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View Poll Results: Which of these features would you like us to implement first?
1) Add "Notes" buttons in lots more places 2 3.17%
2) Allow Contacts to be Advanced 4 6.35%
3) Display Spell Resistance Dicepools 1 1.59%
4) Display Matrix Dicepools 8 12.70%
5) Display Other Dicepools 0 0%
6) Tracking PANs 12 19.05%
7) Combat Situational Modifier Tracking 6 9.52%
8) Track Sustained Spells 2 3.17%
9) Run & Gun’s Environmental Rules 0 0%
10) Spell, Power & Complex Form Adjustments 3 4.76%
11) AR & VR 4 6.35%
12) Driving & Rigging Vehicles 10 15.87%
13) Deep Runs & UV Systems 0 0%
14) Astral Perception, Projection, and Combat 2 3.17%
15) Tactical Console improvements 5 7.94%
16) Printout Reorganization 4 6.35%
Voters: 63. You may not vote on this poll

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Colen
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Old May 9th, 2016, 01:22 PM
Hi everyone,

Now that Rigger 5.0 is out the door, we're happy to report that we've caught up with Catalyst's Shadowrun releases! (Touches wood, throws salt over shoulder, walks under black cat while breaking a mirror, etc...)

While there's always a new book just around the corner, this gives us time to work on something other than content entry. There are a number of projects that have been on our to-do list for a while, and we'd like to get your opinion on which ones we should work on first.


How This Works

The poll attached to this thread lists the tasks we've been thinking about - for more details on each task, see their full descriptions below. Please read the task descriptions before voting, so you understand what exactly each option is about. Pick the option you're most interested in, and vote for it. Simple!

Because of how our forum software works, you can only vote on a single option in this thread. However, if you want to vote for a second choice, we've created a second choice thread you can use to vote for a second option. (Please don't vote for the same thing in both threads, or we'll infect you with AI nanites.)

If you have a question about one of these tasks, please post in this thread and we'll do our best to answer it.


Important Disclaimer

Please note that this is not a guarentee we'll handle all of these tasks, or that they'll happen in the order they're voted for (we may choose to tackle a simple task with fewer votes over a more complicated task with more votes, for example). However, we will use the results to inform our decisions on what to tackle next for Shadowrun 5th edition.


Task Descriptions

1) Add "Notes" buttons in lots more places
Add the same sort of notes button that Contacts and Identities have to gear, qualities, and various other things on the character. This will allow you to enter descriptions or reminders that would be included in the printout for that item.


2) Allow Contacts to be Advanced
Modify contacts so that they can no longer be altered on the social tab during Advancement mode, but are instead changed by adding advancements on the Advancement tab that can alter the contact’s ratings, or add new contacts.

(This brings contacts into line with most other mechanisms in SR5 - you can't directly alter a skill during advancement, for example, you have to do so on the Advancement tab.)


3) Display Spell Resistance Dicepools
Figure out what dicepools and other defenses would exist for a character when magic was used against them, and then display those, so that if someone casts a spell on you, you don’t have to calculate them on the fly.

For example, if someone casts Mana Bolt at you, you'd be able to check Hero Lab to see the pre-calculated dice pool to roll to resist. (This would include positive spells, too – the effects of your essence or your magic resistance quality on beneficial spells would be something we’d show in this case.)


4) Display Matrix Dicepools
Create a list of all the matrix actions, and calculate and display the dicepool your character would roll for each action, along with the defenses against each offensive program or IC type.


5) Display Other Dicepools
Surprise tests are the first thing that come to mind here, but for this project, we’d search the books for various dicepools your character might need to roll that aren’t calculated in Hero Lab yet, and list each of them with the dicepool for your character at this time.


6) Tracking PANs
Allow tracking of which devices are subscribed to (and thus protected by) your PAN, including tracking multiple PANS, allowing you to set up multiple lines of defense for your runner’s wireless gear. Our current thought for this is a table that’s opened with a button on the Matrix tab – it would have a list of all the character’s devices that can create a PAN, and all the character’s wireless devices. Then, the user could click-and drag devices around the table, to move devices from one PAN to another.

If you don't want to go into that much detail, all your wireless devices can just default to being behind your strongest firewall. Depending on the PAN a device was in, it could show the dicepools it would use to resist a matrix attack on it.


7) Combat Situational Modifier Tracking
The main part of this would be allowing a user to set what environmental effects apply to their current attack (like setting that the target is 53m away, that it’s low-light, and there’s a light wind), and then, depending on a character’s sensory improvements, calculate the modifiers that apply from each of those conditions (and how they stack), and then modify the character’s attack dicepools accordingly.

This would need to be tracked on a weapon-by-weapon basis, since a weapon might have its own sensory improvements in an imaging scope or as a mod of the smartgun system’s camera.


8) Track Sustained Spells
This would allow magicians/technomancers (and adepts with Adept Spell or Living Focus) to mark which of their spells/forms they're currently sustaining (and how many copies of each are being sustained), as well as options to indicate that a sustaining focus is handling the sustaining of a certain spell at this time, and then take into account abilities that alter sustaining like the Focused Concentration quality, and then calculate and apply the correct penalties for that sustaining. Phew.


9) Run & Gun’s Environmental Rules
Implement adjustments for the various environmental effects from Run & Gun, like being underwater or in different gravities. Perfect for your run to Zurich-Orbital, or for cycling around the velodrome in Straylight.


10) Spell, Power & Complex Form Adjustments
This would add an easy way to say "I'm being affected by <spell X>", which would then apply the appropriate modifiers to your character all at once. This involves adding adjustments for all the spells, adept powers, critter powers, complex forms, etc. that can have an effect on another character, so that you don’t need to use workarounds like applying the Armor adjustment to a piece of clothing that’s been renamed “Armor Spell” in order to get the effects of casting the Armor spell on yourself, or the Attribute adjustment for the Increase [Attribute] spell.


11) AR & VR
This is currently incomplete in Hero Lab – you can mark your character as being in VR or Hot-Sim VR, and it changes your initiative to show your matrix initiative, but an AR option needs to be added to the drop-down along with the existing VR options. There are also various bonuses for using AR or VR or hot-sim for certain actions, like a bonus to build & repair tests with AR active, and a bonus to matrix actions with hot sim VR.

As part of this, Noise would need to be implemented, along with an adjustment, like the background count adjustment, that you’d use to set the current noise rating of your environment. Then, the devices you’re currently using (plus other sources like datajacks with wireless on, the antennae earware, or the Signal Scrub program) would be added together to get a noise reduction rating, and then subtract that from the environment’s noise rating, and calculate and apply any penalties because of that noise.


12) Driving & Rigging Vehicles
Characters would be able to select from the vehicles on their character, and set themselves as driving that vehicle. Then, Hero Lab can figure out, based on whether the character is in AR or VR, and if they have a control rig, how they’re controlling the vehicle, and then calculate any bonuses or penalties that apply because of that, and then change the stats and dicepools on the vehicle and its weapons to reflect the controller’s stats.

(Note that a lot of this depends on the things in the AR & VR project, like the bonuses for actions in AR or VR, and the effects of noise on your connection to a vehicle (if you’re not in direct contact), so most of that project would need to be completed in order to fully implement driving, so we’d have to finish the entire AR & VR project before starting this one.)


13) Deep Runs & UV Systems
Implement adjustments that apply the effects of being on a deep run or in a UV system on the character, as per the Data Trails sourcebook. Follow the music back to reality, Case!


14) Astral Perception, Projection, and Combat
This is currently incomplete – you can mark your character as astrally projecting, but it doesn’t make all the changes that are needed – it currently only adjusts the attributes that are shown. It should change your weapon’s combat stats to use the Astral Combat skill, change the statistics of the unarmed strike, prevent you from using any non-astral weapons, change your speeds, and several other effects.

There also needs to be an astral perception option that applies the correct stats for while you’re astrally perceiving, and reminds you of the dicepool penalties for when you try to interact with the mundane world. There would also be counters you could use to record your time in astral space, and your time spent manifesting, since there are limits on both of those.


15) Tactical Console improvements
Go over the tactical console, and figure out where we can improve the information that we’re currently presenting, so that the tactical console becomes a better aid to running combats in Shadowrun.


16) Printout Reorganization
Go over the printed character sheet, and find places where we could improve the look of the sheet, and/or improve the information that’s being displayed. For example, this could cover making gear holders display their "held" gear better, or moving things around on the character sheet to be closer to where people would expect them.

Note that this does NOT cover making the printed character sheet look exactly like the one from the rulebook - while we may re-organize it so the layout is closer, the style of our current character sheet will remain the same.

Last edited by Colen; May 9th, 2016 at 01:27 PM.
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Colen
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Old May 9th, 2016, 01:27 PM
Bump to move this up above the second choice thread.
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AndrewD2
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Old May 9th, 2016, 01:31 PM
100% for Matrix actions, let it be done!!!
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licktoren
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Old May 9th, 2016, 01:57 PM
Any chance to have Shadowrun 5th edition added to the iPad edition?
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Ech0
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Old May 9th, 2016, 02:22 PM
I'd like to see a "Form a Group"-Options, that reduce my work as GM to keep track of all Advances, NPCs, Ammo etc while allowing the distribution of Karma, Lifestyle costs with one click.

Because that is not even on the list, I'd also like to support a lil space on the character sheets that shows every initiative available to a character, esp Matrix (AR/VR), but also magic and drugs. That would be a big help.
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Ech0
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Old May 9th, 2016, 02:23 PM
Ooh, and also another simple thing:
The chance to edit the Choke of Shotguns on the character sheet.
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Colen
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Old May 9th, 2016, 05:22 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by licktoren View Post
Any chance to have Shadowrun 5th edition added to the iPad edition?
We definitely want to do this (and as a Shadowrun player I want to use it!), but we don't have the bandwidth right now. It's something I'm keeping in mind to fit in when we can.
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Colen
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Old May 9th, 2016, 05:25 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ech0 View Post
I'd like to see a "Form a Group"-Options, that reduce my work as GM to keep track of all Advances, NPCs, Ammo etc while allowing the distribution of Karma, Lifestyle costs with one click.
This is on our to-do list for Hero Lab as a whole, but not something the Shadowrun files can do by themselves - the list above is for Shadowrun-specific stuff that wouldn't require changes to Hero Lab, so this isn't something we can do as part of this project.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ech0 View Post
Because that is not even on the list, I'd also like to support a lil space on the character sheets that shows every initiative available to a character, esp Matrix (AR/VR), but also magic and drugs. That would be a big help.
What do you mean by "magic and drugs" initiative? You mean your initiative after you've used a spell like Improved Initiative or taken drugs?
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AnchorJG
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Old May 9th, 2016, 05:34 PM
If so much relies on "AR & VR" being completed, then why isn't that the priority?
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Polecat
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Old May 10th, 2016, 12:45 AM
I voted for "Display Spell Resistance Dice Pools" because this will most likely come up anytime someone has a spell cast at them. But there is a lot of stuff here that would be handy.

I am just going to vote from most commonly encountered to least, as opposed to what I want implemented more. Otherwise, it would be Notes and PANs. lol

I'd also like a "Custom" function added to pretty much everything the same way you have Custom Item and Custom Programs. So I can just add whatever I want to anything I want.

Last edited by Polecat; May 10th, 2016 at 12:52 AM.
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