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Planet Mercenary

D

Duggan

Well-known member
I recently picked up the Planet Mercenary books through their KickStarter and it's exciting enough that I bought a copy of the Authoring Kit to see if I could implement their (fairly simple) character creation system.

Hoo boy... I was not expecting half of the wiki documentation to be redlinks. I'm trying to follow along with Savage Worlds, but they keep making reference to parts of the wiki that haven't actually been fleshed out as best I can tell.

To start with something really simple, there are files for things like Attributes and Skills, but I can't figure out where in the main definition it says "there are attributes and skills" other than that it's part of the displayed character output. Or is it a matter of "all .dat files are processed and the display elements and output files determine what's actually used"?
 
Alright. I've made a start. I've figured out how to remove Attribute linkage (there are no non-derived attributes) for the Skills, although I'm not quite at the point of fixing the interface. And I have tentative approval from the author of the system. ^_^
 
Even though it's very different I'd still recommend going through the included walk-thru for Savage Worlds. You will learn a lot that will help later.
 
{nods} In my opinion, it's still missing a lot of context, but access to the completed content and a good search engine (Notepad++ FTW in this case) lets you find that out.
 
Because all of the cool kids seem to be doing it, the parameters of the system:
  • Skills (They have a rank from 0 to 9 at character start, and a selection of specialties. Command Packages, Backgrounds, and Sophont Types can add skill ranks that count against the cap)
    • 10 Combat skills
    • 11 Mental skills
    • 9 Physical skills
    • 8 Social skills
  • 7 Command Packages (chosen at character creation, adds to particular skill bonuses. There are some either/or items like "+2 Computers or Mechanic")
  • 10 Background Packages (as Command Packages, skill ranks stack)
  • Sophont Types (basically Races, includes skill ranks, skill specializations,
    skill check penalties, abilities, and natural attacks)
    • 5 Common Sophont types
    • 9 Uncommon Sophont types
    • 2 Advanced Sophont types (AI/Robots may be a stretch goal because they're handled differently. Carbosilicate Amorphs are not as bad, but change skill costs)
  • 3 Derived statistics (well, 2 really. RiPPs is based on what the GC and the cards give you)
  • Company Creation and Equipment (not certain how smoothly this will go... basically, all players are assumed to be drawing from the same resources, so a portfolio should have 1 Company, and purchases should be drawn from it)
    • AI Rating
    • Company Resources (this is a numeric value)
    • Reputation
    • Supplies (also the numeric value)
    • Ship (has its own statistics)
    • Equipment (bought via Supplies and which players then pick from)
    • Fireteams (up to 3 (or higher via cards?) grunts who have 1 of 5 roles that add to the Fireteam's total damage and skill bonus). Fireteams may also have one or more Qualities attached to them permanently or temporarily that offers bonuses.
    • Grunts (the named ones, which have a name and the number of times they survived Ablative Meat. They can be used to create characters or replace Fireteam members)
  • Equipment (There's Armor, Weapons, General Material, and Vehicles. All but General Material can be customized, although I plan to start with the preconfigured ones)

It's a scary looking list, but a lot of it is actually largely data entry and some of the trickier parts can be handwaved initially (letting players handle deducting resources from the Company for example).
 
Character creation consists of picking a Command Package, picking a Background Package, picking a Sophont Type, spending the skill points (For non-AI, 40 points + 10 per survived Ablative Meat if it's a promoted Grunt), calculating the derived statistics, background details.

Company creation is supposed to be a step after the players are all built, and involves buying the equipment.

After that, I suppose you'd add equipment to individual players from the Company store.

If I set up character advancement, it's similarly simple. There's in-game adjustments (Mayhem cards, or circumstances can change skills) and at the end of each adventure, the players get 3 skill points (2 of which need to be spent on skills used in-adventure, but that's an out-of-context problem).

Hmm... I need to see if there's a way to handle one slightly different die for the standard 3d6 checks so that we can check for Mayhem if we are actually using the die roller. There's also a variety of (number)d6 checks for things like weapon damage.
 
Currently entering in Skills, which are simple. They have a Rank (which can be from 0 to 9 at the start of the game), and have various Specialties that can be bought (Either they're bought or they're not, with the number you can buy being constrained by the number of ranks you have in the skill). Side note, chosen specialties only affect in-game action actions, so the only effect is that the character is shown as having designated them. I suspect that building an interface for buying the Specialties will be much further in the Savage Worlds walkthough, so for now, I'm just adding them as ArrayVals. Does that seem like the right approach?

<thing
id="skCarbine"
name="Carbines"
compset="Skill"
isunique="yes"
description="Use your Carbines skill when firing carbine class weapons. As the weapons most commonly issued to infantry, carbines offer versatility and lethality. They are designed for quick carry, ease of use, and close-quarters action">
<fieldval field="trtAbbrev" value="Car"/>
<fieldval field="trtType" value="Combat"/>
<arrayval field="trtSpec" index="0" value="Beam"/>
<arrayval field="trtSpec" index="1" value="Non-Lethal"/>
<arrayval field="trtSpec" index="2" value="Projectile"/>
</thing>
Click to expand...

There is no Link because the system has no Attributes (basically, all they ever did was add into skills, so they were an appendage).
 
Last edited:
Hah. I knew I was pushing beyond what I actually knew how to do. I'll comment out the trtType and trtSpec fields for now.
 

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Woof... all skills are in, although the mechanics for specialties don't work yet. Derived Values seems a likely place to go next, but Health has different calculations for different races, so I'll hold off for the moment (although as soon as I've got basic races in, I can handle all but two of the races with a trait value, I think). Defense is easy enough to do, being based on Dodge. RiPPs is simply a value, which can be added to or removed during the game.

Side thing, I just know that I'm going to find this soon enough, but what's the easiest way to set a starting value for a skill? Everyone starts with a 5 in Dodge (plus any ranks for Command Package, Background, and Sophont Type), and can only add points, up to the maximum of 9 for starting players. Setting trtUser to 5, and trtMinimum to 5, works, except that it looks like it gets counted in the accounting for points spent. Am I best off adding another field for "innate" ranks or the like that isn't counted toward expenses?
 
I'd make trtType a tag, not a field, if there's a limited list of categories to choose from. Otherwise, you have to spell it the same every time, or "combat" will be a separate group of skills from "Combat", which will be different from that one skill with a typo that makes its group "Combt".

If you want to add bonus ranks to certain skills, like Dodge, how about the trtBonus field.

And yes, you must define what a field is in a structural file (traits.str is where skills are defined, unless you've moved them) before you can use that field.
 
{nods} One of the reasons I avoided bonus was that I wanted to be able to constrain initial total ranks in the skill to 9, including amounts added from Sophont Type, Command Package, base value in Dodge etc. My understanding is that bonuses do not count against that maximum.

I wound up setting up the following in traits.str:
<!-- Base value that costs no points, and can't be decreased, but counts toward the maximum -->
<field
id="trtBase"
name="Base Value"
type="derived">
</field>
Click to expand...

Then, I changed the bound calculation for trtUser:

<!-- Bound the user value to the limits established for the trait -->
<bound phase="Traits" priority="1000" name="Bound trtUser">
<before name="Calc trtFinal"/><![CDATA[
@minimum = field[trtBase].value + field[trtMinimum].value
@maximum = field[trtMaximum].value
]]></bound>
Click to expand...

Initially, I ran into issues trying to modify that inside the race (for example, Neophants start with a +1 to Athletics ranks, +2 to Endurance, and +1 to Perception), but changing the phase fixed that. Thank you.

And I'll change the type. I wanted to define it so that I could organize the skills on the tab and/or display.
 
So, would a Gizmo be the best route for items that have customizations? For example, the Legal Counsel offers the choice of either +2 to Empathy or +2 to Negotiate, as well as a few other either-ors on its bonus. Ideally, I'd like that to be selected during the Race. ^_^ I suspect this will be answered in the section on Portals.
 
That depends on the details. I'd study existing games to see how they work - is this a thing like a feat in Pathfinder/quality in Shadowrun, that occasionally needs to make a selection between a few options (and the exact selections offered will vary from item to item), or is this like a gun in Shadowrun, with lots of mods available, where you can select all sorts of combinations of them?
 
It's a simple set of either-or questions. For example, the Legal Counsel offers the following:
Bonus Skill Ranks: +2 Deceive or History, +2 Empathy or Negotiate, +2 Dodge ranks or any 1 Combat skill, +2 Inspire or any 1 Combat skill (you may take Combat skills in both options that allow them)
Click to expand...

Other packages have other setups, but I think that's the most complicated one (particularly since there's multiple Combat skills, although I think that would just be a dropdown list pulled from the tagged skills). From a UI standpoint, it seems like it would make sense for me to do something like build it as a column, with the either-or choices side by side.

I also need to figure out how to designate skill specializations... most skills allow you to spend skill points to gain specializations from a specific list for each skill that allow for rerolls. For example, the Heavy Weapons skill allows for specializations of Beam, Projectile, or Non-Lethal (most of the ranged weapons use that set). ^_^ But hey, I'm not all of the way through the SW example, so this might be explained later.
 
Remember, even if you don't have the license for them, you can download all our systems, and play with them in demo mode.

Your package options are sounding more like some of the feats in Pathfinder, or qualities in shadowrun. Skill specializations are sounding similar to shadowrun's skill specializations.

I don't remember savage worlds having anything along the lines of skill specializations, but once you get into the more advanced sections of edges, that'll cover things like creating a drop-down menu.
 
Huh. You're right. That is basically the same as how the Shadowrun Specializations work (outside of minor differences regarding the number of specializations you can take). I don't suppose you could tell me how it's all set up? Are the specializations in their own little list, or are they stored in their component skills?
 
First, some details - you can take more than one per skill, or can you only select one? Is there a way to change your choice later on - can you spend some experience or whatever this game's advancement method is, to add an extra specialization, or if only one is allowed, change it to a different specialization?

Shadowrun's specialties were set up that way because, with experience, you're allowed to add an unlimited number of specialties to each skill, so drop-downs aren't practical. If there's no way to get more than one, then it's probably simpler to just build a drop-down that picks from a list of specialties.
 
You can have multiple specialities for a skill (although only as many as you have ranks in that skill, unlike Shadowrun as best I can tell). The list is mostly constrained. There are two skills which let you specialize on a particular location, so it could be taken multiple times, with a fill-in box so that, for example, a character could have specialties in Xenobiology (Terran) and Xenobiology (Nofran).

By the by, knowing now that you did all of the other systems in this tool, I take my hat off to you. :)
 
You're going to use a drop-down menu for the skill specialties? You've said earlier that the limit at character creation is 9 ranks in each skill - doesn't that mean you'd need 9 drop-downs showing on each skill to allow the user to pick the 9 specialties they could choose at character creation? Plus even more drop-downs for the specialties gained later on when they improve their skills during play.

I've created the Cortex, Shadowrun (4th and 5th), and Call of Cthulhu (6th and 7th) game systems for Hero Lab, not all of them.
 
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