For all you data editors out there

[Pollution]

I thought another new post would be good for people who are doing editing for their data files, adding new stuff from other books and whatnot. I've moved my reply on this from one post to here, and added some stuff:

Here's what I've run into as far as problems:

MAKE SURE YOU NAME YOUR THING APPROPRIATELY! It may seem like a good idea to name something dXYZ (xyz being the first 3 letters in the discipline) but it's not. Make the Thing ID something that makes sense, or looks familiar. example, Devotion Eyes of the Dragon from the OD book should be dEoD or dEoDragon or something similarly easy to remember. Then the discipline level entry should be the same, but dx instead of d. i.e. dxEoD or dxEoDragon or whatever.

CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOU'RE NOT COVERING THINGS ALREADY IN THERE! I put all the merits from armory before I figured out that they're already there. DOH!

DO THINGS IN A LOGICAL ORDER! It's faster to put in a skeleton of what you're inputting, but it WILL cost you time in the long run. Put in a Merit and finish it's prereqs, then move on. If you're doing Carthian merits, don't put them all in then edit them later. You WILL pay for that in time spent coding. Make the merit, make the prereqs (i.e. int 2, Occult 2, Carthian only) code then when you're done, look at the next merit you're doing and COPY the old one and edit where you need to. It's easier to replace intelligence for dexterity if you're only changing one word in 2 places than to type out the entire damned code over and over again. It seems like you'd want to do that anyway, but you'd be surprised at how dumb I was at first.

DO ONE BOOK AT A TIME! I made the mistake of using a Camarilla resource sheet that lists all the bloodlines and all the merits and all the blah and put those things in all at once into the db. Then I tried to go back and fill in the spaces. Thats costing me alot of time. I wish I'd just started With the OD book, then the LS book, then the Crone book, then ect... That way, I'd have a clear understanding of where I was at all times. You can get lost VERY easily if you try to do too much at once. Don't do this, EVER.

Coding. DO YOUR CODING if you plan to use this for any massive game (i.e. a 50-100 person larp). If you don't do your coding, you WILL regret it. It's VERY handy to have big red letters going, "OY! THIS GUY'S NOT A GANGREL! HE CAN'T BE MOROI!!!" so that you don't run into problems later. You may wish you weren't doing it as you're doing it, but you will be glad you did during check in or something when people are trying to buy things they shouldn't be able to buy.

MAKE DIFFERENT CUSTOM DATA FILES!!! I cannot stress this enough. I did not do this, and it's caused me problems. If you don't make a separate data file for each book, or set of books (though I recommend each book for ease of use) you WILL get lost. I cannot tell you how many times I've finished one set of customs (like bloodlines for example) only to find that I've missed some. it can be very hard to keep track of where you are if you don't have a separate data file for different things. LS in one file, OD in another, Ventrue Clan book in another, ect. If you did it this way, you would find yourself with a clear idea on where you are, and not have to go back and reedit things all the time. Again, SEPARATE YOUR CUSTOM FILES!!! Do not just make one HUGE custom data file that includes EVERYTHING, that is a mistake!

You can change already existing things to become new or custom things. There's a "replaces" field on the sheet that allows you to make a new thing, say, Gangrel Clan, then in the replaces field put the OLD ID in there. When you choose Gangrel in HL, it will use the new thing you created. This is a great organizational tool if you have house rules for certain things.

When doing a bloodline, input as follows:
1. Discipline Base, bootstrapping unique discipline IDs for the levels (i.e. if you do Scourge, use dScourge1, dScourge2, ect...) Make sure to prereq check if it's bloodline only learnable.
2. Discipline Levels, insert your discipline levels here, using the aforementioned unique IDs (dScourge 1, dScourge2, ect...)
3. Bloodline Weakness, put this in next
4. Bloodline DATA, put this in last. Bootstrap the weakness, link the discipline levels, put in any pre reqs here.
5. You don't HAVE to test each item as you do it. You can hold off until you are done, then compile the data file. Any errors will pop up if you made any.
6. Test your Bloodline in HL. You can do this faster after you compile the file by hitting Cntrl + R in HL, it will reload everything and incorporate your new file.

You can find the name and value of ANYTHING under the View tab in HL. View -> Floating Info Windows -> pick your flavor. These are invaluable tools for figuring out how to change things value with code, how to check prereqs (like say, the next example) or getting a feel for how things are named.

That's about all the suggestions I could think off just now. I can't think of documentation issues that caused me too much problems except for spending 20 min working out this check script for Carthian Pull Merit:

~We're setting up our variables here as numbers.

var rating as number
var status as number

~We're setting the value of "rating" to = the value of the Merit ~Carthian Pull.
~We're setting the value of "status" to = the value of the Merit ~Covenant Status. This assumes there's only one Covenant Status Merit ~taken.

rating = #merit[mCarthPull]
status = #merit[mStatCoven]

~Here, we're checking to see if Status is = or Greater than Carthian ~Pull. This ensures that Carthian pull MUST be = or Lower than Status ~(Covenant).

if (status >= rating) then
@valid = 1
endif

~This section of code could use some fixing up, to ENSURE that the ~Covenant Status taken is in fact Carthian. This is a fix to be done ~later.

That's mainly math stuff, and I'm sure that I can figure out the last bit when I want to come back to it later. I'm thinking it's pretty easy to adjust the Status = #merit line to the ACTUAL tag. But I'm not down for looking at that just yet. I've given myself 1 month to finish this DB, and I think I'll do it. Once that's done, I'll go back through and make sure everything's 100% legit for my own personal uses.

I'll be posting further ideas and suggestions as I come to them, or realize things that would help others. I sat here for an hour just to do one bloodline on my first time through, and now I can pop out a fully completed bloodline with disciplines, devotions, prereq code, weakness and linkages in about 10 min. It does get easier, just stick to it.