Need Some Help, Shadowrun Character Generator Options

[tweak]

I'm working on a Shadowrun character generator. I'm writing the program in C++, and I'm using QT4.5, so that the app is available across platforms.

What stuff would you like to see? I have a small wish list that I am working off of to build the program.

[St Guardian]

A seperate window/slot for weapons and modifying weapons. And I mean ALL weapons because as far as I know, you could even mod a sword.

Alphabetize EVERYTHING! regardless of where it's from or source it's from, make it easier to go through. Also, a window/slot for window and living area. makes it ten times easier to mod that too and make it more fun.

Anything you can mod needs to pretty much needs it's own winow/slot. Or else you can get really, REALLY confused. The one I'm dealing with is one that's already premade but I forgot who made it. I'll edit this post with the name afterwords.

Love and peace,
SG

[deek]

Make sure its got the up-to-date ruleset, i.e. SR4A.

Handle Group Skills and Specializations logically. I see too many generators that poorly implement both.

Make sure you show how many points have been spent in Attributes, Skills and Special Attributes. And allow those limits to be increased and decreased. Not all games start with your standard 400BP builds.

Either list all the languages or allow them to be entered free-form.

I've always liked picking from a huge list of knowledge skills.

Separate matrix gear from the rest of the gear. Allow commlink upgrades and list the new programs/options from Unwired.

Make sure you have all the mods for weapons and vehicles.

Output to XML and a nice looking printed character sheet.

Those are a few of my "wanted items" on a chargen. I basically have just been using two recently. Dobberisms .NET app and some huge converted SR3 to SR4 spreadsheet. Both are great!

[St Guardian]

I bipassed the stupid edit comment and went straight to another post. The one I think your talking about is called DaisyBox and that's the program I like to use thus far. If your able to make something to it or even improve it, I would really love it.

Everything deek added is something I agree with. You gotta have stuff that you can upgrade so you can later on add it on. Kind of keeping it clean and have the GM use one character generator program.

One suggestion I would like to add is create one for the GM. Being able to have like 2-20 characters open at the same time so he can easily just click one and BAM! have all their stats.

Love and peace,
SG

[shuya]

besides what has already been said about both

a) comprehensiveness (updated rules, all items)

and

b) modification (easy modification also allows you to focus on programming, outsourcing the busywork of copying all the tables and crap to community)

which, frankly, i think should be BARE minimums for any character generator, I would have to echo the GIANT KNOWLEDGE SKILLS LIST, making sure the program can implement dice pool modifiers and skill modifiers (along with their associated dice caps) properly would be a really big thing ™ for an sr4 chargen

[KCKitsune]

One suggestion I would like to add is create one for the GM. Being able to have like 2-20 characters open at the same time so he can easily just click one and BAM! have all their stats.

Love and peace,
SG

I think that the idea of a GM version is a little too much work. Just have the GM in question print out the character to a PDF file and use a program like FoxIt reader and it's ability to use tabs to load up all the characters that he needs.

The reason I say this is because it adds a layer of complexity that is not really needed.

[tweak]

Thanks. I am hoping to release a alpha version before GEN CON.

This week my plan is to nail down the XML output. I have started the basic GUI, which so far is looking a lot like IDA PRO. The program will be customizable since there is no way that I am going to key in every vehicle, gun, skill, etc. The program will use community maintained files, so as new books come out, folks can add to the files either directly or via a GUI interface to them. And I will most likely release it under a BSD license.

For the XML, I'm using this class library: http://doc.trolltech.com/4.5/qdomdocument.html

The question is: how customizable do you want the program? Do you want plugin support to extend the app?

[TonkaTuff]

As far as SR4A compliance, I'd suggest making it a toggleable option - as was made clear when it was released, there are apparently quite a few people who would rather eat nails than utilize the latest revisions.

[tweak]

As far as SR4A compliance, I'd suggest making it a toggleable option - as was made clear when it was released, there are apparently quite a few people who would rather eat nails than utilize the latest revisions.

Then, I should just make a SR3 version as well.

[Dr. Dodge]

As far as SR4A compliance, I'd suggest making it a toggleable option - as was made clear when it was released, there are apparently quite a few people who would rather eat nails than utilize the latest revisions.

dinosaurs can continue using paper and pencil.

i kid.