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rob
Senior Member
Lone Wolf Staff
 
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 8,232

Old April 17th, 2006, 07:09 PM
If this is the only situation where the exceptional behavior will exist, then there really isn't a better way to deal with it. :-(

However, if this type of exception will occur in multiple situations, with different sets of units, you're probably better off setting up an inverted behavior implementation. For example, let's say that there is a ruleset for race X that only includes a handful of units, plus a separate ruleset for race Y that only includes a handful of units, plus the same for race Z, etc. Now what if the publisher comes up with a different subset for race X, a different one for race Y, etc. In this situation, you'll be needing to add the "& !ruleset.xyz" all other the place. This gets pretty sucky. So the trick is to force AB to use an inverted way of handling inclusion.

Basically, what this approach amounts to is defining a tag that excludes all units and then individually add the units in when appropriate. Start by defining a global tag called "allunits". Then add to EVERY unit's Member tagexpr "!global.allunits". Yes, this is the same as your current situation, so it's no better, UNLESS this situation arises in multiple cases, where it becomes a true savings. :-) The net result at this point is that no unit will appear.

I'm going to assume that ruleset(s) you're worried about represent special scenarios or other options that will be chosen as alternatives to the "standard game". So now you can have the "standard game" ruleset define the "global.allunits" tag. Voila! All of the units once again appear for that ruleset. However, no units appear for the other units. You can now add appropriate modifications to the Member tagexprs for the small number of units that should appear in the other rulesets, with all units being excluded by default. The key difference is that you'll use an "|" to combine terms in the Member tagexprs instead of "&".

The net result is that you've now inverted the way AB includes units, so you only have to worry about mucking with the units that are included in a ruleset to make them visible. :-)

Hope this helps,
Rob


At 03:35 AM 4/9/2006, you wrote:

Quote:
I have a ruleset which I use to limit the list of available units to a small fixed subset of the standard list when it is selected. The list of units to be shown is much smaller than the list to be excluded when the ruleset is active and future figure releases will also most likely fall into the excluded list.

Aside from adding a !ruleset.xyz to the member tagexp for every unit I don't want in the list (which is what I've currently got), is there a quicker way where I use the reverse logic?
Basically I only want to "do something" to the units I want to appear in the list and hide everything else when the ruleset is active.

The aim is to avoid me forgetting to put the !ruleset.xyz in the member tagexp when I add new units in the future.

Cheers,
Russell.
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