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Posted by: craigpierce Jan 26 2006, 11:38 PM

current version: Jackpoint One

Jackpoint is a windows based suite of programs for Shadowrun Third Edition. i realize that SR3 is now a legacy system, but perhaps there's still a demand for new products based on it. (and, perhaps one day...if you're good, I'll add SR4 functionality)

here is the link:

http://shadowrun.dinfinity.net

any feedback is appreciated. this is something that i hope many people will enjoy using.

for a current list of bugs and feature suggestions, see the website.

Posted by: Tanka Jan 27 2006, 12:14 AM

I mean, I have yet to toy with the program.

But... The design... So... Clean. And simple. And. Oh wow.

I greatly look forward to toying with this thing.

Posted by: Jrayjoker Jan 27 2006, 09:24 PM

Wow. I am impressed. I would love to try out the beta for you.

Posted by: Jrayjoker Jan 27 2006, 09:26 PM

Actually, I would like to see something other than Japaneese symbols on the opening page.

Posted by: craigpierce Jan 27 2006, 11:20 PM

ok, well...only good things so far, so that's good! i want you guys to know that i plan to have the beta up for download within two weeks with at least all of the features mentioned here. I just want to make sure that i have as many bases covered as possible so that hopefully it doesn’t break too much in your guys’ hands

and if I get any feature comments before that two weeks is up, then I’ll look into adding those features before that release (assuming I choose to run with said feature).

thanks again for the support!

Posted by: craigpierce Jan 27 2006, 11:24 PM

Posted by: Churl Beck Jan 28 2006, 07:28 AM

Posted by: Jrayjoker Jan 28 2006, 07:32 AM

The look is fine, I just don't read Japanese. Having the mouse over is good enough for me. Although the translations make me laugh...

Posted by: Tal Jan 28 2006, 10:24 AM

Dear Sweet Dunkie on a pogo-stick. archimagus, I love you.

Aside from the amusing kanji, maybe you could replace the Shadowrun logo with a Jackpoint one? I have a couple of vague ideas for a new opening screen, I'll take a poke around in paintshop and see if I can pull 'em out of my head.

Posted by: nick012000 Jan 28 2006, 10:42 AM

Hmm...

Could you use this as the core of a game engine, I wonder...

Posted by: craigpierce Jan 28 2006, 07:11 PM

Posted by: Jrayjoker Jan 29 2006, 04:45 PM

I vote for more accurate kanji.

Posted by: Jrayjoker Jan 29 2006, 04:47 PM

Quick question. Bear with me, I am a programming noob. Will this be compiled for a specific processor, OS, or whatever (like Intel versus Asus, or XP versus OSX) or cross platform and cross processor?

Posted by: craigpierce Jan 29 2006, 06:39 PM

Posted by: brennanhawkwood Jan 30 2006, 05:30 PM

That looks like a really cool program. I like the look and feel as depicted by the snapshots in the user manual. And while I had no idea which kanji those were, I agree that they shouldn't be entirely random if possible. There are enough people internationally who play SR that someone who speaks japanese is likely to grab this and really wonder.

I'd love to beta test it for you.

Posted by: Jrayjoker Jan 30 2006, 06:16 PM

So, when is beta going to be released at this rate, Mr. 20000 lines of code-dude?

Posted by: Taran Jan 30 2006, 06:45 PM

That is some grade-A user interface design, archimagus. I'm eagerly looking forward to the beta.

Posted by: craigpierce Jan 30 2006, 09:21 PM

thanks for all the support so far - i honestly wasn't sure how this would be received.

and now i'm really looking forward to the release to see how the actual product holds up.

i said within 2 weeks on friday, and so far i'm sticking to that...unless i have less to do than i think or can do it faster than i think. but there's no reason that it'll be any later than 2/12 as a worst-case date.

Posted by: PiXeL01 Jan 30 2006, 10:13 PM

I have to admit this program rocks so far, from the looks of it.

I have no request/suggestion. Is it possible to make a grid map with addable and movable markers for both map building and interactive combat? Would make it every GMs dream

Posted by: craigpierce Jan 30 2006, 10:27 PM

Posted by: Churl Beck Jan 31 2006, 04:20 AM

If you decide to use different kanji, here are my feeble suggestions.

#1: king (gamemaster)
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwhalsod.cgi?3439_%B2%A6
god
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwhalsod.cgi?0912_%BF%C0

#2: make
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwhalsod.cgi?0068_%BA%EE

#3: change
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwhalsod.cgi?2069_%CA%D1

#4: nothing
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwhalsod.cgi?2135_%CC%B5
not yet, future
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwhalsod.cgi?3506_%CC%A4

#5: notify, inform
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwhalsod.cgi?2409_%B9%F0
what?
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwhalsod.cgi?0065_%B2%BF


Of course, these are bitmaps and require permission to use (which I don't imagine would be hard to obtain). Another option is to install a free Japanese font and type them up yourself. I wouldn't recommend drawing them yourself.

Posted by: craigpierce Jan 31 2006, 08:02 AM

thanks beck - i'm not sure exactly what direction i'm gonna go, but trying to find a kanji font is a good idea.

Posted by: eidolon Jan 31 2006, 08:25 AM

OMYFRKNGOWD!!@!@#@$@!#@

Okay. I have just recently started using a computer while I GM (I used to be among the "it'll distract me too much and separate me from my players" crowd. I am now reformed.) I thought I'd revolutionized my games just by keeping word documents with stats and stuff open....

Can I have your drop bear?

Count me in for the Beta testing. I have a five player group that meets for around 10-15 hours every Saturday, so it that doesn't beat it to hell, nothing will.

Posted by: PiXeL01 Jan 31 2006, 10:44 AM

As for kanjies, why not included Kane (Gold or money) http://ww1.baywell.ne.jp/fpweb/drlatham/nihongo/kanji/less7/kane.gif and maybe our beloved nuyen?

Drawing them just take a few tries ... except if through calligraphy. That's just near impossible
If you use WinXp Japanese fonts are included, you just need to activate them.

Posted by: craigpierce Jan 31 2006, 03:31 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Jan 31 2006, 03:41 PM

Posted by: okkam Jan 31 2006, 09:41 PM

I would love to help test this software! It looks absolutely excellent.


Cheers,

Okkam

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 2 2006, 04:23 AM

i updated the features list in post one.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 4 2006, 07:13 PM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 4 2006, 07:35 PM

So...um....about to go to game....

any chance of a beta in the next hour or so?

Can't wait to see it man.

Posted by: runefire32 Feb 4 2006, 09:51 PM

Oh my...yes when can we get a hold of this beautiful thing...

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 4 2006, 11:39 PM

man, i didn't mean to be a tease or anything - but you understand...a guy just can't put out too soon

i doubt i'll be ok with releasing it anytime this week. when you get it i'll still consider it unpolished - but for now it really is too unpolished to release. next weekend will be the unveiling, i promise.

Posted by: PiXeL01 Feb 5 2006, 12:50 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 5 2006, 08:12 PM

Posted by: Tanka Feb 9 2006, 03:30 PM

Me? Excited? No... Well, yes.

Can't wait to try it out!

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 11 2006, 11:34 PM

Ok, so Jackpoint Beta is posted for download. You can visit the first post in this thread to find the link to the site.

Some things i have to explain about Beta:

1. The Character Sheet that opens in your web browser at the save and print stage is very simplistic right now. expect it to look much better in the first actual release.

2. I only have one half-made sample character from SR3 in the system. i plan to have them all made and available in the first release.

3. There is no 'Character Updater' right now - so once you create any characters you can't load them up to change them. This is because i am going to use the 'Character Creater' as the foundation for the Updater, and i want to make sure you guys get the chance to test the creator first so we can weed out all the bugs in it before i copy the code over and modify it for the Updater.

4. the 'about' button leads nowhere right now.

5. I need all the help you can provide. i'm in the midst of changing jobs right now (i start my new job on monday) - so for the next week or 2 if you could just report anything that is wrong/doesn't look good/is missing/etc. i would greatly appreitate it. i'll look on here every day and update all bugs/known issues in the first post, and i'll let them pile up until i've settled into my new position.

as soon as i can, i'll start updating Jackpoint, getting it ready for it's official release (1.0) - but for now i'm looking forward to a little time off from this project while my brain can heal from all the thinking.

i hope everyone finds Jackpoint Beta to be a good foundation to a great SR3 tool (that could one day find a new home in the world of 2070)

Posted by: Tanka Feb 12 2006, 04:15 AM

Well, not many complaints, but here they are nonetheless:

1) Skills. Don't know if it's StyleXP or if it's Jackpoint, but the skills only show up (as in, can be read) if you click them. (After being bought, that is.)

2) BP for skills. When purchasing Assault Rifles 6 with Quickness 5, it subtracts 6 points only, when it should be 7. It does get the correct amount eventually, but the BP display is wrong.

3) Gear. It could be a little more sorted, I feel. It's tough scrolling through tons and tons of 'ware, only to miss it and have to repeat.

Now that that is out of the way...

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 12 2006, 06:25 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 12 2006, 06:37 PM

oh, and now that my brain has had some sleep (what the hell happened to SNL last night? am i nuts or did it not come on?)...

critters are something else that are not working at the moment...there is a button for them in the GMConsole, but you cannot add any to play yet.

in the grid map, you can rename the markers with 1-2 alpha-numeric characters of your choosing by right-clicking on them.

there are not many people in the random person generator yet...only a sampling of about 30 so far.

those are the only new notes i can think of for now...

Posted by: Tanka Feb 12 2006, 09:53 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 12 2006, 11:04 PM

another thing i would like people to test are the generators...most specifically the security system generator. i just want to make sure that it's making realistic security systems.

and remember - it was built to make 'em random, so some may seem off-balance...like having lots of cameras but not much else on a rating 3 system - maybe that company put all of their small security budget into cameras.

but if you hit generate over and over and each system that it makes seems not quite right for the type or rating you selected, please let me know how it seems off so i can tweak the decision-making logic.

an example would be a rating 2 home security system having mono-wire topped fencing...that just wouldn't seem right. a rating > 7 maybe, 'cus now we're probably talkin' about a corp owned neighborhood - but not a 2.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 12 2006, 11:06 PM

Not so much a bug, really, just a typo. When you click "Initiate" in the character creator, the buttons read "OK" and "Cancle".

Other than that, although I've only done a very brief poking around,

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 12:24 AM

Posted by: Taran Feb 13 2006, 12:46 AM

In the GM Console, under "Character Stats", the 'clone' button should reselect the character cloned, so that it's possible to (say) generate six identical gangers by pressing 'clone' six times, rather than having to go back and reselect the original ganger by hand each time.

Also, how do you give an NPC combat pool? My cloned adepts all showed up with a combat pool of zero, and I couldn't figure out how to give them any. Clicking the little arrows did nothing.

The security system creator seems fine. Fewer lines of defense than something I'd write by hand, but since those defenses have to be aware of one another that's a bit outside the scope of a random generator.

The magical group generator is great.

Why is it irreversible to buy knowledge points? You can infer from Intelligence how many knowledge points the character "ought" to have, so it's possible to know how many bought unspent knowledge skill points are remaining. Similarly, buying language skill points with knowledge skill points can be reversed, since you know how many language points are unsellable.

It's friggin' awesome.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 13 2006, 03:48 AM

I seem to have found a fairly nasty bug.

I'm trying to create a full shaman. I set the attributes, make him a full shaman using the drop down, and then start picking skills. This is where I run into the bug.

When I try to give him Sorcery, the box pops up asking me what rating I want it at. When I click a rating and hit okay, it adds "Sorcery/Knowledge/(blank)" to the skills list, and the "pick a rating" box comes right back up. (It charges you build points twice in the process.) When I pick a rating, I get the following error message:

Posted by: Jrayjoker Feb 13 2006, 04:45 AM

Can't get it to load on any of my machines, I am sad.

AMDs, WinXP Pro and home.

I can't help but feel I am missing out.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 13 2006, 05:39 AM

New ?bug?.

I got this error message, the gist of which was that it couldn't find the file "Jackpoint>JPFs>DBs>Stuff.xml"

I got to looking, and it appears that nearly every file was installed with the extention ".jpf". I backed up the Stuff.jpf file in another folder, and renamed the original to "Stuff.xml" and it fixed the problem.

I'm wondering if everything is supposed to be an xml file? Right now, I'm just going to keep playing with things until I get bugs and see if I can't figure out how to work around them.

I guess my main question regarding this one is how is everything supposed to look when installed? What are the various files supposed to be? (as in XML, JPF, etc.) Should I just rename everything as XML files? And if so, any clues as to why it would have installed everything so wonky? I'm wondering if it's just my machine.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 13 2006, 05:54 AM

New bug.

I added the edge "Bonus Charisma Point", but then decided that I'd rather the character have a bonus intelligence point, so I removed "Charisma Point". However, when I tried to then give him the bonus intelligence point, it gave me a dialog box that said "You have already used the Bonus Attribute Edge to raise an attribute above it's limit" and wouldn't let me do it.

New bug.

Before I describe it, I should note that this only comes up when you try to use the program in a manner other than intended: typing things directly in rather than selecting them through buttons. Therefore, it isn't so much a bug as something you might want to consider making impossible to do. You'll see why:

Under edges and flaws: You can type in anything you like into the boxes (this isn't the bug). For example, I typed in "Cool Hair Cut" and gave it a value of 5.

First part of bug: When I assign a typed in value to something, it doesn't reflect in the "points left" box.

Second part: Then, I highlighted Cool Hair Cut and hit "Remove". When I removed it, it gave me 5 free build points. Munchkins are gonna love this. SHHHHHHH, don't tell them.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 13 2006, 06:07 AM

Oops. It appears that when the program is starting up, it looks for the file "Stuff.jpf". Since I had changed Stuff to an XML to work around the other problem I was having, it wouldn't start correctly.

Current workaround seems to be keeping a copy of Stuff as both an XML (see above for why) and as a JPF. Testing now...

Program opens normally if both files are present in DBs directory.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 13 2006, 06:43 AM

This seems to be more stylistic than anything, but when buying cyber, if you select something at alpha, and the math causes it to be a repeating number (my alpha headware 200MP ended up being .6666666666666666667 E, for example) it actually carries it out for several decimals before rounding. I don't know if this is intentional for calculation purposes, unintentional but does factor in to the calculations, or something that could be limited without any effect.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 13 2006, 07:21 AM

When purchasing gear, I ran into the following:

When you input a new vehicle, there is no way to put in both handling ratings. The program will not allow a slash in the input box, so you can only put one or the other.

Also, above the box, "handling" is spelled "handleing".

The typo things are minor, to be sure, but I figure you'd want to know about them.

Also, I continue to be amazed at the amount of detail and effort you put into this. It's fantastic.

(And eventually, I'll get into the rest of the program. Right now I'm focusing on the character generator because I've been waiting for a decent, non spreadsheet character generator for a long time.)

Posted by: eidolon Feb 13 2006, 07:36 AM

ignore

Posted by: eidolon Feb 13 2006, 07:41 AM

It took me this long to see that one of the selections for "Character is" is "An Idiot."

Don't change this. It's vital.

Was it intentional for the program to "warn" me that the character doesn't have an adrenal pump every time I mark damage? (Honestly, I would think that not having one is more a rule than an exception.)

Gotta hit the sack now. I'll mess with it more over the week.

Posted by: Snowduck Feb 13 2006, 12:16 PM

Wonderfull, awesome program! Shadowrun is such a complex, time-consuming system to play that we really need to design programs like yours to speed up the gameplay. I particularly enjoy the automated perception tjecks and the combat maps. I intend to test out the program with my group in 2-3 weeks. I have a 15.4" laptop that I can use to show the combat map to my players. It's gonna be great!


I detected a few flaws.

* Force 4 Air elementals do not have 27 ini dice.
* When you mark damage the program complains that the selected character do not have a adrenal pump.
* The program does not compute reaction ratings acurately.
* When you roll a closed test roll, the rule of 6 is not applied.

I have a few suggestions.

* The perception test box does not allow different t# for different characters due to low-light, thermografic etc. It would be nice if you could define vision type/ hearing amps etc. when you create the character.
* It would be nice if you could include an input box in the perception test box for a custom t#
* The combat map is wonderfull, but we need a little more features
* zoom in/out
* the god/bad guy markers need to have something that shows what direction the character is facing.
* a range ruler, so you can tjeck the range from one person to another
* If you could make the good guy/ bad guy markers skinnable it would be awesome!! I can contribute with icons if you want it.
* We need a few vehicle markers.

You are the man!

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 03:05 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 03:23 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 03:40 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 03:42 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 03:43 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 03:52 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 03:53 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 03:58 PM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 13 2006, 03:59 PM

Gotta head to work right now, I'll see if I can duplicate that error this afternoon and I'll let you know where it hits.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 04:01 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 04:09 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 04:47 PM

a big thank you to everyone for jumping in on the testing so far (especially eidolon).

i want you all to know that the amount of participation has reenergized my enthusiasm for Jackpoint. i was honestly worried about walking into the SR3-program world under mcmackie's shadow, but the support so far has been great. really, i think it may have just been my code-fried brain bringing me down last week

i expect to begin work on fixes/upgrades soon...if not this week, then this coming weekend for sure.

so please, keep the bug reports/suggestions coming! it's apparently fuel for my fire

p.s. i've got to get ready for work before i'm late my first day - i'll add all the bugs to the known-bugs list in the first post as soon as i can.

Posted by: Jrayjoker Feb 13 2006, 05:06 PM

Posted by: Tanka Feb 13 2006, 05:11 PM

Did you have an active firewall that could've blocked the program?

Try running it as an Administrator (if you aren't one) and with the firewall turned down/off.

That seems to fix a lot of installation problems that I've had.

Posted by: Jrayjoker Feb 13 2006, 06:30 PM

Posted by: Tanka Feb 13 2006, 06:40 PM

Well, good luck to you. It really is a wonderful tool. Once it gets out of beta, I'll be spreading the word all over the place.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 07:16 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 07:19 PM

Posted by: Tanka Feb 13 2006, 07:48 PM

I'll try having one of my friends install it on his AMD system and let you know what comes of it.

Posted by: Aku Feb 13 2006, 08:45 PM

following instructions helps too. it wasnt until i actually read the directions i realized it wants to be installed in a particular place. is there any chance that can be changed?

Posted by: Tanka Feb 13 2006, 08:48 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 09:20 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 13 2006, 09:20 PM

Posted by: Chibu Feb 13 2006, 10:05 PM

I'm up for beta as well. Tanka sent me the link and asked me to try it out becuase of something about it not working on AMD processors. I'm using an Athlon XP something or other (i don't remember becuase I fried my last processor from OCing it too much for about 8 months) and it seems to work fine. I would like to note that you should change the requirement from the folder being in"C:\program files" to "%program_dir%" or whatever it is. I had to make the "program files" folder, and I don't like program files. I went to all this trouble to get rid of it and now i had to make it again >_<

But other than that, the program DOES, in fact, work on AMD processors, or at least, It works on my box (XP, SP2, 1gb ram, Radeon graphics, DFI mobo). So yeah...

Posted by: PiXeL01 Feb 13 2006, 10:16 PM

I'm using a Athlon 64 and it works on my setup at least.

I havent toyed alot with it yet BUT so far it looks awesome

I wonder if this is a bug though: I wasnt able to draw anything on the map. Nor was I able to change the BP for char creation ... Maybe I just need to toy around some more

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 14 2006, 12:30 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 14 2006, 12:32 AM

Posted by: Jrayjoker Feb 14 2006, 03:50 AM

This is me dancing around in my dunce cap, proclaiming my ignorance!

Posted by: eidolon Feb 14 2006, 03:51 AM

On the "open test" issue:

An open test is one in which the target number for your roll is set by the highest number generated by an opponent's roll. It uses the rule of six.

A success test is one in which you're rolling against a predetermined target number.

OTOH, the only roll that doesn't use the rule of six is initiative (unless they have the Adrenaline Surge edge or something like that).

Back to bug hunting. I'll see if I can't pin down that one I was telling you about and post more details.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 14 2006, 04:04 AM

New ?bug?:

Specializations don't really render correctly. For example, I gave a ganger I'm making the Etiquette active skill at a 3, and I wanted him to specialize in "Seattle Go Gangs", making his final skill: Etiquette (Seattle Go Gangs) 2 (4).

I added the active skill, and then pressed "New Skill/Specialization". I typed in "Seattle Go Gangs" as the name, left type as "Specialization", and entered "None.01" as the book/page number (since it's required, but I made it up). However, the rating box won't allow you to up-arrow to anything above a 1. It will let you reduce it to 0, but that's not very useful . I tried to enter "4" manually, only to have it revert back to a 1 as I clicked "Okay".

I thought I had found a workaround, in that you can select the specialization after it's added and increase it to the proper rating. (This correctly does not charge you more BPs, so that's working right.) However, when you try to reduce the base skill by one, it gives you back a BP when it should just stay the same.


Also in the "New Skill/Specialization" box, the tab order is wonky. It starts in "Name", then goes to type, rating, then Okay, then Cancel, and last it goes to Book.page. Might want to see if you can get Book.page in there after rating.

New Bug:

When you try to add the "Illiterate" flaw, it gives you the warning about losing your knowledge and language skills and gives you the opportunity to hit either Okay or Cancel, but it adds it and charges you the points and erases the skills regardless of which button you push.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 14 2006, 04:35 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 14 2006, 04:44 AM

NP

I'm creating a character right now, and I just realized that the XML hunting bug happened before where I am now, and of course I forgot to disable my workaround before starting. After I finish this character, I'll move the .xml version of Stuff and start over and post when it hits.

Something that you might consider adding to the skill structure:

It's optional that the GM may allow a character to automatically have a background skill of 3 less than the active skill. For example, Pistols:6 would grant you Pistols Backgroung:3.

Perhaps you could add a check-box that would allow the program to take this into account? It could run a check when you add an active skill and automatically add in the background skill when you hit rating 4, or (and probably better), it could simply account for the automatically granted points and only display the background skill and factor out the cost if you spend extra points on it.

Right now, if I as a GM want to use that option, I still have to spend full points on a background skill. I'd like the character to have Pistols:4 and Pistols Background:3. Under the optional rule, it should only cost 2 knowledge skill points, since he would start off with Pistols Background:1 before I officially gave it to him.

Currently, you can sorta go around this by only "officially" adding the points needed to bring the background skill up to where you want it, and then just go into the rating box and correct the number manually.

Let me know if that doesn't make sense, it sounds kinda convoluted when I read it back to myself.

Also, "Electronics" appears twice in the knowledge skills list.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 14 2006, 04:57 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 14 2006, 05:04 AM

Yeah, it says all field required. If it makes you feel better, it does allow custom book entries. I could swear there was one yesterday that wouldn't let me leave the book entry blank though. I'll let you know if I find it.

The rule regarding specializing is on page 82, SR3.

Basically, when you choose a specialization, you add the specialization in parentheses at one higher than the points spent, and drop the base skill by one.

So:

Pistols: 6 [cost- 6 points] specializes to

Pistols (Predator II): 5 (7) [cost=6 points]

And you're welcome. I love doing this kind of stuff.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 14 2006, 05:04 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 14 2006, 05:07 AM

Ah-hah! I hadn't even noticed that one.

Oh, come to think of it, last night I unchecked the "availability" box because I was inputting a fixer (and he can have anything he wants ), and tried to buy a rating 13+ credstick. It wouldn't let me, even though the box was unchecked. I think it was letting me buy a rating 10 though, so it sort works.

Sure thing, optional rule on background skills is on page 90, SR3. "Background Knowledge" section, last paragraph.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 14 2006, 05:17 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 14 2006, 05:23 AM

No sweat, man.

Suggestion:

For firearms, having range listed as 0-Max isn't very useful, because knowing what range the target is at is how you set the base target number.

Perhaps you could enter the weapon ranges as shown in the chart, tag each "set" of ranges with it's respective weapon type, and then have the full set of ranges show up in the range box. Also, for custom-entered weapons, rather than have the range box be for just typing in numbers, make it a drop box with a list of the weapon categories, and when you select the weapon's category, it automatically displays the correct ranges.

Example:

I decide to make a pistol called the Taurus Cowboy. I want it to be a heavy pistol, so when I'm entering its stats, I simply choose "Heavy Pistol" from the "Range" drop-down menu, and when I hit "Okay" it displays the pistol's range as "0-5/6-20/21-40/41-60".

I don't know how feasible it is, but it would improve the functionality since you wouldn't have to look elsewhere to see how exactly that "0-60" is broken down.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 14 2006, 06:37 AM

Also, the specializations don't stay linked to their parent active skill in the skills list if you sort the skills.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 14 2006, 06:51 AM

Found a bug when I pressed "Save & Print" with this character.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 14 2006, 07:28 AM

Hmm...

After that last error, I just hit "Continue" and closed out the character creator.

Then, I opened the GM console and tried to load up that last character I made. It gave me an error (which I stupidly didn't copy down ), so I closed the GM Console to re-open it. When I click "GM Console" it gives me the following error:

Posted by: eidolon Feb 14 2006, 07:34 AM

Last thing for today, I gotta get some sleep.

The program looks for "Stuff.xml" instead of "Stuff.jpf" when you try to select the "Aptitude" edge.

Posted by: Chibu Feb 14 2006, 09:42 AM

Alright, I'm trying to Add "Improved Ability" adept power and I get the error:

Conversion from string "SR3.169" to type 'Double' is not valid.


And, You can't make an initiated Adept? Well, the Initiate button is there, but, you cna't have spell points... so, yeah

Posted by: Ziechyel Feb 14 2006, 04:10 PM

First of all! Wow thats some nice piece of software thanks m8

tryed it for a couple of hours now, and try´d out the grid map, works like a charm..

But...

The "bad guys" seems to erase the drawings? try´d to draw some houses on the map, then put a Bad guy in one of them... missed the spot, removed the bad guy again... but then he had removed/erased a section of the house -sad

Also when you [tab] between windows the new window erases the things you´ve drawn -sad

I might be doing something wrong? but thought you might wanted to know

But it looks great *shivers* fantastic piece of work

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 14 2006, 04:32 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 14 2006, 04:46 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 14 2006, 04:51 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 14 2006, 05:05 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 15 2006, 11:53 PM

Ok, well...if you look at the bugs/suggestions list in the first post, you can see what bugs i've fixed and suggestions i've taken and implemented.

unless a bunch more bugs come in before the end of the week, then i may release a beta2 version, since i'll have knocked out the entire list of bugs by then.

the nice thing for you beta testers is that now you've already installed the .NET 2.0 stuff - so any new releases will be a snap for you to install.

Posted by: Tanka Feb 16 2006, 12:03 AM

Bitchin'!

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 16 2006, 02:05 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 16 2006, 03:08 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 16 2006, 06:45 AM

I'll be putting my players' characters into Jackpoint Beta as they are emailed to me over the next couple of days. The sheer variety of traits should be enough to dig out anything else. To input them, I'll have to turn off all of the limiters, so if there are any bugs associated with doing so, I should find them through this exercise.

Of course, of the six of us, only 3 are remotely addicted to information sharing and constant internet use, so I may not get to add all of them this week...meaning they'll just be great cannon-fodder for JPB2.

Also, as much as I dislike sounding like a good little MS minion, the MS Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 is a freaking dream come true, and at $49.95 - $10 mail in rebate, a total steal. Mmmmmmmmm....(semi)pain-free typing.

Posted by: Jrayjoker Feb 16 2006, 06:51 AM

Posted by: Jrayjoker Feb 16 2006, 06:53 AM

I have not added edges nor flaws to my character yet.

PS - I got the same sorcery error as detailed above.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 16 2006, 07:12 AM

New bug.

To input these "uber" characters I had turned off all three limiters. When I started choosing edges and flaws, I noticed that if you remove anything, it turns Spending back on.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 16 2006, 07:43 AM

First off, if I haven't remembered to mention it yet, I think it's totally bitchin' that the program learns, and that I don't have to re-type stuff like new weapons if I want to use them again.

However, I'm beginning to think that if there's one section where it shouldn't learn and save stuff, it's knowledge skills. I don't know about other people's games, but I know that nearly every character that gets made in our games has probably 75% "new" skills; that is, skills that we just make up to fit the character. At this rate, the knowledge skill list is going to be comletely unnavigable before I even get done inputting the characters before starting game.

I like that there's a list there to choose from, and you've got tons of great, useful stuff in there. However, if it's possible to "turn off" the learning feature for just one area, that'd be the one to turn off.

Suggest adding a "Remove Geas" button under Magic.

Along the same lines as the handling box, when Armor is selected under "New Gear" it should have slots for Ballistic and Impact. Currently it only has one box.

Posted by: Aku Feb 16 2006, 12:12 PM

one possible option for Eidolon, as far as coding goes, might be to populate a list box wit those knowledge skills, insted of having them fill-text (what i'm assuming they're doing, i havent had a chance to properly install it ) That way, if someone wants to reuse an old knowledge skill, they can go to a secondary drop down, while keeping the main input clean.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 16 2006, 04:43 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 16 2006, 04:58 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 16 2006, 05:02 PM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 17 2006, 03:18 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 17 2006, 01:42 PM

Posted by: Jrayjoker Feb 17 2006, 02:54 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 17 2006, 07:37 PM

thanks Jray!

Posted by: eidolon Feb 18 2006, 01:56 AM

Actually, I had forgotten there was a separate updater on the way.

That's perfect. All of the Karma and extra moolah spending will go on in it.
Ignore me on that one.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 18 2006, 03:11 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 18 2006, 03:13 AM

i'm going to try and make a push this weekend to get as much done as i can. i also need to run through some trainings for my new job this weekend - but i should be able to get a lot done on Jackpoint.

if anyone runs into any problems or thinks of any improvements, just keep me updated!

Posted by: eidolon Feb 18 2006, 04:31 AM

Ran into some trouble getting character info from 4 out of five of my players, so I probably won't get to actually try to use JP during game this weekend.

I plan on taking their sheets (or at least copies) this time so I can input them for next week. I'm anxious to try out the GM console real-time.

I probably won't be doing much more testing until possibly Sunday (or Monday), due to having to prep and run game for Saturday (and possibly Sunday...). I'll try to keep an eye on the thread at some point though. I expect to get back into testing next week (when I'm adding their characters).

Thanks again for all the work you're putting into this.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 18 2006, 05:01 PM

Posted by: mfb Feb 18 2006, 05:09 PM

the rating shouldn't be 1, though, it should be (base rating +1).

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 18 2006, 06:05 PM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 18 2006, 07:04 PM

Hehe. Yeah, good way to fix it. As long as the calculations are coming out correctly it doesn't matter how they're achieved. (And you're achieving it correctly to in this case. Points-1=Base, Points+1=Specialization)

Can't wait for the B2...

Crap. I gotta stop answering posts and finish prepping for game. So much to do yet, and G-2 hours.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 18 2006, 11:53 PM

Buddy of Eidolon decked into his account...hehe. OK, just kidding. he's running game now and I'm sorta dead, so I'm posting this instead of him.

the Electronics active skill is doing the same thing that Sorcery active skill did.
Thanks!
Same with trying to change Language points (I want to read better!)

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 19 2006, 12:22 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 20 2006, 02:10 AM

quick questions -

does anyone think that one of their characters has ever had more than 29 of any one type of skill: active, knowledge or language?

and if you have had or known of a character like that, how often do you think it happens that someone has so many of 1 type of skill?

i'm writing up my XSL character sheet and i want to make it's as unbreakable as possible. right now, the only thing that could break the first page is if someone had over 29 of one type of skill.

thanks!

Posted by: Dawnshadow Feb 20 2006, 03:12 AM

37 active skills... with another 4-5 that still need to be added, at least. But it's an unusually high powered game, and a metalhead.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 20 2006, 05:20 AM

well, that's 1. and i forgot to mention that:

active skill = active, specialization or maneuver
language = spoken and R/W

if this turns out to be a big deal, then maybe i'll work out a separate sheet - one that can handle a more grand-scale campaign.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 21 2006, 03:13 AM

if anyone wants to try it out, there is a new character sheet up at the site. it's not complete yet, but i figured i'd give you guys the chance to give feedback on how it looks so far...

you'll also need to download the 2 images and save them to the same directory as the sheet.

EDIT: another note about the character sheet - it works best if, in your browser window when the sheet opens, you go to 'File > Page Setup...' and you set margins to 0.5 inches and you delete the values in 'Header' and 'Footer'. if the margins are set lower than 0.5, that's fine...but more than that could break the layout. oh, and you only have to do this once.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 22 2006, 02:41 AM

Just dropping by. I haven't had much time to mess with JP over the last few days, and I'm taking a day or two hiatus from SR to counter my oncoming GM burnout. I'll be back at it soon though.

Any news on a beta 2?

Posted by: FrictionX42 Feb 22 2006, 02:52 AM

Eidolon's buddy again. got me own account.
first off, wanted to say thanks a bundle. I made a back-up character (my other one gets out of the hospital in 30 game days ) in about 15 minutes. This from a guy who usually takes a day or two for each character, just making sure the math is right, etc... so thanks.

but to the subject at hand: Car B/R seems to take more points out than it should, and when I get rid of the skill, it gives the right number of points back, resulting in fewer points than I should have. it's good with skill rank 1 or 2, but with rank 3, it takes 4 points, with rank 4 it takes 6. rank 5 cost me 8 points, and rank 6, 10 points! each of course only gave 1 2 3 4 5 or 6 points back, respectively.

trying to get the same results using different attributes and car B/R rank 6, gave me the following info:
with str=6, I got it to take the proper number of points as if I had an int of 6 (B/R skills all default to int pg 85, SR3) but when I had it remove the skill, it gave me more points back than I had put in! WOOHOO! free points!

when I tried it with str 1 and int 6, however, it had the same issue as I originally mentioned.

once that issue was found, I found that some other skills are screwed up as well. assault rifles is based on Bod, Armor B/R now based on str...
-when I restarted the character builder, Armor B/R was based on quickness, but gave extra points if your int wasn't also 6...

HOLY COW WHAT'S GOING ON??????? is it like this with only my copy or for others too?

maybe if I was a programmer, I'd understand what the issue is better.
but from where I'm standing, it looks like some of the skills are based on the wrong stat for BUYING them, but when getting rid of the skill, they're based on the right ones.
Head hurts now...

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 22 2006, 03:32 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 22 2006, 03:41 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 22 2006, 07:39 AM

Damn, they're signing up. Guess it's more spoiler tags for me from here on out.

Bah. Let 'em read. Spoils their fun, not mine.

Posted by: FrictionX42 Feb 23 2006, 01:24 AM

Posted by: FrictionX42 Feb 24 2006, 12:07 AM

sorry, don't think I'll get to it by the time you're looking to release D2.
(there was more than I thought...)

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 24 2006, 02:22 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 24 2006, 03:19 AM

HOLY CRAP BATMAN!!!

::goes to dl JPB2::

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 24 2006, 03:39 AM

another note...sorry for the airheadedness

any characters that you made will not work with Beta2. I've implemented a few new things (like credstick tracking) that make the old characters not compatable.

you can send me any characters that you want to keep, and i'll add in the new fields for you.

any .gmf files you may have created are ok to bring into Beta2.

sorry about the hassle - but at least it does mean more functionality

craigpierce@gmail.com

Posted by: eidolon Feb 24 2006, 04:17 AM

Major kudos on the easier install. Very nice.

First bug though, and it's a biggie:

Making the character a troll costs 20 BPs, and should cost 10.

Making an Ork costs 9 points, should cost 5.

Making a Formori costs 21 points, should cost 15.

(Also, going from Formori to another variant, even back to human, causes the BPs to go all kinds of screwy.)

Making a Hobgoblin costs 12, should cost 10.

Making a Menehune, then changing it back to human screws up the BP total.

I suspect that there are several instances in which going from one to another is going to mess up the BPs, and I doubt I'll catch them all on this run through. However, I'm betting that the issue that's causing it will be something that, once found, will be fairly simple to fix across the board. On several of these, going back to human raises your BP total to 116, rather than the correct 108.

AH HAH!! I just realized that what it's doing is recalculating your new BPs as though you were getting points back from attributes (I think). What I mean, is that the racial modifiers to attributes are getting calculated back into BPs when you go back to human, instead of them just being reset to 108.

Suggest programming in a "reset" to 108 that happens behind the scenes when going back and forth between races. That way, it's always calculating based on the 108 beginning total.

I also suspect that the inconsistencies in the costs for the races stem from it calculating based on the attributes rather than the set, constant race BP costs.

To complete the list though:

Making an Oni costs 14, should cost 10.

Making an Ogre costs 12, should cost 10.

Making a Minotaur costs 21, should cost 15.

Making a Satyr costs 16, should cost 10.

Making a Dryad costs 19, should cost 15.

Making a shapeshifter costs 31, should cost 25.

Also, if possible it would be nice to be able to add animal forms, which of course would also mean being able to enter the attribute mods. Perhaps a "Custom Animal" button that brings up a pop-up box, in which you input the animal name and attribute changes, etcetera? I don't know how much trouble it would be, and honestly, I'm not sure enough people play shifters to make it worth doing, but I thought I'd toss it out there.

I don't know if the "Other" option is new, or if it was in the old version (I didn't mess with the variants in B1 enough to have seen it even if it was there), but either way, Awesome. Totally dig the forethought on that one.

Specializations work!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO! (I know, I shouldn't be that excited..)

That's all for now, I have to get started on this weekend's game, so as to avoid the unpreparedness that plagued me last weekend.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 24 2006, 04:22 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 24 2006, 05:45 AM

Bug:

When I tried to add Electronic Vision Magnification 3 to my Eyes, Cyber Replacement, pair, I got the following error:

Posted by: eidolon Feb 24 2006, 05:50 AM

Fuckin' awesome. You integrated the "Learn Me?" thing for knowledge skills. Perfect!

Hmm... there needs to be a way to remove a credstick in case you want to change it. Right now you can't get rid of them once purchased.

New bug:

When I tried to load "Mack", my new character, into the GM console, I got the following error:

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 24 2006, 02:33 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 24 2006, 10:21 PM

we need a smilie who's pulling his hair out...'cus that's how i feel...

BUT, Jackpoint Beta2 Redux is now out. Hopefully, this is a version that only has small bugs in it, not big ones like the race point spending one.

let me know what you think! but not about the name Redux - it's all my fried brain could come up with.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 25 2006, 01:10 AM

I'll DL and install in a minute. Just wanted to respond to:

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 25 2006, 02:31 AM

well, i have a bug to report on myself

i fixed race when you buy it, but not when you change it. so, once you pick a race you'd better stick with it

this chicago-like bug hunting has left things a mess. and with the number of bugs being 'spending' heavy (points/nuyen spending being probably the most important thing when automating char. gen.), i'm going to spend the upcoming weeks going through every line of code cleaning things up. i don't know what the count of lines is by now, but it's a lot - i'll see what i can do to reduce that number and streamline things.

so keep reporting anything that's not working right - and make any suggestions you feel would help improve the quality of the program; just know that those things may not get knocked of the list very quickly until i've cleaned up what i've already got.

my hope is that i'll have the time to do this clean-up and that, until the next release, you guys have something at least 1/2 usable to tide you over.

oh, and eidolon - i do have an 'item updater' in my list of things to do...i agree that if anything is wrong with a skill, weapon, spell, piece of gear, etc. that you should be able to fix it.

craig

Posted by: eidolon Feb 25 2006, 03:32 AM

Right on. Again, major thanks for all the work you're doing.

Real quick addition to the Print problem bug. It seems that when that come up, you're guaranteed to not be able to load the character into the GM Console. What's happening is it's doing that whole "cut off the character sheet coding" thing and tossing out "unexpected end of line" errors. I think I already gave you a full on report on this back in B1, but let me know if you need more info and I'll try to reproduce it.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 25 2006, 04:04 AM

ya, i thought i had a solution to that null value at save time problem, but it's proving tougher than i thought. i know what it's doing - i just don't know why it's doing it. it's one of those things i'm hoping to track down in the next couple of weeks.

let me know if that perception test dialog is still droping controls off to one side in Beta2 Redux; and, if so, what your screen resolution is.

thx

Posted by: eidolon Feb 25 2006, 04:33 AM

Perception box is back to normal now.

Posted by: Homme-qui-rigole Feb 25 2006, 04:36 AM

The "Add Spirit" option didn't work very well. When I add spirit, the program ask for type, name, force and service then the application crash

Posted by: Homme-qui-rigole Feb 25 2006, 04:44 AM

The "Add Spirit" option didn't work very well. When I add spirit, the program ask for type, name, force and service then the application crash.

Posted by: eidolon Feb 25 2006, 04:49 AM

Further details on the problem Homme described:

I get the same thing. The actual error text is as follows:

Posted by: FrictionX42 Feb 25 2006, 06:40 AM

Another beef with with the races...
I'm making a troll character, and as I do his stats, I can only put 3 points into his cha or int. While this is correct in setting the maximum at 4, like it's supposed to be, it doesn't charge you the -2 in into and cha that it should for being a troll, resulting in, effectively, 8 bonus points if you raise both int and cha to maximum.
... and the twinks rejoice.

Posted by: FrictionX42 Feb 25 2006, 06:42 AM

Oh, and Eidolon, quit testing and work on our game for tomorrow, dangit!
:crackwhip:

Posted by: eidolon Feb 25 2006, 06:19 PM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 25 2006, 08:32 PM

Quick bug:

When you choose either Handblade from cyberware, it gives the error:

Posted by: eidolon Feb 25 2006, 08:43 PM

Also, when I tried to give a character a mild allergy to pollen, it says that he's got a mild Phobia of pollen.


AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGHH!!! FLOOOOOOWWWWEEEEEEEERRRRSSS!!! RRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNN!!!!!!

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 26 2006, 10:39 PM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 27 2006, 12:53 AM

What you have there makes sense, but you're looking at the attributes wrong. You still have to purchase them, even though you "bought" being a Troll.

The way it works on paper, is that to get a 4 in INT for a troll, you would have to spend 12 BPs.

Posted by: Calahart Feb 27 2006, 02:28 AM

[EDIT] I just realized what I did. I went for the "Bonus Point" edge when I really wanted the "Exceptional Attribute" edge. Error still occurs, but it didn't give me the 7 because I had already "maxed out" at 6. The Exceptional Attribute works as it should, but I'm leaving the post here in case the Bonus Point stuff is helpful. [/EDIT]


Greetings! I finally decided to take the plunge and join Dupshock, and all because of Jackpoint. Go you!

Anyhow, I found my first bug. I started making up the character I'm using right now in game and, in my typical non-linear fashion, went straight to the build page and started fiddling with attributes.

I'm an elf with a 7 Quickness and a 7 Intel. I clicked the up-arrow to get to 6 and realized that I needed the Bonus Attribute Point edge to make it to 7. I clicked back to the Edges/Flaws tab, added the Edge, and JP geeked out on me. After the error, clicking "Continue" allowed me to return to JP, but my Max Int is still 6.

Posted by: Calahart Feb 27 2006, 03:09 AM

NOTE: Ok, you've got a lot of posts in this thread! I scanned through them all to see if this error had been reported already, but if I missed it and it has been posted already, then please disregard. Xie xie!


I was merrily adding active skills and went to add a Stealth of 4 when I didn't realize that I only had 1 Build Point left. It told me that I didn't have enough BPs for that, but added the skill to the list anyway.

When I went to remove the unauthorized skill from the list it credited me with 4 build points giving me a total of 5 available. WHHHEEEEEEEEEE! Free Build Points!!

Of course, in a fit of Munchkiny Joy, I used this "Undocumented Feature" to make the God Of All Shamanists, then deleted him, and came here to post my discovery.

Thanks for all your hard work!!

- C

Posted by: eidolon Feb 27 2006, 06:02 AM

Ignore, sleepy and might be looking at something wrong. I'll check it again later.

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 28 2006, 12:01 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 28 2006, 12:29 AM

Posted by: eidolon Feb 28 2006, 04:22 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 28 2006, 02:02 PM

ok, maybe i caused the confusion when i listed the cost being the same when all attributes start at 0. what i meant to say was that you get down to only having 88 points no matter how you work it, but JP works it like this:

JP spends 12 of your points right off the bat to get all of your attributes to the minimum 1 point. then, when you switch your race to Troll, it spends another 20 points: 10 to make up for 5 lost attributes and 10 for being a troll.

that's 32 total points. you just don't realize that all 32 are being spent because it's so automated.

if you open JP and go straight to 'Build!' and change the race to Troll, you'll see that you end up with only 88 points.

Purchase        Cost        BP Remaining
                                    120
Troll             10              110
B: 6               2              108
Q: 1               4              104
S: 5               2              102
C: 1               6              96
I: 1               6               90
W: 1               2              88
Total Cost: 32

Posted by: craigpierce Feb 28 2006, 02:18 PM

OK! now i see what's going on...

i just loaded Jackpoint Beta2 Redux and i see that when you open the creator and go straight to 'Build!' and change race to Troll, you end up with 98 points, not 88.

in my latest build of the software, it's working right - and JP started it's life working right, but in the Redux build it got broken some how - i assume through a bad bug fix that has since been smoothed out.

that's exactly why i'm taking this time to clean up and centralize as much of this code as i can...the bug fixes were beginning to cause as many bugs as they fixed because the code was too jumbled - when fixing a bug i was changing code without realizing that i was changing the way 2 or more things worked, not just the 1 thing that i was trying to fix.

sorry for being so stubborn - but the way i saw it it was working right

Posted by: Calahart Feb 28 2006, 10:31 PM

Posted by: eidolon Mar 1 2006, 02:37 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 1 2006, 03:49 AM

i've fixed the 'bonus attribute point' problem for the upcoming release. it will again allow you to raise 1 attribute above it's limit.

i'll be on the lookout for the others you've mentioned.

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 1 2006, 02:38 PM

wow - my head was swimming yesterday. i had work to deal with plus i was tracking down the 'DBNull to String' error...

i believe i have fixed it now - i had only made one mistake...about 1500 times!

also, i realized this morning (now that my head is back in order) that the problem with the availibility check box was the same as with the limits check box when it wasn't allowing the 'bonus attribute point' to work properly. it was also a problem with the street index box and the spending box - you guys just hadn't bumped into those yet. it came about when i moved them from the 'Build!' screen to the 'edges/flaws' screen.

anyway, i'll keep watching for new bug reports while i go through my code-cleanup project, so keep sending them my way!

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 1 2006, 04:19 PM

JP now sits at 35,159 lines

that is:

the software itself
the databases (stuff, spirits, ect)
the XSL character sheet

and i've already deleted at least 1000 lines since the weekend.

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 1 2006, 10:05 PM

hey eidolon -

the problem that you have where edges get purchased at a cost of 0; does that happen all the time, or just some times?

i ask because i can't reproduce the problem.

Posted by: eidolon Mar 2 2006, 04:15 AM

Only occasionally, but I know that Friction has had it happen too. No idea as to triggers right now. I'll keep an eye out for it.

Sorta bug:
The data locks are listed in the cyber section at their ratings, but when you buy one it makes you choose the rating separately.

Bug:

I tried to give a character "Filtration System, Ingested Toxin" and got the following:

Posted by: Calahart Mar 3 2006, 10:50 PM

In the "I know you've got a bunch of bugs to fix and probably don't want a feature request right now" category, Will there eventually be a way to improve existing characters with Karma? 'Cause that'd rock!

Keep up the great work, man!

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 3 2006, 11:32 PM

Posted by: eidolon Mar 4 2006, 02:02 AM

Willco

Posted by: eidolon Mar 6 2006, 04:51 AM

Occasionally, when I choose "Hermetic Mage" from the magical drop down box, it gives me 6 points as if I were an adept. It doesn't always do it, and usually I can correct it by just choosing "non-magical" and then re-selecting mage.

Also, I just tried to use the "initiate" button for the first time. It doesn't work correctly. (In fact, since there's no way to spend Karma at creation, you shouldn't be able to initiate at all.)

Initiation requires the expenditure of Karma, the total of which is based on the grade you're going for, whether you're alone or with a group, and other stuff, as mentioned in the dialog box. You don't spend spell points to initiate. This stuff is on page 57 of MiTS.

I assume the Initiate button was meant to tie into the updater?

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 6 2006, 04:31 PM

Posted by: Calahart Mar 6 2006, 08:30 PM

Posted by: Bullet Raven Mar 6 2006, 08:44 PM

Nice suite of programs! Keep up the good work



(or else)

Posted by: eidolon Mar 7 2006, 02:16 AM

"gamemasters may allow"

Found it. Momentary idiocy on my part.

I suggest giving it a "Has your GM okayed this?" pop up or something to clearly define it as optional.

Cal: Cost is given. It merely allows you to use spell points rather than Karma, so the cost would just be however much you spent to initiate. Also, no worries about him realizing this. If somebody wanted to nerf themselves to start off with masking, more power to them.

Posted by: eidolon Mar 7 2006, 05:14 AM

When adding a new vehicle, it seems that Speed is maxed out at 100. It auto-converts whatever I enter to 100. Also, the speed box can only display two digits.

Posted by: eidolon Mar 7 2006, 07:38 AM

Something I just realized after adding my new mage to the GM Console and mucking around:

I can't change the mage's initiative to reflect the fact that he's running Increase Reaction and Increased Reflexes +3 spells. He's limited to 5 + 1d6, but with his spells locked into anchoring foci, he should be running at 11 + 4d6.

Posted by: eidolon Mar 10 2006, 07:54 AM

Hey arch, you alive out there?

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 10 2006, 02:46 PM

yep - i'm alive

i haven't worked on JP much this week - i was starting to feel burned out, so i figured i'd take a week off. plus i've had a full week personally - i started taking some programming classes that my new job is paying for, an old friend i haven't seen in 2 years is coming to town and wants to have dinner this weekend, i'm trying to track down some hard-to-get wine that i really want, the wife and i are buying a house, and i run a website for my friends band that i needed to do some work on anyway [shameless plug]http://www.ekphrasis.org[/shameless plug]

ekphrasis.org is actually what's keeping me from volunteering to update the homepage of this site...that would be just too many things going on at once.

anyways - i am still around and that's a good suggestion about initiative raising spells. i'll look into that.

Posted by: eidolon Mar 11 2006, 01:33 AM

No sweat dude. My wife and I are trying to buy a house...3k miles away, so I know what you mean.

I checked out your friend's band's site. Do they have a CD for sale yet? What I heard seemed pretty cool.

Take care. We'll hold our breath for the next release.

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 11 2006, 03:57 AM

Posted by: eidolon Mar 11 2006, 04:28 AM

PM'd you.

Posted by: eidolon Mar 11 2006, 05:10 AM

Bug:

When you choose "Dependant(s)" as a flaw, it doesn't ask you to set the value. (It's variable, up to the GM.)

The Encephalon's rating gets added to the Task Pool, but it doesn't get added to the Hacking Pool. I checked the Math SPU, and it's getting added correctly.

Posted by: Calahart Mar 13 2006, 01:54 AM

Hey, I just noticed that, as per SR3.297, accessories to Alphaware must also be Alpha. They use the example of Cybereyes. Jackpoint let me put standard thermographic vision mods into Alpha Cybereyes.

Now, I'm assuming that a generalized version of that rule would read "Any accessories installed into any other piece of cyberware must be of the same grade or better." Is this clarified somewhere?

I'll let you know of anything else as I find it.

Posted by: eidolon Mar 13 2006, 03:40 AM

Bug:

I tried to buy a hand-held cyberware scanner and got the following error:

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 13 2006, 02:50 PM

all added to the list!

thx!

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 18 2006, 08:57 PM

ok - i hate that i've started to slack off on this project, but we close on our house next week and all of my free time for about a month will go into fixing it up the way we want it to be before we move in.

just know that i am very dedicated to JP and that i'll have another release out as soon as i can; hopfully with a version of the character updater like i said before.

till then, if any of you continue to use the current version and have any comments or questions, i'll be checking the boards often.

later!

Posted by: eidolon Mar 18 2006, 09:14 PM

Woohoo! Congrats on the house closing. I know it's a hassle. Hope the fixing up goes well.

Don't worry, we'll be fine without a new release for a while.

No really. We'll be okay. It's not like I need it you know...I can quit anytime. I just use it to, you know, make characters, and stuff every once in a while. I can stop any time that I want to. It's not like I'm addicted to it.

I NEED IT !!!one one )(*&)#*&$#04398

Posted by: craigpierce Mar 19 2006, 04:49 PM

thanks! fixing it up will be fine (it's in good condition as it is) - it'll just be a lot of work (as any house is).

i hope you guys find a good one yourselves!

Posted by: eidolon Apr 10 2006, 05:06 AM

Any news?

Posted by: craigpierce Apr 10 2006, 05:38 PM

on jackpoint? nope. sorry. though my mind has been leaning that way lately...and i'll have my own computer setup again when we move into the new house.

when i left off, i was working on the beginnings of the character updater. that's going to be a much bigger project than i first thought. so i'm not sure exactly what direction i'm going to go in when i get started back up...i'll just have to look through the code and my notes and pick my battles from there.

house news: we closed on the house and got straight to work. ripped out the carpet and painted everything. we cut up the ceiling above the dining room to fix some leaks in the bathrooms above. that's all patched up now. carpet comes this week. i've been doing some side projects: rewiring some of the light switches (we still need to replace a few fixtures), ripping up some of the deck, etc.

it's been a lot of work, but it'll've been well worth it.

Posted by: eidolon Apr 11 2006, 02:41 AM

Cool beans. On a random note, I've been messing with the game Alternity. There's a really nifty character generator and GM tool thing for it http://www.thecastle.com/walter.html.

While the GM's "tool" isn't nearly as good as JP's, and Alternity certainly doesn't have nearly the level of complexity that SR has, its updater feature might be worth a look.

Then again, I have no idea if the programming is even remotely similar, so it might be worthless to you.

Good to hear that the house is going well. Take care.

Posted by: Platinum Jun 12 2006, 04:52 AM

Any new news?

Posted by: eidolon Jun 13 2006, 06:48 AM

New "bug", if not news really.

When purchasing skills, if you try to give a Specialization with a name that's already used for an Active or a Knowledge skill, it won't let you.

For example, I'm building a decker. If I try to specialize in Etiquette (Matrix) I get an error message, because there's a Knowledge skill named Matrix.

Suggest not having the program "look" for a name overlap if you have the drop down set on "Specialization".

Posted by: Rajaat99 Jun 14 2006, 02:21 PM

I haven't fully looked through the program yet, but what I have seen is very nice. It'll be a big help during my game. Good job.

Posted by: RudyHuxtable Jun 22 2006, 06:12 PM

This is a terrific tool, and thanks a ton for it. I'm just wondering if there will be continued development on it even with the release of 4th edition?

I ask because I just don't have to resources to blow $50+ on game books anymore, so I'll be sticking with 3rd edition for awhile. Becoming an adult does that I guess.

Posted by: craigpierce Jun 22 2006, 07:09 PM

awww...rudy huxtable is all growed up

Posted by: Tanka Jun 22 2006, 11:47 PM

Posted by: Jrayjoker Jun 27 2006, 01:48 PM

Awww, stay tuned? But I want it now!

Posted by: craigpierce Jun 27 2006, 02:51 PM

what's the matter? can't handle a little antici...



















...pation?

Posted by: craigpierce Jul 18 2006, 05:06 PM

small update:

jackpoint's new home on the web is:

jackpoint.standalonesites.com

this is my new site, so i can stop using my friend's band's site as my own personal dumping ground

Posted by: Jrayjoker Jul 18 2006, 05:18 PM

Got an error on the download link in both IE and Firefox. Something about not having permission...

Posted by: Thufar_Hawat Jul 18 2006, 06:52 PM

me too, the error reads "accessing content by IP address is not allowed. Please type domain name instead"

the link on the page is http://jackpoint.ekphrasis.org/Jackpoint%20Beta2%20Redux%20Setup.zip

is this correct

Posted by: Thufar_Hawat Jul 18 2006, 06:54 PM

ok, i've worked it out the link should be:

http://jackpoint.standalonesites.com/Jackpoint%20Beta2%20Redux%20Setup.zip

Posted by: craigpierce Jul 18 2006, 09:47 PM

you're right - my bad!

it's changed.

Posted by: Jrayjoker Jul 19 2006, 12:53 PM

Thanks, TH.

Posted by: craigpierce Jul 23 2006, 10:58 PM

ok, so, i've gotten Jackpoint to the point at which i feel i can release the first real version; however, i am going to take a couple of days to just run it - create some characters, put them into the GM console, play with the extras (like the new grid map)...just overall battle test it.

so, heads up - about the middle of the week you'll see Jackpoint One.

thanks everybody for the support - One won't be perfect or complete, but what 1.x program is perfect?

Posted by: Kalvan Jul 24 2006, 01:57 AM

Is there a version that doesn't need the .NET architecture to install and run? For some strange reason, .NET won't work right on my computer.

Posted by: Tanka Jul 24 2006, 02:03 AM

.NET is just the framework he chose to use, which means that unless he (or if he lets someone else) translates it to another language, then you'll need .NET.

archimagus: Good to know v1.x is coming out. Looking forward to it (and testing the hell out of it)!

Posted by: eidolon Jul 24 2006, 03:41 AM

AWESOME!!

Can't wait can't wait can't wait.

Don't worry. Month long road trip or no, I'll see if I can find time to try and break it.

Posted by: craigpierce Jul 24 2006, 04:46 AM

Posted by: eidolon Jul 24 2006, 05:26 AM

Is it safe to assume that 1.x will have the functional updater included?

Posted by: craigpierce Jul 24 2006, 02:53 PM

Posted by: eidolon Jul 27 2006, 07:04 PM

Oh well. Just means we have to hold you over the coals for v2.

Posted by: craigpierce Jul 27 2006, 11:15 PM

sorry guys - i wanted to get this out by tonight, but i keep running into these weird little bugs...looks like it'll be the weekend for this release.

and now i'm seriously thinking about rewriting this to be cross-platform...the more bugs i run into, the more i realize that this software would really benefit from a rewrite - i've tried to do a clean-up once already, but starting over using what i know now i could really get this thing to run smooth. and everyone could use it, which would be great.

for now, i'll work on all the bugs in this version - but i may not be adding any new features till i decide what to do.

Posted by: Serbitar Jul 30 2006, 11:00 PM

I am working on a very complex random character generator in python at the moment and can only recommend the language. Especially as it is platform independend.

Posted by: craigpierce Jul 31 2006, 04:02 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Jul 31 2006, 05:37 AM

ok, Jackpoint 1.0 is still having some issues - i'm down to the build and it compiles fine, but when i actually install it i get errors (due to the new GUI, i believe).

but here are a few notes that i want to get down 'on paper' before i release:

again, characters will not be compatible with the new version - if you've created characters in the Beta that you would like to bring into this release, send them to me and i'd be happy to make the necessary changes.

many items have been revised - the random person generator for example has had a major overhaul...and i know will need major work to spit out people who make sense 100% of the time (right now, sometimes you get weird combinations of things, like a corporate exec who skateboards...not that that's not possible, just unlikely). so if you know that an item could work better, please tell me how - just because it's not broken per se doesn't mean it doesn't need work.

as always, please feel free to provide any and all feedback - good, bad and ugly. i want to hear it.

i don't know how long it'll take to debug this installation file - hopefully not too long

Posted by: craigpierce Jul 31 2006, 05:51 AM

well, it wasn't long!

Jackpoint One is now out.

Posted by: Serbitar Jul 31 2006, 08:35 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Jul 31 2006, 05:05 PM

damn - and i thought i had the market cornered on that app! though, mine is just for creating members of the general public, not actual NPCs with stats and guns; so we're not overlapping too much :)

i started out doing it much more manually than i am now...now i'm trying to do it more like you are, with lists. it's not pretty so far - my lists suck.

if you need names, here's the 1990 US census list:

http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/names_files.html

Posted by: Serbitar Jul 31 2006, 06:38 PM

My whole stuff is SR4 and the content mostly German anyways .. .

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 1 2006, 05:44 PM

Posted by: RudyHuxtable Aug 1 2006, 06:35 PM

Archimagus,

Thanks so much for an invaluable tool. It's helping quite a bit to get my campaign prepared, and it includes all of the features I would implement if I knew how to program. But since I don't I turn to you

My one note about it would be that in the grid system, I find that I can add either a line OR a rectangle, OR a line, OR a circle instead of a line AND a circle AND a rectangle. That would help immensely for setting up combat situations with multiple buildings, telephone booths, etc. Or am I just not using it right? You tell me.

Wonderful stuff with wonderful functionality, and you did it for free, man. Much appreciated!

RudyHuxtable

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 1 2006, 07:35 PM

Posted by: Tanka Aug 2 2006, 05:03 AM

Gah! You changed your name!

Tanka no like early morning surprises. (And it is early. It's nearly 1 AM. Why the hell I'm still awake, I've no idea.)

Posted by: eidolon Aug 2 2006, 05:31 AM

I've been out in the sticks for a few days now and I still don't have my computer.

Need to get on with trying 1.0.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 2 2006, 05:33 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 2 2006, 05:34 AM

Posted by: Tanka Aug 2 2006, 01:27 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 3 2006, 06:42 PM

Posted by: RudyHuxtable Aug 3 2006, 09:18 PM

You. Are. Delicious.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 4 2006, 05:34 PM

Posted by: RudyHuxtable Aug 4 2006, 06:00 PM

Yessir, and I'm using the GM notes feature to plan my campaign, and creating some NPC chars too. This makes it so much easier to stay organized. Back in the day you had to have a notebook full of notes, or a craptastic spreadsheet/word doc. So 1990s...

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 4 2006, 07:18 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 4 2006, 09:04 PM

ok, so our company has had it's development team in this .NET class all week and today has been a lite day for us, so i uninstalled the school's .NET 2.0 and installed MONO.

long story short, Jackpoint doesn't work under MONO, at least on a Windoze machine.

i'm going to do some more research to see if maybe i just need to include something in my code to make it point to MONO. if i can make it work, i'll include a separate download file on the site for MONO users. that should at least hold over the 2 people who may actually want to run JP on a non-windows machine until i get it rewritten in something cross-platform. (note: i'm one of those 2 - i just don't have a mac to run it on at the moment)

that reminds me - what ever happened to ShadowGhost's SR3 app? i think that was his name...or maybe that was the apps name? was that even on dumpshock, or did i find that somewhere else?

time to do some searching...

*EDIT* ok, i wasn't crazy, ShadowGhost exists and had the Pocket Sec and Firearm Builder apps for Mac written in RealBasic.

and i read a post by him that said that the pro version of RealBasic compiles for Win, Mac and Linux!

i checked it out (downloaded the trial version to the schools PC :) and it doesn't seem as 'open' or 'free-flowing' as VB.NET in Visual Studio is, but with a small learning curve i think i could get JP fully running in it - so i've added this to my list of cross-compatibility solutions.

*OT Rant - while i'm at it* i'm learning that the developer community considers VB to be bloated code - but i don't think i really care...(A) i already know VB (B) Jackpoint is already written in VB...i just needed a way to push it to other platforms, which is what RB does (C i could still rewrite the code as i ported it over to RB, to clean up the logic even if the code stays 'bloated' *End Rant*

anyway, i'll let you guys know when i've started working towards getting this thing reworked...for now, expect JP Two to be a total rewrite including a few new features, but mostly consentrating on making the logic behind all of the current features better. (and on getting it to other platforms, of course)

Posted by: eidolon Aug 5 2006, 07:43 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 5 2006, 10:45 PM

Posted by: Tanka Aug 12 2006, 06:47 PM

Bug: If you select Uneducated, then hit Cancel at the warning prompt, it still gives you the Uneducated flaw.

I tested it with Illiterate as well, and it does not do this.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 14 2006, 02:47 AM

Posted by: Tanka Aug 14 2006, 05:05 AM

Deleting items from your Cyber/Bio list do not give you back Essence, though it gives back the money. Standard Operating Procedure, or an oopsie?

Posted by: eidolon Aug 14 2006, 08:53 PM

I have a bunch of stuff I found last night, but it's on my pc at home. I'll add them on later today.

edit: Here's what I jotted down yesterday. Sorry if I repeat anything, but I'm on dial up at the moment and it's too painful to go through and look.

First off, v.1 is looking great. I do miss the more "shadowrunny" feel that the beta "welcome screen" had to it, though. Is there a reason you abandoned the logo and stuff?
The current welcome box dealy I'm getting has no graphics, just a blank space above the choices. Is it just not showing up right for me?

Anyway, here's random stuff I've found while messing with v.1 so far.

Bugs:

- synaptic accellerator initiative dice are not being reflected on the "Build" page

- tab order for fields in the "new weapon/accessory" box are out of order; goes from the ammo storage type (cy, c, etc.) to "okay" button; should go from ammo storage type to availability to book page number, then "okay"

- after buying some gear, I went back to try and get a few points for a new skill by jockeying with my attribute points. when I subtracted points from a stat, however, JP only gave me 1 build point per point of attribute decrease

- on the gear 1 tab, a "sequencer" is being added to the gear list as "data encryption"

- "Compulsive" flaw does not allow you to select or set a rating; it is entered as rating 0 and does not grant build points

- to get around that, I tried to add a new flaw (naming it "Compulsively Organized" at rating 1); I forgot to change the rating to a negative to reflect a flaw and hit okay, so it told me I didn't have enough points to purchase the edge (correct program response); however, when I hit "okay" I got the following error:

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 15 2006, 01:53 AM

well, i asked for that thanks guys!

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 15 2006, 01:56 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 15 2006, 02:04 AM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 15 2006, 02:11 AM

Posted by: Tanka Aug 15 2006, 05:51 AM

Posted by: eidolon Aug 15 2006, 05:53 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 15 2006, 05:53 PM

well then, let me ask this - would you guys rather:

1) Have the initial BP set to 120
2) Have the initial BP set to 123
3) Not set a max BP - instead, JP would just count what you've spent. This leaves the resposility of keeping track of points spent upto the GM/Players.

Posted by: Tanka Aug 15 2006, 05:54 PM

Initial BP of 120, as per suggested rules.

If a GM wants it to be different, then the players can change this at that pop-up box.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 15 2006, 05:57 PM

Posted by: eidolon Aug 15 2006, 06:08 PM

I liked it when the BP total was in the settings options. That lets you change it, but unless you make the effort to find it and change it, it stays uniform.

Also, the default should be 120. Anything else is GM/game specific.

Posted by: eidolon Aug 19 2006, 11:49 PM

These would be less intermittent if I had regular access.

Bugs:

- skill wonkiness

If I sort skills by name (probably by anything, but I only tested name...by accident), and then try to remove a skill, it picks one seemingly at random to delete, but gives you back the points total for the one highlighted. I selected "Bike-2" and clicked "remove", only to have it take away "Computers-4" and give me back 2 points. I then clicked on "Bike-2" to attempt to remove it again, and it removed "Etiquette-4" and gave me 2 points again.

I closed the character generator, reopened, made the same character, and this time, when I started to select knowledge skills, I added "Chemistry-1" by mistake. When I selected it and clicked "remove skill", it chose a random skill from the list to delete (I didn't see which one, and I can't remember what was there atm), and did not return any points. I then began clicking to delete all skills, and it continued to randomly delete skills other than the one highlighted, and returning no points, until "Chemistry-1" was all that remained. Upon deleting "Chemistry-1", 12 points were returned (of a beginning 36).

Following is the rest of the character build at the time of the bug occurence:

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 20 2006, 04:44 PM

damn

i'll be sure to add those to the list and i'll look into them as soon as i can (since they obviously hinder character creation)

thanks e!

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 20 2006, 05:57 PM

so, i was wondering if someone could help me out...

i don't have a mac, but i'd like to see if what i build in realbasic for a mac will work ok.

can someone with a mac download http://jackpoint.standalonesites.com/MyApplication for me and try it out? it doesn't really do anything...it's just a few different controls that i'd like to know function ok with the way i wrote the code.

screenshots would be awesome, but are not necessary.

and these are the questions i have for anyone who helps me out:

1) when you run it, does it run?
2) when you run it, is the cursor in the text box to start with?
3) after you've typed your name into the text box and clicked 'proceed', does it take you to the next tab and fill your name into the label?
4) on the final tab, do those controls work ok?

thanks!

Posted by: eidolon Aug 20 2006, 11:39 PM

A couple more:

Jackpoint Bugs 3:

- the Dependent(s) flaw isn't working correctly. It just asks you how many dependents you have, and then acts as that rating edge. Dependents is a flaw, and the total points value is set by the GM. Suggest fixing by just having it ask you for a points value (from the GM) and giving a drop-down box with the negative numbers range, and having it add that many BPs.

- when trying to add alhpa elec vision mag 3 to alphaware cyber eye replacement pair, it comes up to tell you that "this item needs to be the same Grade as the item you are installing it into." It is!! grrrrr. Other stuff might do this too, but I haven't checked yet. Same for other elec vis mags. Optical vis mag, same problem. I think the issue is the eyes aren't being "tagged" as alphaware even though JP says they are alpha.

Posted by: Connor Aug 21 2006, 05:26 AM

I took a look at the realbasic thing for mac, and I can't get it to run at all. The best I can track down is getting OS X to see it as an OS9 app, but it still fails to launch anything.

I don't have any experience with RealBasic, but if there's anything I can check out for you using the demo they offer, PM me.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 21 2006, 04:17 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 22 2006, 05:31 PM

hey connor -

can you check this one out for me?

http://jackpoint.standalonesites.com/MyApplicationII

Posted by: Connor Aug 22 2006, 06:58 PM

It's still not working quite right, but I think I'm starting to figure out why.

I think this is the same problem I had with the last file, in that my machine isn't seeing it as an application and instead as a document file. I've played around a little and tried to force it around a bit more. However, I'm still coming up a little short. It's now launching as a shell script.

You might try zipping it or something to try and preserve the file type stuff, it may be getting messed up in uploading/downloading it.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 22 2006, 07:19 PM

ok, i've uploaded the entire set of files that RB gives me when i compile for a Mac. and this time i compiled for OSX/9, so maybe you can get one or the other to work...

thanks again for the help!

http://jackpoint.standalonesites.com/projects.rar

http://jackpoint.standalonesites.com/projects_zip.zip

p.s. the '.bin' file is what came up for OS9 and the folder has all of the files that came up for OSX.

Posted by: Connor Aug 22 2006, 08:25 PM

That seems to have done the trick. Both of the files in the .rar work great, and the OSX file in the .zip all open up in OS X and run properly. The cursor is in the text box and then the "Hello, Connor!" comes up after pressing the button.

The OS9 thing isn't working, but I wouldn't worry about it.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 22 2006, 09:03 PM

Posted by: Connor Aug 22 2006, 09:50 PM

Yeah, they're working just fine. I would make sure that you get them to compile and distribute the ones that come out as .app. These are proper Mac OSX app bundles and should just work.

Ahh, and the non-.app file in the rar package, I got it to run in the Classic OS9 environment. It works just fine as well. So, whatever you did with either of the files in the rar package is spot on.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 22 2006, 10:21 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 22 2006, 10:21 PM

for those on here who are keeping track:

i think that RealBasic will be my solution...it has the least learning curve and does everything i need it to do. the only drawback is that i will have to shell out at least $100 to start with (i'm looking into my options now). so when i'll be able to start the rewrite is kind of up in the air right now.

also, i'll try to fix the current bugs as soon as i can using the current, windows only system. that way, maybe what's out now will be usable till the rewrite is done.

my goals:

* simplify. focus only on the main components: gmconsole, creators and updaters - the extras (i.e. gridmap) come only after the main items are 100%
* add in SR4 functionality
* get this done by summer '07

Posted by: eidolon Aug 22 2006, 10:28 PM

SR version will be an option in settings or something, right? As in, the program isn't being converted in total?

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 23 2006, 04:43 AM

correct.

the way i envision it is that JP will work exactly the same for SR4 as it does for SR3 - just the functionality will be different. so...

when you click on 'Create Character', it'll open the same window that you're used to seeing for the character creator...it's just the options in that window that will be different, based on what setting you have selected (SR3 or SR4) in the settings window.

i figure i'll have it default to SR4, since that's the latest thing.

i've decided to push for this now because i want to get ahead of the curve...get everything from the main book put in before i get buried by too many new suppliments. (i've already got street magic to include!)

Posted by: eidolon Aug 23 2006, 02:26 PM

I hear you. You're still looking to smooth out existing problems first though, I assume?

Also, I would suggest that rather than the program hard-selecting a default, it just retain the settings you choose between sessions. So if I were to select a SR3 game with 125 BPs, for example, and then I shut down the program, the next time I want to use it, it's set for a SR3 game with 125 BPs.

I say this because most users are going to have one setting that they run games in, or at the very least they'll be running one setting at a time. It would seem to me that eleminating the need to choose setting each time you use the program is a solid bet.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 23 2006, 02:50 PM

Posted by: eidolon Aug 24 2006, 10:31 PM

Awesome.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 25 2006, 03:39 PM

hey - thanks for having JP in your sig

Posted by: eidolon Aug 28 2006, 02:28 PM

Not a problem. I love JP. Can't wait for the bugs to die.

On that note, I dl'd MS VB.NET Express to mess around with it, in the hopes that learning a little bit about it would help me be more effective in testing JP, and...um...wow. I mean, building the little boxes and labels and controls? Super easy. Making it do anything? Holy shit, you have to learn how to program??? What a rip!

I got a book from the library though, so we'll see what happens. Seriously though, I doubt I'll even be able to write a program that adds and subtracts reliably by the time JP3 is out.

Oh well. Valiant effort and all that.

On the note of JP though, have you had issues with a bug occurring, and destabilizing (is that a good word?) the install to the point that you have to uninstall/reinstall? I had the print/save dbnull error a few days ago, and yesterday when I tried to run JP, I got an error right off the bat (when I clicked "character creator"). I don't remember what it was though.

Posted by: Backgammon Aug 28 2006, 09:17 PM

I'd be VERY interested in a SR4 Jackpoint. I didn't read through this whole thread, so at the risk of maybe repeating a common question - is there an ETA on a SR4 version?

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 28 2006, 09:40 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 28 2006, 09:46 PM

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 28 2006, 09:49 PM

Posted by: eidolon Aug 28 2006, 11:25 PM

An uninstall/reinstall of JP seems to fix it back to a default state (you still have to manually remove the old JP folder and contents before you can reinstall).

However, I've had the dbNull error on multiple install attempts. It has also ocurred after another error (in the same character generation session) and without any previous errors.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 29 2006, 01:26 AM

ok - that's good to know...

this stupid dbNull thing is the most elusive bug i've had to deal with so far. just when i think i've figured out what's causing it and fix that, it starts to happen more!

Posted by: eidolon Aug 29 2006, 01:56 PM

I almost forgot. I know you're using an xml document as the 'database' for JP. I wonder if maybe that's a cause of some of these errors? Have you ever considered using an actual database application to store the data? It seems that (in theory at least) it might be a bit more stable.

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 29 2006, 06:15 PM

Posted by: eidolon Aug 29 2006, 06:37 PM

Is that how you're approaching the current bugs, or are you holding off on the code flexibility until you begin working on the new version?

Posted by: craigpierce Aug 29 2006, 08:17 PM

Posted by: eidolon Sep 4 2006, 05:11 AM

Bug:

When adding a cerebral booster level 2, it gave the character one BP. It also didn't reflect the cerebral booster at all on the build page.

Posted by: Tanka Sep 4 2006, 03:44 PM

You sure that wasn't from an Int-based skill that was one point over your original Int score?

Just re-did it, using only Knowledge and Language skills as Int skills and couldn't reproduce it.

Posted by: eidolon Sep 5 2006, 01:06 AM

Wouldn't be the first time.

I've had all kinds of stuff happen that I couldn't repro. Usually after I've had another bug. I seem to get a lot of stability problems following any errors. I usually uninstall/reinstall. I might have forgotten before that last one.

Posted by: craigpierce Sep 6 2006, 04:13 PM

ok, so, the site has been changed again...the site i moved JP to a couple of months ago (standalonesites.com) is actually a site i built for a side business (of building websites - like i need more to do :P ). i only moved it there to get it off my friend's band's site.

now i have a site that i'm going to build up over the next few months that will be dedicated to pen/paper rpgs: http://www.dinfinity.net. the shadowrun page is http://shadowrun.dinfinity.net, which is just the jackpoint page right now, but will eventually be an all SR page.

anyway, just thought you'd like to know (and i changed the JP link this time - it works ;)

Posted by: eidolon Sep 6 2006, 07:14 PM

Thanks for the heads up. Good luck on the new site. I've had mine up and running for a couple of weeks now, and it's still just an under construction page.

Moved into a new house, unpacking now, never have time to build. You know how it is.