Some specific tabs and items on those tabs of particular note:
Ammunition: has a Cost and a Lot Cost. The Cost would be for 1 of that thing, such as a single bullet, while the Lot Cost is for a set group of those things, such as a box with 10 bullets. You can then define the Lot Size in the field on the right. Note that the Weight field is for the individual things, not the Lot. For example lets’ say the book lists a box of .50 ammo that consists of 10 bullets, costs $10, and weighs 1 lb. In the Cost field a single bullet would then be $1, the Lot Cost would be $10, the Weight would be that for a single bullet, so 1 divided by 10 or .1. Then in Lot Size you would set that to 10. Don’t forget to set your Sources!
Side Note on Stacking
Stacking is also of note here in that the default Stacking is “Add Single Items”, which means if you buy 2 boxes of ammo they will be listed as 2 separate lines on your character sheet. Setting it to “Merge Existing” will stack those into a single line on your sheet. So the first box you buy would show 10 .50 ammo. The next box you buy will just add to that showing a single line of 20 .50 ammo instead of another line of 10 .50 ammo. Merging is generally preferable for things you’ll have lots of, like ammo.
Arcane Background: is pretty special. Generally it will be “Bootstrapped” into an appropriate Edge which should be named with “Arcane Background:” starting the name. The Unique ID should be formed to always start with “edgArc”. That’s a little different than your other Edges which, for our example would be something like “edgHREdge”, and Arcane Background should have a name like “edgArcHREd” Notice we really only have 2 characters left from our 10 character limit to define the edge part of that name. Arcane Backgrounds also almost always have a required Skill and a Drawback. My personal preference is usually to create any new Powers first, then the Drawback you’ll use to Bootstrap on the Arcane Background to add this there, then Arcane Background, followed by the Skill, and finally the Edge.
Of note on the Arcane Background tab is the Arcane Designation, which you can use an existing one for or just make a new one on the fly by selecting “-New Tag-” for it. You may notice that on the Skill tab there is an entry for “Arcane Background”. Be sure to save and do the compile and reload method mention in the first post to make your newly created AB show up on that list. You can select powers not allowed from the “Invalid Powers” list. Note that the listing will show everything that you have data files for, but usually you can just check the things from only those sources your character would normally have checked.
Alternately on the Arcane Powers tab you can exclude that power's use by a particular AB by selecting it from the list on the Forbidden Arcane Types.
Creature: is for building out creatures from a given source. You’ll notice you can only seem to set some basic information here but not special abilities. To configure creature special abilities you would set them up on the Racial Abilities, or Racial Properties, tab and use the Bootstrap button to add that new Ability or Property here on your Creature.
Drawback: is for Arcane Background drawbacks. Generally the AB will Bootstrap these, as appropriate.
Edge with Bootstrapped Weapon: is being deprecated, so feel free to just ignore that tab. We can now Bootstrap weapons without having to use that special tab to do so.
Equipment: has a field for Equipment Type. That is for organizing equipment into appropriate groups. Some settings don’t use the same groups as the standard rulebook but to use different categories requires some extra work. For a simple file just pick the category that fits best. For a more detailed look at how to do this, however, take a look at the 2nd post in the
Common Code Examples thread for how to set that up.
Faction: This is a special, flexible, field for a drop-down selection, much like the Race field at the top of the character sheet. We have two of these to play with, Faction and Group. These can be used for various appropriate settings, such as Rank for a military campaign, if you like. These can even be renamed from “Faction” or “Group” on the “Setting Adjust” tab so it will show, for example "Rank" instead of "Faction". That renaming can be done on the
Setting Adjust tab.
Group: This is a special, flexible, field for a drop-down selection, much like the Race field at the top of the character sheet. We have two of these to play with, Faction and Group. These can be used for various appropriate settings, such as Rank for a military campaign, if you like. These can even be renamed from “Faction” or “Group” on the “Setting Adjust” tab so it will show, for example "Rank" instead of "Group". That renaming can be done on the
Setting Adjust tab.
Hand Weapon: is generally used for weapons that use the Fighting skill. There is a “Weapon Type” field here that is similar to the Equipment tab’s “Equipment Type”. If you don’t want to use the standard categories for this you’ll need to look at the 2nd post in the
Common Code Examples thread for how to set that up. One “fancy” thing to note is that in some cases you might have a Hand Weapon that does double-duty as a Ranged Weapon (usually using the Throwing skill) as well. There is a bit of a trick to creating two items for a thing, one as a Hand Weapon, one as the Ranged Weapon version, and setting one of them to 0 cost and 0 weight and hiding them. It may be easier to leave that to someone experienced with the process but there are plenty of examples in some of the data files out there if you want to play with setting it up (mostly look at Throwing Knives or Spears or Javelins that can be thrown for some examples.)
Hindrance: Of note here is the “Require Domain Specification?” checkbox and “Domain Term” fields. This is just for user-defined requirements. For example an Allergy hindrance might require the user to define what their Allergy is. By checking the box and setting up a Domain Term (what the user will see as a prompt for what they should enter in the field) Hero Lab will prompt them when the select that Hindrance with a box to fill out the requested information. If you do not check the “Require Domain Specification” box they will still have a box for text but they will not get any error notification if they leave it blank.
Mechanic: is for setting up some overall scripts. In most cases you can skip this for basic data files. It’s really just a place for code that applies across your setting.
Race: Races are set up usually by bootstrapping Racial Abilities to flesh out the race. Of course you can always just define those in the description for a simple data file and let the players manually make the changes.
Racial Ability & Racial Property: Largely Racial Ability is used for Creatures. Racial Property is used for PC Races. Racial Properties probably have a bit more things built into the tab for setting a few things up so you could get away with just using Racial Properties in all cases and just ignoring Racial Abilities if you preferred setting things up that way. These things are generally Bootstrapped onto things in the Creatures or Race tabs.
Ranged Weapons: usually refers to items used for Shooting or Throwing. There is a bit of a trick to creating two items for a thing, one as a Hand Weapon, one as the Ranged Weapon version, and setting one of them to 0 cost and 0 weight and hiding them. It may be easier to leave that to someone experienced with the process but there are plenty of examples in some of the data files out there if you want to play with setting it up (mostly look at Throwing Knives or Spears or Javelins that can be thrown for some examples.)
Setting Adjust: has some special items in it and is often the go-to spot for configuring some overall stuff for your setting. Some items that may require a little extra explanation is “No Standard Gear?” which is useful if you are putting Gear into your setting that has different costs and/or descriptions from standard gear in Savage Worlds Deluxe. This is how you make the standard gear disappear so it only shows the gear you’ve created for this setting. The same can be said for Creatures and Humans (which removes Humans as a race from your setting.) You can also say if you are using Factions and/or Groups here and you can rename them. An example might be for a military setting you want to call your “Factions” something like “Rank” instead.
Vehicle: is largely self explanatory, but it may need to be noted that (at least the last time I tried) you could not place appropriate Bootstrap weapons on a Vehicle directly. Instead you need to use a Gizmo for that. Don’t worry about that too much for a simple data file, just make sure to put the load out in the description, but you can look at something like the vehicles in the Weird War II data file for some examples of how to do it if needed.
*Hidden: is just a way to hide items so they are not otherwise selectable from a player’s point of view but that can still be used for Bootstrapping to other things. Generally not something you’d worry about for a simple data file.
*Preclude: we discussed in more detail in the first post above. Basically this us used to remove items from the setting completely or to remove them and replace them with a more appropriate version for your setting.