Another Print Option

[Shi_Vral]

So, in a recient discussion started over on the 40k Forums, a user pointed out that his Tau roster takes 1 page to print, where as his Chaos Roster takes 3. Being the guy who wrote the Tau Files (and seeing as how he mentioned why the size difference) I know that the difference is because the Tau files made everything a unit could add an "Option" rather than an "Item." I did this because I didn't really have any other files to look at when I was writing the Tau files, and because after a while, I realised I liked it the way it was turning out.

Anyway, to the point of my post. I am proposing adding an option when printing a roster that would allow the user to list "Items" like "Options." Basically, what I want is the ability to check a box, and have the item's names listed like options are currently listed, all on one line. If this is not possible, that's fine, but I think it would be really nice.

As the user pointed out, if I equip 5 different Squad Leaders with the same piece of equipment, its description will show up 5 times on a roster printout because it will show up under each of those units. If, on the other hand, I siwtched on the proposed option, only the name would show up 5 times, and the item's description would be printed at the bottom along with the other option descriptions.

 

[Colen]

At 07:27 PM 2/15/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>As the user pointed out, if I equip 5 different Squad Leaders with
>the same piece of equipment, its description will show up 5 times on
>a roster printout because it will show up under each of those units.
>If, on the other hand, I siwtched on the proposed option, only the
>name would show up 5 times, and the item's description would be
>printed at the bottom along with the other option descriptions.


This sounds like a data file issue, not an army builder issue. Here's
some background:


Back in 1985 or 1997 or whenever the first version of Army Builder
actually came out, the first game to be supported was (IIRC)
Warhammer Fantasy 4th edition. Magic items were ideally represented
as Items, because they were limited - most characters could only have
1-3 items, and you wouldn't have a huge number of characters. Thus,
the "magic items are Items" thing made sense, because it didn't waste
too much space, and you were never likely to have duplicate magic
items in the roster. 40k was on 2nd edition at the time, and used
pretty much the same mechanics, so once it was supported it used the
same "wargear is Items" way of doing things. These were dark times,
when space marine tactical squads always had 10 men - no more, no less.

Fast forward to 2006. Bob the Space Marine likes taking 6 Tactical
Squads of 6 models in every army and equipping each veteran sergeant
with the same 10 pieces of cheap wargear. This means that those
sergeants take an extra 60 lines in the roster, which is probably not
optimal. I don't think anyone would want to have the 60 lines of
wargear - they'd want the more summarised version (with the wargear
names in the unit description, and the descriptions in the footnotes
at the bottom).


It sounds like for 40k, things are at the point when wargear should
be represented as Options instead of Items. That way, you can take
advantage of the footnotes mechanism for options, and save a lot of
space. What are your (and the other 40k maintainers) thoughts on this?


Also, to ease the transition, we could probably change the way the
"Output item as option" flag works to add the items as footnotes.
That means that, as a quick fix, you could simply turn on that flag
on all your items. That way, within AB, everything looks the same,
but on printouts, all the items are summaries in a "Wargear" section
of the option footnotes.


How does that sound to everyone?



--
Colen McAlister (colen@wolflair.com)
Chief Engineer, Lone Wolf Development
http://www.wolflair.com/

 

[Shi_Vral]

That is exactly the kind of solution I was hoping for. I'll post this over on the other site just to be sure everyone sees it.