What kind of Shadowrun programs would be useful? Options

[Vegetaman]

Just kind of wanted to test the waters and see what kind of Shadowrun programs players or GMs were really wanting. I have some free time (being unemployed), and was thinking about attempting to code something.

Despite my programming experience mostly being in C++, it is easy to do deployable programs (via ClickOnce) in VB.Net 2008, IMO. And they should work on XP, Vista, and Win 7... I think.

[Draco18s]

"Press this button to determine the outcome of a hack attempt."

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Vegetaman]

"Press this button to determine the outcome of a hack attempt."

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Will anyone be offended if every time it is pressed, all it says is: "ACCESS DENIED!"?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

[Draco18s]

Will anyone be offended if every time it is pressed, all it says is: "ACCESS DENIED!"?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

Oh, I thought maybe it'd flip a coin and either give either "ACCESS DENIED: AUTHORITIES ALERTED TO YOUR LOCATION" or "PAYDATA GAINED."

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

On a serious note on how such a program might run, I figure there's a setup screen that has the player enter their skill/attribute values and a spot for the GM to enter some info about the system (GM one first?) and then throw results at the player until either they succeed* or they lose.

If I understood the rules at all, I could probably whip something up in Flash.

*Possibly with another GM screen indicating anything the player didn't notice.

[Vegetaman]

I like this plan. Though I only have the core rulebook and not Unwired, which probably fleshes out the rules more. But I think it is quite doable.

[nezumi]

This is what I was considering doing myself for a while, but never really got around to doing it...

1) Store character and display sheets. Track karma and cash expenditures. If it were something that let the GM add karma using a password or something, and the PC spend it (or, for more versatility, both, but mark who did what), and keep an audit log of all expenditures. (This would necessarily leave space for user-defined skills and equipment, but a drop-down of standard skills and equipment would be useful.)
2) Including an NPC character generator/library
3) With a high-level menu which would allow you to select a number of characters (and multiple copies of the same character) to engage in combat
4) And allowing you to define environmental factors, cover, wound modifiers, etc.
5) Would roll initiative and, on each character's turn, give a choice of possible actions (fire weapon Y at X, reload, full dodge, etc.)
6) Would allow you to determine combat pool and roll the dice for you, calculating all the modifiers, noting the result, and applying wound modifiers, as appropriate
7) Would, for NPCs, automatically determine combat pool based on a 'defensive,' 'offensive' or 'ideal' break-down, perhaps automatically decide actions, based on the same, roll and list results.

In a word, a battle-simulator. Physical combat would be most useful. A full matrix one, that would create the security sheaf based on my specifications, permit me to select categories of actions, roll the dice and note how successful, keep the security sheaf, then run the IC for me would be also quite fantastic.

[Freejack]

I'm working on something like that now. I just got the Vehicle selection part in place. It's not right yet as it's mainly the code to manage vehicles and not tied to characters yet. I'll be using the same code for weapons and have to change the way I'm doing Qualities to use the same bit of code.

http://www.mooks.us/sgm

The primary goal is to have a list of tests and target numbers. Of course that means I have to have a bunch of character information in the system (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Carl

[nezumi]

This looks really useful! Really, really... wait, what? SR4??

[Draco18s]

This is what I was considering doing myself for a while, but never really got around to doing it...

I've got a half-assed "let me see if I can make it work" prototype of some of the combat rules in Flash. The idea was to see if I could make a good interface to allow quick combat using the SR rules.

OH HEY I still have it online. Looks like some of the options don't work (aren't working correctly), but it was mostly for being able to select a target and a firing mode and visually show the shot more than anything else.

[Freejack]

I did something similar with my pages. Check out the melée, ranged combat, matrix, and spellcasting pages at http://mooks.us/sheets

It's what got me working on SGM (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Carl

[Draco18s]

Very nice.

[Freejack]

This looks really useful! Really, really... wait, what? SR4??

Sorry if I'm a bit thick. Is there a problem? It's really sr4a although there still are a few sr4 references.

Carl

[nezumi]

Sorry if I'm a bit thick. Is there a problem? It's really sr4a although there still are a few sr4 references.

Carl

Who plays SR4 these days? SR3 is where it's at. I need an SR3 combat calculator.

[Freejack]

Who plays SR4 these days? SR3 is where it's at. I need an SR3 combat calculator.

sorry, programmers scratch personal itches (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) . My plan is to have it work with older editions but I'm running 4th right now so that's my focus.

Carl

[Vegetaman]

I'm up for working on stuff for either SR3 or SR4, since they're both played.

[Delarn]

A program that take care of character generation for real. That you can expand by scripting stuff in it.

[Freejack]

I guess part of the situation here is that I have a goal I'm heading towards. Something that satisfies my itch (as I noted above (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ). So I build bits and pieces to see how they fit together and how they work and also to expand my knowledge of the tools and the game.

I'm actually moving into the next phase of development of my tool. It'll probably look a little different but it hopefully will be what I'm heading towards.

In general, the site (mooks.us) is to be used as a Shadowrun Character database. SGM is to use the files available from the site.

Fun stuff (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Carl

[Surukai]

A program that take care of character generation for real. That you can expand by scripting stuff in it.

What kind of scripting inside a chargen would be useful in your opinion? Apart from implementing the direct effects of qualities, augmentations and powers?

[Draco18s]

What kind of scripting inside a chargen would be useful in your opinion? Apart from implementing the direct effects of qualities, augmentations and powers?

A button labeled "generate random mook" perhaps?

[Delarn]

What kind of scripting inside a chargen would be useful in your opinion? Apart from implementing the direct effects of qualities, augmentations and powers?

1. Being able to implement rules.
2. Being able to implement races.
3. Being able to generate goons.

[Vegetaman]

Well to test the waters, I made a quick SR3 dice roller.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/2823/srdice.png

Shouldn't be too hard to upgrade it to SR4, as well (just need to change "success" to "hits" and lock in TN @ 5, and allow input for Threshold, and remove option for Rule of Six, and change the internal rules for Rule of One).

Testing the waters with C#, basically, before I plow ahead on something... Bigger...

[Surukai]

Here's the simple SR4-diceroller class I made for CharEd:

[ Spoiler ]

CODE

    public class SRDicePool
    {
        public enum ResultType { Normal, Glitch, Critglitch };
        private int size;
        private int modifiers = 0;
        private int successes;
        private int ones = 0;
        private ResultType glitch;

        public ResultType Glitch
        {
            get { return glitch; }
            set { glitch = value; }
        }
        private Random r = new Random();

        public int Successes
        {
            get { return successes; }
            set { successes = value; }
        }

        public int Modifiers
        {
            get { return modifiers; }
            set { modifiers = value; }
        }
        public int Size
        {
            get { return size; }
            set { size = value; }
        }

        public SRDicePool()
        {
        }
        public SRDicePool(int size)
        {
            this.size = size;
        }

        public ResultType roll()
        {
            ones = 0; successes = 0;
            for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
            {
                successes += dieRoll();
            }
            if (ones >= Math.Ceiling(size / 2.0))
            {
                if (successes == 0) glitch = ResultType.Critglitch;
                else glitch = ResultType.Glitch;
            }
            else glitch= ResultType.Normal;

            return glitch;
          
        }

        private int dieRoll()
        {
            int a = r.Next(6) + 1;
            if (a == 1) ones++;
            return (a > 4)?1:0;
        }

        public override string ToString()
        {
            return glitch.ToString() + " " + successes.ToString() + " hits";
        }
    }
    }

It has the attributes "Size" (as in dicepool size) and when roll() it returns normal/glitch/critclitch status and to get successes you simply fetch the Successes attribute.

i.e

SRDicePool dice = new SRDicePool();

dice.Size = 10;
dice.roll();

//i.e check for successes and that it wasn't a glitch. (Example)
if(dice.Successes>0 && dice.Glitch == SRDicePool.ResultType.Normal) return true;
else return false;

((All this can be used in VB too if you just include the dll from my CharEd program called SR4Rules.dll it implements this class and any .net program can use it))

[Draco18s]

Shouldn't be too hard to upgrade it to SR4, as well (just need to change "success" to "hits" and lock in TN @ 5, and allow input for Threshold, and remove option for Rule of Six, and change the internal rules for Rule of One).

No real need for dice rollers.

As what's better than a 100% modular, customizable, turing complete probability calculator and die roller?
SR4 dice are in there, as well as SR3 ("Shadowrun Dice Pool D6"* and "Sum of floating reroll on d6" respectively). No special results for rolling 1s, but it does tell you the rolls (and I think 1s can be tracked, I haven't tried).

Also notable is Bobson's "D&D 4e average weapon damage calculator (v1)," which is one of the most complex scripts there.

Troll is really freaking powerful.

*Note, the script shown includes exploding 6s. I added another one, "Shadowrun 4E Dice Pool D6, No Edge" for those no-edge rolls.

[Vegetaman]

I just made that dice roller as a simple test of my C# skills. A Shadowrun project is next, but currently I am working on a program to edit Lufia I SRAM values:

http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/6311/veglufiasrm.png

[Socinus]

I know it sounds simple, but an ammunition tracking program would be great.

I usually have to dick with bits of paper or arcane values on a notepad. It'd be great to have a program where you input the weapon, how much ammunition you have, and are able to hit FIRE or something and have it keep track of ammunition for multiple weapons and maybe calculate out other important weapon information as well such as ranges and damage codes.