Chummer Character Generator, Thread #2 Options

[All4BigGuns]

Lastly I have several of the books in PDF format from DriveThruRPGs. Can we please get an option to link Chummer with the PDFs?
The idea I have is that in the settings of Chummer there is a section for each book. As a user I would then enter the file path of where I have the PDF stored for that book. I would add them all for the ones I own, leaving the rest blank.
Then in the areas of Chummer that show where the skill/item/weapon/etc comes from, I simply click on that link and it opens the PDF file associated with that source book. Maybe even to the page specified.
I know this is possible but I don't know how much work is involved to achieve this. It would simply be a helpful feature for those like me that have the PDFs.

With the other generator in existence now, he has to be really careful. Adding a function like that could call down C&D orders, so I'd rather not see such things implemented.

[wilcoxon]

Lastly I have several of the books in PDF format from DriveThruRPGs. Can we please get an option to link Chummer with the PDFs?
The idea I have is that in the settings of Chummer there is a section for each book. As a user I would then enter the file path of where I have the PDF stored for that book. I would add them all for the ones I own, leaving the rest blank.
Then in the areas of Chummer that show where the skill/item/weapon/etc comes from, I simply click on that link and it opens the PDF file associated with that source book. Maybe even to the page specified.
I know this is possible but I don't know how much work is involved to achieve this. It would simply be a helpful feature for those like me that have the PDFs.

With the other generator in existence now, he has to be really careful. Adding a function like that could call down C&D orders, so I'd rather not see such things implemented.

He is not providing any additional information in Chummer. He is simply allowing owners of the PDFs to look up the rules externally. I would like to see this implemented even though I don't have many of the PDFs (because Catalyst PDF prices are high generally and stupidly high if you own the print book (most companies give discounts on PDFs (or give them free) if you own the book).

[All4BigGuns]

With the other generator in existence now, he has to be really careful. Adding a function like that could call down C&D orders, so I'd rather not see such things implemented.


He is not providing any additional information in Chummer. He is simply allowing owners of the PDFs to look up the rules externally. I would like to see this implemented even though I don't have many of the PDFs (because Catalyst PDF prices are high generally and stupidly high if you own the print book (most companies give discounts on PDFs (or give them free) if you own the book).

With how companies get these days when it comes to copyright bullcrap, it's a "better safe than sorry" situation.

And I haven't seen any game company giving the PDF free unless you count package deals (which still cost more than just the cost of the book).

[Mantis]

From what I can see, this is working correctly. It should only refund a number of BP equal to the Enemy's Connection + Incidence + Group, so Connection 3 + Incidence 2 + Group 4 should return 9 BP. A 6/6 Enemy should only be worth 12 BP unless I'm missing something that says the BP value for them is doubled.

It must have been a bug in my system or something because it is behaving as it should for enemies now. I'll keep an eye out for it happening anymore.

[Rartemass]

With how companies get these days when it comes to copyright bullcrap, it's a "better safe than sorry" situation.

And I haven't seen any game company giving the PDF free unless you count package deals (which still cost more than just the cost of the book).

I don't see how this would violate copyright, it is simply linking to an external resource. Nebular has already provided a kind of index card for the information on skills and equipment. This is simply adding an option to view that information if you have it on available electronically.
It is no different that me having my books on my lap and flicking to the specified page with working on Chummer. I simply would like the option to use an electronic 'lap' using the content that I legally purchased electronically.

[SpellBinder]

Came across something interesting regarding the swap of Latent Awakening for a character with a reduced essence. Order of steps was starting with a character already at less than 4 Essence, adding additional implants that brought his Essence down another whole point, and then swapped Latent Awakening for Mystic Adept. The character had a Magic of 0, maximum Magic of 0, but I could increase the Magic at what I think would have been to an unlimited level (only went as far as 19 in testing) without any Initiations.

In messing around, I've found that if a character hasn't passed a whole point threshold in Essence loss (like being at 3.1 but not falling below 3), then the career Awakening works as intended.

[Thanee]

I cannot find the Weapon Accessory "Underbarrel Weight" (it's under Weapon Modifications, but there is a slightly different Weapon Accessory version also; see Arsenal p. 34 "Recoil Compensators").


Also, how do you add Program Options (from Unwired)? The list is empty for me, when I select it "as a plugin" for software.

Bye
Thanee

[SpellBinder]

Underbarrel Weight is an available accessory for a firearm. The type of firearm you're trying to add it to may not be allowed to have underbarrel accessories, like pretty much any type of pistol (ref Arsenal, Firearms section, each category notes what accessories they can take).

As for the Program Options, my first thought would be to make sure that the rules set you're using for the character has the Unwired book enabled. If you have to enable it, you'll need to close and relaunch Chummer. Otherwise there is the search option, just in case.

[Sengir]

Lastly I have several of the books in PDF format from DriveThruRPGs. Can we please get an option to link Chummer with the PDFs?
The idea I have is that in the settings of Chummer there is a section for each book. As a user I would then enter the file path of where I have the PDF stored for that book. I would add them all for the ones I own, leaving the rest blank.
Then in the areas of Chummer that show where the skill/item/weapon/etc comes from, I simply click on that link and it opens the PDF file associated with that source book. Maybe even to the page specified.
I know this is possible but I don't know how much work is involved to achieve this. It would simply be a helpful feature for those like me that have the PDFs.

I must say that sounds like a great idea, since Chummer does not (and must not) replace have all the info from the books it would be extremely helpful to just have a direct link to that info.

PS: As a public service announcement for those regularly plagued by working with PDF specs, the command line for opening a pdf at a certain page is acrord32 /A "page=123" "D:\foo\bar.pdf". It can also be done with hyperlinks, like http://datahaven.dumpshock.com/dumpshock_d...n_v2.pdf#page=4

[Yatokya]

Sorry, I'm just now getting some time to even read through these. I'm going to put the breaking Skill Groups in Create Mode thing on hold to hopefully address your Wine issue, another crashing issue, and hopefully a few more troublesome bits like the 50% of Attribute Karma/Special Attributes issue (that one's already fixed, just need to release the update). With any luck I might have a small update available tomorrow evening.

Sorry to add to your workload with Wine compatibility, I really appreciate you taking the time for it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I really should have caught that bug earlier but the current character I'm playing is a troll shaman with no cyberware or bioware.

[bannockburn]

Okay. I may be stupid, but this is the first time I've fooled around with cyberware suites.

I have created a suite containing a Control Rig, and two Datajacks. However, I've found the following problems:

1) Its grade is shown as 'Cummer.Grade', and even when created with higher grades (such as Alpha), the final essence cost is always 0,63, as if standard grade was used. The price is also always 9900 nuyen, and does not change with higher grades.
2) I fail to find an option to add this suite to a character in career mode. The 'Special' menu is missing the creation as well as the add options and I can't find the suites at all when adding cyberware.


So basically it boils down to:
How do I add a cyberware suite that's only available in a certain grade and how do I then add it to an existing character in career mode?

Does someone know how to work this?

Edit: After playing around in the custom_cyberware.xml and manually changing Chummer.Grade to 'xware', I've found that the essence cost is calculated wrongly, too. In the above example, the suite should cost 0.315 essence in delta grade but is calculated as 0.28 with individual costs of 0.2 for the control rig (should be 0.5*0.5*0,9=0,225) and 0.04 for the data jacks (should be 0.1*0.5*0.9=0,045).

[esprism]

Edit: After playing around in the custom_cyberware.xml and manually changing Chummer.Grade to 'xware', I've found that the essence cost is calculated wrongly, too. In the above example, the suite should cost 0.315 essence in delta grade but is calculated as 0.28 with individual costs of 0.2 for the control rig (should be 0.5*0.5*0,9=0,225) and 0.04 for the data jacks (should be 0.1*0.5*0.9=0,045).

It's correct. % of essence cost reduction are added by the rule. So 10% for cybersuit and 50% for deltaware give 60% reduction (0.1*0.4=0.04)

[bannockburn]

Ah, the old additive vs multiplicative thing. I see.

[Nebular]

I must say that sounds like a great idea, since Chummer does not (and must not) replace have all the info from the books it would be extremely helpful to just have a direct link to that info.

PS: As a public service announcement for those regularly plagued by working with PDF specs, the command line for opening a pdf at a certain page is acrord32 /A "page=123" "D:\foo\bar.pdf". It can also be done with hyperlinks, like http://datahaven.dumpshock.com/dumpshock_d...n_v2.pdf#page=4

It's certainly something I wanted to do and tried in the past. I thought I had tried that command line before and had it not work, but it might have changed since I last looked at it. I'll add it back to the list of things to do as this would be pretty useful. The real catch is that I'd need to provide something that would let you specify the PDF file name/location for each book. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Won't make this evenings release as there's some testing and a fair amount of work that needs to go into it, but I'm moving this to the top of my to do list as this seems pretty darn useful. I just hope actually get the linking to work this time.

Providing a link into a file on your computer is safe as far as copyrights go. You still can't use the material if you don't have it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Nebular]

Build 449

- added support for <ignorecmpenaltystun /> and <ignorecmpenaltyphysical /> to the Improvement Manager which ignore the character's Stun and Physical Condition Monitor Penalties respectively
- added Restore Defaults buttons to the BP Cost and Karma Cost tabs in the Options window to restore the default values
- fixed an issue where the Special Attributes do not count towards 50% Karma limit during character creation house rule would not work correctly if a Special Attribute put the character over the 50% Karma threshold
- added support for relative file paths to Contacts and Spirits (see below)
- changed how the total values of Cyberware is calculated in an attempt to avoid crashes on non-Windows computers using Wine
- fixed an issue where adding a Weapon Focus to a Weapon would throw an error
- Adept Power requirements can now filter on <allof /> and <oneof />
- Shadowrun 4 sheets now display any entered notes for Cyberware/Bioware
- Update is now prevent from running if there is more than one instance of Chummer open at the time to prevent errors
- corrected the costs for the Gentlemen's Cane Sword variations
- Gentlemen's Cane with Sword options now creates a Gentlemen's Cane Sword Weapon
- marking a Nuyen Expense as being a Refund now records the Refund correctly and no longer counts towards the character's Career Nuyen total

Relative File Paths for Contacts and Spirits
Contacts and Spirits now support relative file paths for improved portability between computers. Chummer first looks for the exact file name that was linked. If it cannot be found, it falls back to using the relative path that was stored when the save file was linked to it. This will only work with save files that are linked in this and later versions of the application. In order to get this behaviour with previous save files, you will need to remove the link and re-link the save file to the Contact or Spirit.

New Strings

- Button_Options_RestoreDefaults
- Message_Options_RestoreDefaults
- MessageTitle_Options_RestoreDefaults
- Message_Update_MultipleInstances

[Machine Ghost]

It's certainly something I wanted to do and tried in the past. I thought I had tried that command line before and had it not work, but it might have changed since I last looked at it. I'll add it back to the list of things to do as this would be pretty useful. The real catch is that I'd need to provide something that would let you specify the PDF file name/location for each book. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Won't make this evenings release as there's some testing and a fair amount of work that needs to go into it, but I'm moving this to the top of my to do list as this seems pretty darn useful. I just hope actually get the linking to work this time.

Providing a link into a file on your computer is safe as far as copyrights go. You still can't use the material if you don't have it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

VERY useful. A related note. Provide a way to specify a page offset on a per pdf basis. Due to leading 'book cover' images, the pdf page number is usually (but not always) a couple of pages off of the page number displayed ON the page.

I have not done it for the SR books, but people with the right tools could also append books together, so 'book1' is pages 1 .. 123 and 'book2' is pages 124 ... of a single file. Makes some types of searching easier, but the main viewer tool I use has the ability to also search through all open documents, or even all documents in a folder, so I already have that ability.

I don't know how flexible it is practical to be, but not everyone uses Acrobat Reader for viewing pdfs. Just as the whole world is not MS. PDF-XChange Viewer has a menu option to jump to a page, but I do not know if there is a general interface to invoke that externally. There IS an SDK, but I doubt you want to build PDF viewing capabilities into Chummer.

I was going to say, provide a way to just specify a folder to look in for the pdfs, but that might not work. The pdf file names may not always be the same. Unless there is a practical way of open each pdf file in a location, and figuring out from header content which book it is. Seems like way to much work, and not likely to be particularly robust. We don't have an AI assistant, or even a 'smart' agent (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Yatokya]

I can confirm that adding cyberware and bioware during character creation now works properly with Wine, thanks! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Thanee]

Underbarrel Weight is an available accessory for a firearm. The type of firearm you're trying to add it to may not be allowed to have underbarrel accessories, like pretty much any type of pistol (ref Arsenal, Firearms section, each category notes what accessories they can take).

As for the Program Options, my first thought would be to make sure that the rules set you're using for the character has the Unwired book enabled. If you have to enable it, you'll need to close and relaunch Chummer. Otherwise there is the search option, just in case.

Makes sense. Thank you! I probably missed to switch it on. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bye
Thanee

[Nebular]

VERY useful. A related note. Provide a way to specify a page offset on a per pdf basis. Due to leading 'book cover' images, the pdf page number is usually (but not always) a couple of pages off of the page number displayed ON the page.

I have not done it for the SR books, but people with the right tools could also append books together, so 'book1' is pages 1 .. 123 and 'book2' is pages 124 ... of a single file. Makes some types of searching easier, but the main viewer tool I use has the ability to also search through all open documents, or even all documents in a folder, so I already have that ability.

I don't know how flexible it is practical to be, but not everyone uses Acrobat Reader for viewing pdfs. Just as the whole world is not MS. PDF-XChange Viewer has a menu option to jump to a page, but I do not know if there is a general interface to invoke that externally. There IS an SDK, but I doubt you want to build PDF viewing capabilities into Chummer.

I was going to say, provide a way to just specify a folder to look in for the pdfs, but that might not work. The pdf file names may not always be the same. Unless there is a practical way of open each pdf file in a location, and figuring out from header content which book it is. Seems like way to much work, and not likely to be particularly robust. We don't have an AI assistant, or even a 'smart' agent (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

The page offset thing hit me last night after I posted this. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) I have a ton of PDFs that are all wacky because the cover counts as a page but the index doesn't and completely screws up the numbering, etc. Since everyone will have different PDF names, either because they're actually in a different language or you're like me and drop the catalogue numbers from the file name (or if you like to stuff different books in different directories), I'm thinking there will just need to be a way to select a sourcebook and select the location of each one manually. Bit of a pain in the butt for initial setup, but it means that every file location is known. I don't want the PDF viewing capabilities in Chummer itself as that would really bloat the size of the app, and I want to avoid anything that requires a DLL/external library, so that's a little limiting but should still be doable; might just need to select the location of your PDF viewing application so it knows what to call and how. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Nebular]

I can confirm that adding cyberware and bioware during character creation now works properly with Wine, thanks! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Yay! Let me know if you find any other issues in Wine. It's weird that certain decimal numbers blow up while others don't; they're all well within the acceptable upper and lower ranges for the type. It's almost as though Wine decided those limits are different, or possibly because of regional settings even though it's supposed to be taking those into consideration. If I knew the reason it would be a lot easier to hunt them down ahead of time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Rartemass]

The page offset thing hit me last night after I posted this. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) I have a ton of PDFs that are all wacky because the cover counts as a page but the index doesn't and completely screws up the numbering, etc. Since everyone will have different PDF names, either because they're actually in a different language or you're like me and drop the catalogue numbers from the file name (or if you like to stuff different books in different directories), I'm thinking there will just need to be a way to select a sourcebook and select the location of each one manually. Bit of a pain in the butt for initial setup, but it means that every file location is known. I don't want the PDF viewing capabilities in Chummer itself as that would really bloat the size of the app, and I want to avoid anything that requires a DLL/external library, so that's a little limiting but should still be doable; might just need to select the location of your PDF viewing application so it knows what to call and how. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Thanks for looking into this.

All of that seems good to me. I have no issues configuring this up manually as long as the settings can be saved and remain in place after an update.

I think a way around the offset would be to have an offset field next to the file location field for the source book. As an end user I would then need to test the link. If the file doesn't open to the correct page, I would need to enter an offset either positive or negative.
When clicking on the link it selects the page number and adds or subtracts the offset then opens the book.
For that to work I would say a variable would be needed for the page number and the file location which then passes the modified information into the open command. This is of course coming from someone that hasn't programmed anything for over a decade so my coding ideas are quite dated.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Thanks again.

[SpellBinder]

Wish I had noticed this sooner, but would it be possible to have the "More Lethal Gameplay" optional rule apply to ammo like Stick-n-Shock?

[Makki]

CODE

<bioware>
            <name>Sideways</name>
            <category>Genetic Infusions</category>
            <ess>0.4</ess>
            <capacity>0</capacity>
            <avail>16F</avail>
            <cost>1000</cost>
            <bonus>
                <specificskill>
                    <name>Perception</name>
                    <bonus>1</bonus>
                </specificskill>
            </bonus>
            <source>AU</source>
            <page>94</page>
        </bioware>

is incomplete and should be

CODE

<bioware>
            <name>Sideways</name>
            <category>Genetic Infusions</category>
            <ess>0.4</ess>
            <capacity>0</capacity>
            <avail>16F</avail>
            <cost>1000</cost>
            <bonus>
                <specificskill>
                    <name>Perception</name>
                    <bonus>1</bonus>
                </specificskill>
                <skillcategory>
                    <name>Combat Active</name>
                    <bonus>1</bonus>
                </skillcategory>
            </bonus>
            <source>AU</source>
            <page>94</page>
        </bioware>

[Kiirnodel]

Just noticed last night that undoing a purchase of a focus causes the bond listing to remain, leading to potential unhandled exception if you try to bond it...
Avoidable, I know, but a bug nonetheless.

[Thanee]

How do you add extra points to the starting resources roll (100¥ each up to 3x the number of dice rolled to add +1 to the dice roll each)?

Bye
Thanee