Upgraded Character Generator, Updated Generator Based on work from Autarkis and Blakkie Options

[cndblank]

I'll second that.

Some places to make notes for the regular gear for instance or by the positive and Negative quantities (like what you are addicted to or who you are hunted by).

It would also be nice to have a sheet to enter experience Karma buys on just so you could compare between the original and the experienced version of the character.

Thanks for a great tool!

It would be nice to have checkboxes to enable some of the more common house rules (I'm specifically thinking Franktrollman's stuff that was in the orginal .xls

[DamienKnight]

It would be nice to have checkboxes to enable some of the more common house rules (I'm specifically thinking Franktrollman's stuff that was in the orginal .xls

Optional rules (including all of the ones in the original sheet, I have never removed one, though I am tempted) are available under the 'Optional Rules' section of the Main Page (to the right of Karma/BP tallies).

The check boxes do not translate well between the varied Spreadsheet programs due to the macros added by the karma build section. I decided in the interest of Usability for the whole of the audience was more important than a slightly enhanced convenience by some users. A TRUE/FALSE dropdown may take a second longer to click, but that is a time expense I am willing to pay for the sake of the whole.

For awhile I had startup/shutdown macros which hid the checkbox section and unhid the true/false areas, which enabled macro enabled people to see the checkboxes, and those with macros disabled (or with a version incapable of running macros) to see the true/false areas instead. This caused confusion by many, and was not worth the extra maintenance effort.

Now, if you are referring to Optional Rules that simply do not appear on the sheet, then please specifically mention the rule and I will address it.

for technomancer the custome complex from boxes are protected

This is corrected in the next version. Thanks.

It seems that some issues I have already fixed are being mentioned. This is my fault, as I have taken an inordinately long amount of time to release version 1b.

not for all custom guns the CharSheet shows the number of times a cerain setup has been bought.

Good catch. Fixed in 1b.

[cndblank]

Sweet!

ETA 1B?

[Marwynn]

It's not a biggie, but would it be possible to buy the ammo in the weapons section? Makes keeping track a whole lot easier.

Great work on this DamienKnight, love it!

[WhiteReaper]

can you add a simple houserule to activate all metagenetic qualities ? without changeling thing

[Dakka Dakka]

How about on CharSheet next to the weapons you add boxes/circles/little bullet icons according to magazine size so that you can check off the bullets fired from the magazine? Maybe do this if you decide to do a separate weapons sheet.

The D&D 3.5 sheet had something like this.

[WhiteReaper]

nah, weapon sheet isn't good idea, cause you reload too often, D&D you just have the 40 arrows or bolts and that's it

[DamienKnight]

can you add a simple houserule to activate all metagenetic qualities ? without changeling thing

No. I believe the vast Majority of users follow the book rules. A smaller group interprets the rules differently and believes Metavarients should have access to the metagenetic traits without choosing surge, so I made a house rule for them. If you are completely disregarding the book in regard to the requirements for metagentic traits, then you are a small minority and can use the work around I posted earlier. (select surge I, then after selecting your metagetic traits, remove Surge I).

How about on CharSheet next to the weapons you add boxes/circles/little bullet icons according to magazine size so that you can check off the bullets fired from the magazine? Maybe do this if you decide to do a separate weapons sheet.

The D&D 3.5 sheet had something like this.

nah, weapon sheet isn't good idea, cause you reload too often, D&D you just have the 40 arrows or bolts and that's it

I agree with WhiteReaper that the application of the dots is less useful when firing copious amounts of ammunition as Automatic weapons allow.

However, there may be a useful way of displaying ammo. If anyone knows of any good implementations of this, please point me to them and I will consider it. It seems like maybe one circle per burst or long burst may be useful, but the method needs to work for most weapons.

Either way, I will include the ammo on a printable weapons page eventually. For now, I am going to make ammo purchasable on the Weapons page in a future iteration of the sheet.

[cndblank]

Any ETA on when SR4CG 1B will be released?

Thanks

[brennanhawkwood]

IIRC, In augmentation there is an option for a Ruthenium Polymer Coating and Chameleon System that can be added to Dermal Sheathing. I don't see that in the SR4CG_DK_1a.xls version of the spreadsheet. Am I missing them or are they not in there? I see Chameleon Skin and Dynamic Chameleon Skin in the bioware section but I don't think those are the same thing.

[bishop186]

XP + OO makes me sad. I want to use this wonderful generator but alas.

[Dakka Dakka]

However, there may be a useful way of displaying ammo. If anyone knows of any good implementations of this, please point me to them and I will consider it. It seems like maybe one circle per burst or long burst may be useful, but the method needs to work for most weapons.

Just keep it simple then. Make a cell were you can manually put in the bullets that are left and next to it the magazine capacity.

I haven't thought of belt-fed weapons, so you may have a point.

[DrKwang]

XP + OO makes me sad. I want to use this wonderful generator but alas.

I've had excellent results with this generator (specifically the "Gencon" edition) using OpenOffice 3.1.1. I was able to open the original Excel file and save it as an ODS file and it's been working fine. The only thing I've had trouble with is printing, but I've started playing off my laptop instead of paper anyway so I haven't really put any effort into getting that to work.

[DamienKnight]

I've had excellent results with this generator (specifically the "Gencon" edition) using OpenOffice 3.1.1. I was able to open the original Excel file and save it as an ODS file and it's been working fine. The only thing I've had trouble with is printing, but I've started playing off my laptop instead of paper anyway so I haven't really put any effort into getting that to work.

Thats a good idea about saving the file as an ODS before using it. I noticed on a thread about another spreadsheet chargen that saving the file as excel 97 compatible while in excel, then opening with OO and saving as ODS has some good results.

About the printing... the radio buttons are present in OO, but they trigger a Visual Basic script. OO cannot run vb scripts, only OOBasic scripts. Your best bet is to select the region of the charsheet and print, then select 'Selection' in the print dialogue.

Any ETA on when SR4CG 1B will be released?

Not yet. I am still working on the armor outfits portion. I am really excited about the enhancements to the hacking page, inspired by work rob showed me. I also would like to see all of the small fixes released, but I dont want to release it with a half-broken Gear page.

There are always distractions, and currently my biggest one is my Shadowrun group, which is meeting 3 times every 2 weeks, which is GREAT! The benefit is that as I make more use of the sheet, I think of new things to add (like the optional rule from the book that allows purchasing metamagics for 15 karma). The downside is that alot of the freetime I could be spending on the Sheet, I am instead spending on thinking up runs and actually playing.

I have decided though... I will try and stop adding new features and come out with a stable releasable version as soon as possible. Thanks for your interest cndblank.

[Cloud]

Couple of quick things that I found. Where it lists the spirit types and stats on the print magic section of the CharSheet, Plant spirits come up as #N/A because on the Magic_Data sheet they are listed as 'Plants' rather than 'Plant' in cell Z8 and also Plant, Guidance, and Guardian Spirits have all their stats listed as equal to F.

When I select to buy additional metamagics, it does not subtract the cost from my total on the main page. And if you select PowerPoint for your additional metamagic, it does not add 1PP to the adept powers section.

If you select a spell like [Element] Aura or Shape [Material], you can change Element to Fire and Material to Rubber and it will display correctly on the magic sheet where spells are selected and on the CharSheet where Power/Spells are listed but the Print Magic section sets the all the stats to #N/A

Keep up the good work.

[Warlordtheft]

Just keep it simple then. Make a cell were you can manually put in the bullets that are left and next to it the magazine capacity.

I haven't thought of belt-fed weapons, so you may have a point.

I find it easiest to have the number of bullets in a clip, and the number of clips carried. Loose rounds are recorded in gear.

Some thoughts:
Belts and clips and spead loaders for revolvers:
Ammo readout: # of bullets per clip (use another cell to trak # shot or left), # of Clips, type of ammo.

Magazine and Singleshot, and Revolvers (without spead loaders):
# of bullets, # used, # spare, type of ammo

THougts?

[Chrysalis]

The character sheet is missing Genetic Optimization.

I am also finding the other part of the sheet incredibly fiddly using categories and drop down lists. I would prefer a nice listing of all the gear from which to choose and not have to play shell games with gear.

[Sengir]

Another small bug, negative qualities in cell X48 (the third row below "<<negative qualities>>") do not appear on the charsheet. The bonus points are calculated correctly, just the display is wrong

[Vittek]

Hello Everyone.
Damien, let me start by saying that your work is wonderful and HUGE, you've been putting so much effort in this sheet and it shows.
I'm pretty new to SR and I'm sistematically ignoring everything that is not from the core book, but I dedicated this afternoon to try and recreate the sample characters on your sheet, just to get the hangs of it.
This is what I've seen using it, probaly many or all of these issues are already known and maybe fixed. I'm sorry but I couldn't read the whole thread since the release of version 1a.

- It crashes on my open office (pretty hard not to notice it, anyway I'll try to save it in 97 format as suggested a few posts ago)
- In the weapons tab, there is no way to say that you have two 'copies' of the same weapon, you have to add it two times. Maybe one more column for the number of identical weapons you have would be useful (I was adding 2 survival knives, if you want to know).
- The gear in the Gear tab is divided in categories - pretty nice, so you don't have in infinite list which would be hard to scroll. Still, finding the right category is still a bit difficult for me. A new reference tab with the full list of equipment, so you can search what you need and you can find its category would be pretty simple to do, I think, you already have all the data.
- I can't find shock gloves in the weapons
- the docwagon subscription results as only "gold" on the char sheet. It should say "1x docwagon, gold, year" at least.
- where do you find arrows for your bow?
- I'd suggest an update in how the BP for knowledge skills is shown - you can't find out how many BP you are spending until you break the free points limit. I'd suggest more something like: A - B = C, where A is the BP you would spend if didn't have any free points, B is how many free points you have (currently shown in parentheses) and C is how many BP are you actually spending and is currently shows as "Know./Lang. Points".
- You tend to put quantities in gear categories instead of gear description, let me say this a kind of mistake. For example if I take category "RFID tags per 20", item "security tag", quantity 1. This means 20 tags. But on the sheet you only get "Security tag", with no quantity whatsoever. The same is true for ammo, you get "flechette rounds" "regular ammo" and so on, because the "ammunition per 10" is in the category. Please add a simple ", x10" or ", x20" in the description.
- it could be helpful if everything pertaining to the same topic could be left on the same page, for example, move commlink accessories from Gear to Hacking tabs, and I couldn't find quick-draw holsters, I suppose they are in in the Gear tab somewhere, but it would be useful if you could find them in the mod section of the Weapons tab.
- can't find the gas mask either
- with the maglock passkey, if you put a rating above 1 the rating cell becomes yellow with red text, even if everything is ok. the price calculated is ok while the availability is stuck to 3. the same goes for the keycard copier.
- can't find a place to add skillsoft/linguasoft. Must be somewhere in the Gear tab, but should be placed in the Hacking tab as you need some DNI to use them anyway.

Thank you again, hope some of this helps.
Regards
Marco

EDIT: spelling

[Vittek]

Hello everyone again, it seems everyone disappeared as soon as I got here (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Anyway, I was thinking that maybe contextualizing a bit certain stats would be useful for character creation. You could put some stats on the hacking page, for example, without the need to report them back on the char sheet. For example, your System rating is capped by your Response, your Response drops every X programs you have currently active, and another bunch of interrelated stuff I've not yet managed to memorize. Seeing them on the Hacking page would let you be more conscious of your actual capabilities with your commlink.

Something like:
System capped at: X
Program increment: Y (tooltip: divide the number of programs currently running, and round down, to get the malus to your response rating)
and so on.

I suppose the same is true for number of unbound spirits and so on.

Regards
Marco

[DamienKnight]

Another small bug, negative qualities in cell X48 (the third row below "<<negative qualities>>") do not appear on the charsheet. The bonus points are calculated correctly, just the display is wrong

Good catch. Fixed in 1b.

Hello everyone again, it seems everyone disappeared as soon as I got here (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Anyway, I was thinking that maybe contextualizing a bit certain stats would be useful for character creation. You could put some stats on the hacking page, for example, without the need to report them back on the char sheet. For example, your System rating is capped by your Response, your Response drops every X programs you have currently active, and another bunch of interrelated stuff I've not yet managed to memorize. Seeing them on the Hacking page would let you be more conscious of your actual capabilities with your commlink.

Something like:
System capped at: X
Program increment: Y (tooltip: divide the number of programs currently running, and round down, to get the malus to your response rating)
and so on.

I suppose the same is true for number of unbound spirits and so on.

Regards
Marco

Sorry about the silence. I have been working on the Armor Outfits change. It was a lot more complicated than I first imagined, but its almost done and I think will be worth the effort. I like the idea of adding more details to the pages.

[DamienKnight]

SR4CG_DK Version 1c is now available.

http://www.mediafire.com/?qnzyezyjloj

- Recoded Astral Sight, Spell Knack and Spirit Knack to work properly
- Infected with Essence Drain no longer have their maximum essence reduced by 1 like other infected
- Various Tweaks on Vehicle page and Vehicle Charsheet
- Tweaks on several weapons and other gear
- Added Armor Outfits, tweaked armor mods

Stack your armor using the new 'Outfits' column on the gear page. Results are displayed on the CharSheet. Any item that is part of an outfit is not displayed individually on the CharSheet, but instead the Outfit name is show, with Total Armor, Encumberance and Mods for the outfit. Adepts can stack Mystic Armor with their outfits too, with support for Elemental resistance.

The outfits portion was a beast to code. I learned alot about Array formulas, and am really excited about the results! Please report any rough edges you find so I can iron them out in the next version. Thanks again for all the community support.

Enjoy!

Edit: I wanted to acknowledge the many excellent ideas suggested in the last few weeks. I focused on just a few things in this version and had to put several off. I am already thinking about the next release, so keep the suggestions coming.

[WhiteReaper]

some of the technonamcer's echos are should be takeable multiple times: swat twice, accelerations three times, living ECM more often for a +1 each time
the effeckt of advanced overlocking isn't shown/calculated ( 2nd +1 to response and IP in VR)

[yokyok]

AWESOME

I was really waiting these hacking enhancement. Ill make some comments soon I was working on some improvment like these on a custom version but had still problem to fix. That's really good news (cleaner version than mine).


THANX again for your wondefull work.

[WhiteReaper]

gear, odds&ends , smart pack has no cost (should be 500)