New Companion Material!

I'm starting work on the Sci-Fi Companion and an update to the Super Powers Companion for Second Edition this weekend! I've got a couple of reviews to finish, and then I'm off to the races.

Great news, CC! I'm really looking forward to both of those.

I bought both of them so I am definitely looking forward to this!

I am soooo looking forward to this.

I bet a few of the things in the Sci-Fi Companion are going to be a pain to get coded. Power suit and ship creation, for example, although I suppose some of the power suit work can be pulled in from how magic items are made in the Fantasy Companion add-on. I don't envy you this one, CC, and I'm glad you're working on it rather than me, too!

I got the power suit to work from the old Sci-Fi toolkit. It works great so access to the real files and not the editor, will make it much easier to do.

Super excited about the Super Powers Companion update (no pun intended).

How is the work on these data files coming? Do you have an ETA?

Thanks for your effort.

I've just started. I'll be doing the Sci-Fi Companion first. I'm starting on the actual files this weekend. As far as an ETA, I'll try to keep you updated.

Thanks. Looking forward to it.

Any update on the updates?

dsprague said:

Any update on the updates?

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Already? Having done a few data files my head is spinning at the thought of doing that Sci-Fi companion. I think there's some MAJOR work going to have to go into that one. Give the man a few months at least to try to get some of that stuff lined up. I can guarantee you that's not a few week job like most basic files might be. Add in that Caped has TWO companions he's working on, plus several data files to review and one with a major update... I'd give him a little more time before we can get some real updates on progress. There's probably just way too much to figure out how it will be worked out yet before being able to give us some idea on any possible release schedule. (Plus if LWDs experience of majorly getting burned with criticism on release dates in Realm Works was any indication my guess is that their policy these days is to just not give anything more than an extremely vague "it'll be done when it's done" response.)

I'm about a third of the way through Sci-Fi Companion.

Next up will be the Super Powers Companion update (which will be a completely separate set of material from the 1st Edition, you'll select one or the other).

I'll get the reviews done during this period as I get time in between sections, so we can get those out.

As far as a general update for Savage Worlds itself, I'll get all the current reported bugs fixed and release that with the Sci-Fi Companion.

Then I'm going to get together with zarlor and dartnet, and we're going to totally overhaul the Deadlands Reloaded file. There's new material from various sources, and we want to re-do everything to include all the things we've learned about Hero Lab since that file was written. It was the first Setting file created, and has had input from a number of people over the years, and it's time to show it some love.

How's that? B)

Oh, and I get to geek out a bit here, folks, In two weeks, I get to run a game for a grouip that includes Shane Hensley (no pressure there). And then play in a Savage Worlds Supers game run by Shane Hensley. And then play in a Deadlands Noir game run by John Goff. And then host a Savage Saturday Night with Shane running Pinnacle's new Sci-Fi Setting, and John running a Deadlands Hell on Earth scenario. I am a stand-by GM for that night, running what amounts to RED 3 called "The Loathe Boat". Ever see RED with Bruce Willis? Doing sequels of movies as games is fun, I've done several.)

Very Jealous!!!! Have fun my friend.

CapedCrusader said:

Oh, and I get to geek out a bit here, folks, In two weeks, I get to run a game for a grouip that includes Shane Hensley (no pressure there). And then play in a Savage Worlds Supers game run by Shane Hensley. And then play in a Deadlands Noir game run by John Goff. And then host a Savage Saturday Night with Shane running Pinnacle's new Sci-Fi Setting, and John running a Deadlands Hell on Earth scenario. I am a stand-by GM for that night, running what amounts to RED 3 called "The Loathe Boat". Ever see RED with Bruce Willis? Doing sequels of movies as games is fun, I've done several.)

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Very cool. I used to game with "Teller" a good while back and from what he's told me of Shane and from my online interactions with the man I think you've got nothing to sweat over on that front. He should be a really great guy to game with in any capacity. I bet John would be a blast to game with, too. Someday I'm going to have to make it to a con those guys are at so I can finally meet them in person. I'm feeling a bit jealous of you!

zarlor said:

Already? Having done a few data files my head is spinning at the thought of doing that Sci-Fi companion. I think there's some MAJOR work going to have to go into that one. Give the man a few months at least to try to get some of that stuff lined up. I can guarantee you that's not a few week job like most basic files might be. Add in that Caped has TWO companions he's working on, plus several data files to review and one with a major update... I'd give him a little more time before we can get some real updates on progress. There's probably just way too much to figure out how it will be worked out yet before being able to give us some idea on any possible release schedule. (Plus if LWDs experience of majorly getting burned with criticism on release dates in Realm Works was any indication my guess is that their policy these days is to just not give anything more than an extremely vague "it'll be done when it's done" response.)

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Caped Crusader said:

I'm about a third of the way through Sci-Fi Companion.

Next up will be the Super Powers Companion update (which will be a completely separate set of material from the 1st Edition, you'll select one or the other).

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Zarlor and Caped Crusader,

Thanks for the reply and the update. Most of my experience with Hero Lab is with the Pathfinder modules. I've purchased almost all of their modules over the last three years. I knew that Savage Worlds was mostly done through volunteer work but had no idea about the time frame needed to make these types of changes and only had the Pathfinder turnaround time as a measuring stick.

Now that my group is only playing Savage Worlds and we're in the middle of two Supers Campaigns, I was of course curious as to the progress. I'm a big fan of Hero Lab and try to use it all the time when gaming. So you might understand my interest in knowing the "when."

But I understand the process, believe me. I work in software development on the quality end and deal with delayed schedules, changes in priority, and pressures from end-users every day.

So it was not my intent to be impatient about this (I did wait a month to post my request for an update). And now knowing the time frame for this "remodel", I know now to wait another 2 and possibly 3 months before requesting another one.

Good luck and happy coding.

Dale

Yeah, there are times when the SW side of HL feels a little like the "red-headed stepchild" to Pathfinder. No doubt they make a lot more of their money there and have a lot more resources and even volunteers to hit those settings up pretty hard. Here we've just got a few of us mostly working volunteer and solo so it's definitely a bit slower. Once they're in we can usually get them fixed really quick, though.

Personally I find that despite SW being pretty easy to do things on paper with I still prefer using HL. I think one of the bigger barriers to getting more SW players to use it, though, used to be from a shortage of data files. Now we have almost all of the Pinnacle ones done, third party ones are trickier since it takes the third party folks and Lone Wolf to get an agreement in place, I think, so that's less of a barrier. The bigger one is making files or custom stuff on the fly, and that can be a bit trickier and a little intimidating to look at doing, I think. There are several of us here now who are pretty active on the forum and willing to help so maybe that won't be too much of a barrier either. I guess now it would be most helpful just to get more SW players buying Hero Lab to make sure this side of the house stays solidly on the Lone Wolf radar and not taking too much of a backseat to Pathfinder, I think. Just my 2 cents on it, and we all know how little that is worth in this economy.

P. S. I didn't mean to come off annoyed in my response, BTW, just trying to be informative. Sorry if I didn't come off that way, though.

CapedCrusader said:

I'm about a third of the way through Sci-Fi Companion.

Next up will be the Super Powers Companion update (which will be a completely separate set of material from the 1st Edition, you'll select one or the other).

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Good to know. I admit that I am anxious for both of them. It is really good to know that the Super Heroes Companion will have two versions, as I had been playing around with mods to the first edition one in anticipation for the second making it to Hero Lab. Ah well, at least I learned some things with some of the mods that I tried (and was successful).

A clarification: I do actually work for Lone Wolf, albeit in a part-time capacity. I have a regular full-time job as a database developer, currently on contract at Nike. The Settings I have written are fan material, like everyone else's, but I did the Companion additions for Lone Wolf and have handled all of the updates since starting the work on the Companions and updating it to Savage Worlds Deluxe. I also review all of the Settings that are deemed "official" and are distributed through the Hero Lab update framework. So, I am a little of both, but the fact that I don't do this as a full-time gig is part of the reason updates take a bit longer.

Ron