DnCrg SR4 Character Generator (Early Dev), looking for comments, suggestions, help Options

[thewolf]

@Eleazar
I figured you would like the additions. You suggested some of them! Heh, anyways, removing the knowledge skills from the "by attribute" view shouldn't be hard.

Dev Site updated with new info, slightly new design. I don't have it all filled out yet, but I'm getting there.

[Eleazar]

After taking a closer look at everything, it all looks good. The only thing I can think of that people might not like is having to key in all of their attributes and skill ratings with a keyboard, rather than just clicking a mouse. I don't really mind, it is more of a preference thing than anything else. I am a more keyboard centric user when it comes to navigating interfaces and find out and use every keyboard shortcut available. While others are much more mouse driven.

[thewolf]

There is a NumericUpDown control that looks like a TextBox with two small buttons for incrementing and decrementing the current value. I might look at switching over to that, since it would allow a user to type in a value or use the mouse to select the right attribute purchase.

[deek]

Just wanted to let you know that I have asked a few players from my SR4 group to take a look at this app. Two of us are on DSF and three of us have programming/debugging/testing backgrounds...so hopefully we'll be able to provide you some more resources. I still need to install it myself, but what I have read and the screenshots, things are looking solid!

Ok, I just started looking at it. Don't know if this was reported or not, but the Knowledge skills are not calculating correctly with regards to the free points. For the free points, knowledge skills are picked up on a 1 for 1 basis. After using the free points, they then start costing 2 points per rating.

[thewolf]

@deek
For some reason, once you use up your free knowledge points, it calculates a cost of exactly 1 BP higher than what it should be. I don't have the source with me, but I can look at it this afternoon.

The way I did the knowledge points, I just calculated how many free points you get, then translated that into free build points for that purpose. It was easier to do that so I could handle someone using a combination of free points and normal build points on one skill.

Example: Someone with Logic and Intuition at 1 should get (1+1)x3 = 6 free rating points of knowledge skills. This is equivalent to 12 build points worth of knowledge skills. If they buy a skill at 5 (costing 10 BP), then one at 3 (costing 6 BP), on the last purchase they use 2 free build points and 4 normal ones. I hope that makes sense.

[deek]

Ok, I will look at it closer than. If that is what you are doing, then it should be fine...I'll check it out.

I did notice two other things:

1) If you let the date of birth stay at the current date, when saving to file, it writes it as 1/1/0001, which then gives an error when opening the file again.

2) Opening a saved character always seems to flag and exception. If I click continue, it appears the character is loaded, but I still get the error.

Once I get home, I'll be able to look into testing it a lot more, I was just kinda playing around with it now. I'll be sure to keep aprised of your release notes...

[thewolf]

@deek
1. Oops! I thought I fixed that before release.

2. Opening a saved character might cause issues if there is something wacky with the XML file. At this stage, it doesn't surprise me. If you want, you can forward me the XML file that you are having issues with or just copy the debug text in the crash dialog and I can probably figure out what's going on.

[Bleys]

Hey, Wolf, I'm one of deek's players who is on the board and a programmer/tester/debugger (or so I like to imagine). I'd love to help out wherever I can. Give me a day or two to read the thread thoroughly and get to testing.

One thing I noticed:
You cannot edit a lifestyle once it's been added to the list. I forgot to include a location and was unable to change it.

[deek]

[deek]

[Bleys]

@ deek, you have a purty mouth.

J/K

Thanks for pointing me to this forum.

[thewolf]

[deek]

Ok, I got the Barbados build installed on my computer at home. Basically, what I wanted to do to start was build all of the archetypes, check point totals, save and reopen the character. So, I am starting with the Bounty Hunter.

Issues I have noticed:

1) The Agility attribute seems to not work at all. I even attempted to edit the XML and open, but no luck. The rest of the attributes work and seem to calculate correcting on the Bounty Hunter.

2) Skills worked fine, added up correctly. It would be nice to show the +2 for specialization. Also, not sure what the Specialization textbox is for, as many of the skills already have a selectable Specialization...is that just for custom stuff?

3) Missing a few knowledge skills, not a biggie. I added Cop Trids, Crook Hangouts, Lone Star Procedures and Poison Antidotes to the data files. At some point, it would be nice to have all of the ones mentioned in books in the data files.

4) Qualities worked fine, added up correctly as well. Only problem is when I clicked on the already selected quality, I got an Unhandled Exception. Can't duplicate the error now though.

5) After opening then closing, I could no longer add Negative Qualities. I also noticed on this new character, the Charisma attribute no longer worked. I could add a rating to it, but it would calculate anything.

At this point I stopped entering data for the Bounty Hunter. I think it would be a good idea for testers to work on the data entry of the example characters, check the numbers and then save the XML. Reload it and review it again to make sure the load process is working.

[thewolf]

@deek
That is probably a good debug strategy, although some of the archetypes are not the best.

I have a hot bowl of chili and Visual Studio 2005 open right now, so I will be working on this tonight.

[deek]

Sounds good.

Yeah, I agree, not all of the archetypes are the best, but it is certainly a solid test plan to at least go through that build process. The Bounty Hunter, up through Qualities, all checks out, BP wise. As long as we keep in mind there is some errata that changes a few of the builds, I think we should be in good shape.

Once we can confirm that all the book examples are working fine, I think it would be easy to move onto other character types and do more testing, pushing the system further.

I had noticed some non-repeatable errors. Like that whole thing with attributes. My Bounty Hunter can't calc for Agility. A second one failed to calc on Charisma. I just closed and reopened, and now all 8 of the attributes work fine...weird. And now I have the problem where I can no longer add Negative Qualities...just some odd bugs so far...but with testing, we'll get through it!

Well, knock out that chili and relax with your VS 2005. I'm going to putz around a little more, checking back here occaisionally.

[thewolf]

1) Fixed, a bug in the comparison test of the attribute to natural maximums.

2) I'm sure when we get to the character sheet, we can put the +2 on there. If you just want to see that in the grid, I can probably do that too.

3) I haven't added any functionality for custom skills or gear. That will come later. The book uses all sorts of random skills here and there, and I don't know of a comprehensive index of them all.

4) I'm working on that now. I fixed a similar problem with Augmentations, and now I can't remember how I did it.

5) I haven't tracked the quality thing down yet. I've experienced no problems adding one in there. The only thing I can think of is that there are some missing message boxes that I need to put in that tell you "no, you can't do that, here's why". Right now it just returns from the method and fails to calculate/show your addition.

[deek]

1) Looks like the Agility problem was just with the Troll metahuman, but sounds like you got that fixed.

2) Very true. No need to mess with it in the grid for now. You are calculating everything correctly, so I won't worry about cosmetics yet.

3) True...lost of random stuff in the book...maybe at some point someone can compile a complete list, but you'll always need to have the ability to add custom knowledge skills.

4) Yeah, I still can't duplicate that funkyness I saw before...

5) Yep, you're right. Just missing some error messages or I needed to enter a specific addiction or whatnot.

If you need some help looking at code, feel free to send it on.

I have noticed that when trying to load a saved character, besides those unhandled exception errors, attributes don't all seem to load. Might be the same problem though. I just know if I start to build a new character, then decide to load a saved one, that things are not loading completely. I am sure after the load problem is debugged, I'll have to test this a bit more.

[dog_xinu]

I installed in on a Windows XP Corp editon with .Net 2 libraries. And it works but nothing in the menus works (about, options, save, open, export, etc -sorry doing from memory). I am able to build characters just not save/export/print/etc. bummer. I am not sure if it is my virtual machine or if it is a bug in the code. Other apps seem to work.

dog

[thewolf]

@dog_xinu
Open and Save are the only File menu items that work currently. Sounds like your setup is ok, I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to save and reopen your characters.
Try another test character and then hit the Save option from the menu and see if you can get it to save as an XML file. Start from there and let me know how it works.

@deek
I've found a repeatable DataGridView error that both of us were seeing. I think I have it fixed, I just need to update all of the grids in the form.

[deek]

I put another template in, this time the Covert Ops Specialist. All attributes worked and matched the book. All skills worked and matched up with the book totals. All qualities matched up fine as well.

I was able to pick all the Augmentations, but there was no way to use capacity...so the five enhancements to go into the cybereye had to be paid with essence, which dropped the total essence by .50, which is why it didn't match the book. So, at some point, you'll want to allow cyberware to be paid for with capacity. Everything else looked good on that tab.

Contacts worked fine. Gear worked pretty well. I was able to find everything, but some items don't have costs, but I figure at some point, that will be fixed when all items are entered. The two items I saw were the Area Jammer and the White Noise Generator.

Obviously, you are still working on the Matrix stuff, so the commlink couldn't be entered either.

So, all in all, I think this template was close to 100% built, with only a couple discrepencies.

[thewolf]

@deek
Aw, you missed the coolest feature! Add the cybereyes at whatever level you want, then right-click on it in the grid and hit Customize. Then you can add all of your favorite customizations and use up the capacity of the cyberware.

Wow, ratings sure don't seem to work on the gear tab. Oops! I thought that was in there too. Also, eventually you will be able to customize gear as well (add silencers to guns, armor mods to armor, etc).

[deek]

[KeyMasterOfGozer]

I was thinking about maybe spending some time this weekend and keying in data from Street Magic into the DAT files for you, but I didn't see how you are attributing each item to a source book. This is one thing that McMackie did that I liked a lot, you could choose to include or not include certain source books. Also, it generally gave you a reference page, which was very handy.

If you want, I can work on adding some fields for these two items for the current DAT files, and send them to you for a future version or something. I'm not sure if you had plans for adding that in at any point.

Let me know, I will try to work on files for Street Magic regardless.

[thewolf]

@KeyMasterOfGozer
I haven't put that info into the DAT files yet. Sourcebooks and references would be a good thing, and I would like to do it sometime. If you want, you can throw that into the DAT files and send it back to me (Street Magic too). I was going to work on it, but it will save me some time in the end I'm sure. Also, I don't have the formats of the DAT files published, so if you need to know what a certain field is, let me know.

[deek]

Looking at the fields in the DAT files, I think it pretty obvious, but having specs wouldn't hurt.

I am certainly a proponent of page references, as those are always helpful and really add value to the application. Adding the book references, is certainly a plus...just make sure you keep the abbreviations consistent and I think all will be good.

@thewolf
I have a couple of my players looking over the app as well, so I am thinking we'll be doing a good job hammering out testing...when are you planning a new DEV build?