packages, Backgrounds, and Sophont Types can add skill ranks that count against the cap)
    • 10 Combat skills
    • 11 Mental skills
    • 9 Physical skills
    • 8 Social skills
  • 7 Command Packages (chosen at character creation, adds to particular skill bonuses. There are some either/or items like "+2 Computers or Mechanic")
  • 10 Background Packages (as Command Packages, skill ranks stack)
  • Sophont Types (basically Races, includes skill ranks, skill specializations,
    skill check penalties, abilities, and natural attacks)
    • 5 Common Sophont types
    • 9 Uncommon Sophont types
    • 2 Advanced Sophont types (AI/Robots may be a stretch goal because they're handled differently. Carbosilicate Amorphs are not as bad, but change skill costs)
  • 3 Derived statistics (well, 2 really. RiPPs is based on what the GC and the cards give you)
  • Company Creation and Equipment (not certain how smoothly this will go... basically, all players are assumed to be drawing from the same resources, so a portfolio should have 1 Company, and purchases should be drawn from it)
    • AI Rating
    • Company Resources (this is a numeric value)
    • Reputation
    • Supplies (also the numeric value)
    • Ship (has its own statistics)
    • Equipment (bought via Supplies and which players then pick from)
    • Fireteams (up to 3 (or higher via cards?) grunts who have 1 of 5 roles that add to the Fireteam's total damage and skill bonus). Fireteams may also have one or more Qualities attached to them permanently or temporarily that offers bonuses.
    • Grunts (the named ones, which have a name and the number of times they survived Ablative Meat. They can be used to create characters or replace Fireteam members)
  • Equipment (There's Armor, Weapons, General Material, and Vehicles. All but General Material can be customized, although I plan to start with the preconfigured ones)

It's a scary looking list, but a lot of it is actually largely data entry and some of the trickier parts can be handwaved initially (letting players handle deducting resources from the Company for example).
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Duggan
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Old July 13th, 2017, 04:54 AM
Character creation consists of picking a Command Package, picking a Background Package, picking a Sophont Type, spending the skill points (For non-AI, 40 points + 10 per survived Ablative Meat if it's a promoted Grunt), calculating the derived statistics, background details.

Company creation is supposed to be a step after the players are all built, and involves buying the equipment.

After that, I suppose you'd add equipment to individual players from the Company store.

If I set up character advancement, it's similarly simple. There's in-game adjustments (Mayhem cards, or circumstances can change skills) and at the end of each adventure, the players get 3 skill points (2 of which need to be spent on skills used in-adventure, but that's an out-of-context problem).

Hmm... I need to see if there's a way to handle one slightly different die for the standard 3d6 checks so that we can check for Mayhem if we are actually using the die roller. There's also a variety of (number)d6 checks for things like weapon damage.
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Duggan
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Old July 15th, 2017, 05:51 AM
Currently entering in Skills, which are simple. They have a Rank (which can be from 0 to 9 at the start of the game), and have various Specialties that can be bought (Either they're bought or they're not, with the number you can buy being constrained by the number of ranks you have in the skill). Side note, chosen specialties only affect in-game action actions, so the only effect is that the character is shown as having designated them. I suspect that building an interface for buying the Specialties will be much further in the Savage Worlds walkthough, so for now, I'm just adding them as ArrayVals. Does that seem like the right approach?

Quote:
<thing
id="skCarbine"
name="Carbines"
compset="Skill"
isunique="yes"
description="Use your Carbines skill when firing carbine class weapons. As the weapons most commonly issued to infantry, carbines offer versatility and lethality. They are designed for quick carry, ease of use, and close-quarters action">
<fieldval field="trtAbbrev" value="Car"/>
<fieldval field="trtType" value="Combat"/>
<arrayval field="trtSpec" index="0" value="Beam"/>
<arrayval field="trtSpec" index="1" value="Non-Lethal"/>
<arrayval field="trtSpec" index="2" value="Projectile"/>
</thing>
There is no Link because the system has no Attributes (basically, all they ever did was add into skills, so they were an appendage).

Last edited by Duggan; July 15th, 2017 at 06:05 AM.
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Duggan
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Old July 15th, 2017, 06:15 AM
Hah. I knew I was pushing beyond what I actually knew how to do. I'll comment out the trtType and trtSpec fields for now.
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Duggan
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Old July 15th, 2017, 08:43 AM
Woof... all skills are in, although the mechanics for specialties don't work yet. Derived Values seems a likely place to go next, but Health has different calculations for different races, so I'll hold off for the moment (although as soon as I've got basic races in, I can handle all but two of the races with a trait value, I think). Defense is easy enough to do, being based on Dodge. RiPPs is simply a value, which can be added to or removed during the game.

Side thing, I just know that I'm going to find this soon enough, but what's the easiest way to set a starting value for a skill? Everyone starts with a 5 in Dodge (plus any ranks for Command Package, Background, and Sophont Type), and can only add points, up to the maximum of 9 for starting players. Setting trtUser to 5, and trtMinimum to 5, works, except that it looks like it gets counted in the accounting for points spent. Am I best off adding another field for "innate" ranks or the like that isn't counted toward expenses?
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Mathias
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Old July 15th, 2017, 09:53 AM
I'd make trtType a tag, not a field, if there's a limited list of categories to choose from. Otherwise, you have to spell it the same every time, or "combat" will be a separate group of skills from "Combat", which will be different from that one skill with a typo that makes its group "Combt".

If you want to add bonus ranks to certain skills, like Dodge, how about the trtBonus field.

And yes, you must define what a field is in a structural file (traits.str is where skills are defined, unless you've moved them) before you can use that field.
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