Making your own power cards

eloquentaction · Feb 11, 2009

wagenejm said:
As someone who has been following this thread since Ander00's original set (and I've been using his template almost predominantly) I'm more than thrilled to have quietly watched the community working on the UCS project. I've even learned a thing or two about tweaking some of the settings in the template folders to make the cards do a little more of the specific things I wanted to do with them.

It was worth my while to download the new UCS base template and then proceeded to get the updated Ander build that Thindaraeil put together, mostly because everyone has been keeping up with the current-game powers and classes. I put my previous tweaks in to customize it the way I liked and off I went.

As I've been looking through the new UCS 0.4 set, I realized it's much too big for me to load and run with. Too much miscellaneous information cards that I might never intend to use. So I set about breaking down the main set into chewable pieces. Each class has its own set; the paragon paths are a set; the epic destinies are a set; each armor type is a set. You get the picture.

This brought up a concern for me, as the set of cards gets updated and moves forward. It's currently being posted as a full set, including all new updates. Is there anywhere that specifically lists the additions to the set in the update? Is it possible to ask for a set of only the updates, so I can add to what I have? With the set already above 5000 cards, it's a daunting task to think of having to compare all the sub-sets with each newly updated mega-set to find out what's missing.

Just a questioning thought...

Next to Monster cards, this is probably the biggest request I'm seeing right now for the UCS.

Based on that info, I'm making it a priority for Beta 5. Because of the work I'm doing with the DnDI Character Editor, I've already in the midst of a program that 'splits the deck' based on the options selected in the saved .4EDND character file. Since the UCS has all the fields that split the cards by type, it should be fairly simple to make the Deck Splitter an open tool that will split any mega-file you give it into a series of set based on internal specifications. I'll slate this program for the Beta 5 release.

This will push the DnDI Character Printer out a bit, but I think it's worth it based on all the requests I'm seeing.

-- Hirahito

Dracorat · Feb 11, 2009

It'll certainly help with PDF exports which just failed on me again after 6 1/2 hours of trying to export a PDF with the latest set.

Tomorrow, I try again!

eloquentaction · Feb 11, 2009

Dracorat said:
It'll certainly help with PDF exports which just failed on me again after 6 1/2 hours of trying to export a PDF with the latest set.

Tomorrow, I try again!

Wait till I get the splitter out.

I'll see if I can kick it out the door quickly here in the next day or two.

-- Hirahito

Alphastream · Feb 11, 2009

eloquentaction said:
I don't have the books for this, nor do I currently play it. I'd love to adapt the Power Card idea to it, however.

What does everyone else think?

-- Hirahito

SAGA does not use powers. It uses Feats and Talents. So, you would probably want an icon for each.

You might also want a field where you store the "Talent Tree" name for each talent. Each talent then just has text, which is usually pretty brief (like 2-3 sentences) but is sometimes fairly massive (2-3 paragraphs, etc.).

Talents and feats both have prerequisites, though that may not be important on a card.

You could also have a Class and Prestige Class card, which could have a field to capture Class Feature (some classes have a short text benefit, such as the Delay Damage ability for Elite Trooper).

You could of course go nuts with equipment and skills, but you could use existing templates for that.

Dracorat · Feb 11, 2009

eloquentaction said:
Wait till I get the splitter out.

I'll see if I can kick it out the door quickly here in the next day or two.

-- Hirahito

Sounds good!

As ever, much appreciative of all the work you're doing (and contributors too!)

eloquentaction · Feb 11, 2009

Dracorat said:
Sounds good!

As ever, much appreciative of all the work you're doing (and contributors too!)

It's the contributors. There are about a half dozen of them that do all the work.

I'm only the most visible because they like me to be the scapegoat if and when any errors are made.

-- Hirahito

wagenejm · Feb 12, 2009

eloquentaction said:
Next to Monster cards, this is probably the biggest request I'm seeing right now for the UCS.

Based on that info, I'm making it a priority for Beta 5. Because of the work I'm doing with the DnDI Character Editor, I've already in the midst of a program that 'splits the deck' based on the options selected in the saved .4EDND character file. Since the UCS has all the fields that split the cards by type, it should be fairly simple to make the Deck Splitter an open tool that will split any mega-file you give it into a series of set based on internal specifications. I'll slate this program for the Beta 5 release.

This will push the DnDI Character Printer out a bit, but I think it's worth it based on all the requests I'm seeing.

-- Hirahito

I greatly appreciate that you'll be working on this for Beta 0.5, and I think the deck splitter is a great idea, however one of the questions I had asked was about the possibility of having a set comprising only of new cards that have been added for a particular update. Even if I have my sets split out a certain way, how will I know what cards are new when the updates release? I'm still trying to avoid having to split everything out all over again with every new update, even if there's a tool to do it. I don't know about others, but that will discourage me from staying current.

For example, when I download an update for World of Warcraft, it comes in a patch that is only the new files and information. I don't have to re-download the entire game every time it updates. Currently when an update to the card set is released, it's a full set of everything that has to be downloaded and split. I'm asking for a second set that is only the newest cards.

When you update to Beta 5, I'm hoping in addition to the full Beta 5 set, you'll also include a set of "New cards added since Beta 4" that I can just add to my current Beta 4 set to update it to Beta 5.

Again, thanks a ton for spearheading this incredibly awesome effort.

DrunkenEwok · Feb 12, 2009

wagenejm said:
I greatly appreciate that you'll be working on this for Beta 0.5, and I think the deck splitter is a great idea, however one of the questions I had asked was about the possibility of having a set comprising only of new cards that have been added for a particular update. Even if I have my sets split out a certain way, how will I know what cards are new when the updates release? I'm still trying to avoid having to split everything out all over again with every new update, even if there's a tool to do it. I don't know about others, but that will discourage me from staying current.

As of right now, the easiest way to find out where the new cards are is to go to the UCS Card Entry page and look for files updated since you downloaded the main file. Any new cards are added to the Card Entry Source-based sets first, and then compiled into the uber-master set on some (ir)regular schedule - currently whenever I have time and feel like compiling.

We also have (had?) plans to manually create sub-sets of the master - based on class, race, magic items, rituals, or whatever other content-based divisions we decided on. Hirahito's splitter may fulfill this role - but I'm not sure how good a job the program will be able to do at this point. It can easily split all the cards with classification = "Cleric" for example, but it won't be able to add in all the cleric-specific feats, paragon paths, and/or epic destinies. Splitting out the paragon paths and epic destinies will be especially difficult - since they are currently classified as both "paragon path" and the actual name of the paragon path (e.g. Warpriest). We can probably work around this issue with some modifications - but it may take longer than a few days to have everything working seemlessly.

As for a true difference-based release cycle - I don't know that it will be feasible anytime soon. Being able to download one specific package and keep adding only the new information adds a huge amount of overhead to our processing workflow - we have to create all the possible difference files, and have someone dedicated to compiling them. In the long run, when/if we migrate to a full database system for storing the cards and dynamically generating sets, we could probably manage this sort of release system - but it's not likely to happen very soon. We might manage a major release difference set - like your suggestion on new cards released between Beta4 and Beta5 - but that may entail fewer releases of the complete card set (to only coincide with major updates to the whole UCS).

On the plus side - having to download the whole package every time there's an update is much less of a problem for our project than it would be to something the scale of World of Warcraft. Even the largest set we have available is only a 700KB download - while the average WoW download (even just the difference version) tends to be measured in 100s of MB, if not GB.

Sorry for the doom-and-gloom - we'll definitely try to address any issues people bring up, but sometimes the logistics (for this purely volunteer and part-time effort) may put a damper (or at least a delay) on any feature requests.

eloquentaction · Feb 12, 2009

DrunkenEwok said:
As of right now, the easiest way to find out where the new cards are is to go to the UCS Card Entry page and look for files updated since you downloaded the main file. Any new cards are added to the Card Entry Source-based sets first, and then compiled into the uber-master set on some (ir)regular schedule - currently whenever I have time and feel like compiling.

We also have (had?) plans to manually create sub-sets of the master - based on class, race, magic items, rituals, or whatever other content-based divisions we decided on. Hirahito's splitter may fulfill this role - but I'm not sure how good a job the program will be able to do at this point. It can easily split all the cards with classification = "Cleric" for example, but it won't be able to add in all the cleric-specific feats, paragon paths, and/or epic destinies. Splitting out the paragon paths and epic destinies will be especially difficult - since they are currently classified as both "paragon path" and the actual name of the paragon path (e.g. Warpriest). We can probably work around this issue with some modifications - but it may take longer than a few days to have everything working seemlessly.

As for a true difference-based release cycle - I don't know that it will be feasible anytime soon. Being able to download one specific package and keep adding only the new information adds a huge amount of overhead to our processing workflow - we have to create all the possible difference files, and have someone dedicated to compiling them. In the long run, when/if we migrate to a full database system for storing the cards and dynamically generating sets, we could probably manage this sort of release system - but it's not likely to happen very soon. We might manage a major release difference set - like your suggestion on new cards released between Beta4 and Beta5 - but that may entail fewer releases of the complete card set (to only coincide with major updates to the whole UCS).

On the plus side - having to download the whole package every time there's an update is much less of a problem for our project than it would be to something the scale of World of Warcraft. Even the largest set we have available is only a 700KB download - while the average WoW download (even just the difference version) tends to be measured in 100s of MB, if not GB.

Sorry for the doom-and-gloom - we'll definitely try to address any issues people bring up, but sometimes the logistics (for this purely volunteer and part-time effort) may put a damper (or at least a delay) on any feature requests.

As usual, the Ewok has said it best.

I've completed about half of the Deck Splitter. But he's right; it's going to split the deck based on class name, card type and a few other criteria. It will, by no means, be a perfect split.

Short of having a human run through the deck manually and then being double checked by several people; there's no way to make a perfect set of split decks. Not to mention the fact that the maintenance would be mind numbing. It's an overhead that a volunteer-based system just isn't going to handle easily.

This is the main reason I felt an automated splitter was the best option; because it takes no effort from our fantastically talented yet very limited time-wise volunteers.

Right now, the splitter de-zips the deck, reads the header, modifies the header as appropriate for the type it's making, creates a new file based on the criteria and splits the deck apart by card. It currently is waiting on the logic to tell which card belongs in which deck and then the logic to re-assemble the mini-decks back as 'set' files then into appropriately named (zipped) .mse-set files. Right now, if it can't understand the deck (because it's a non-UCS deck, for example) - it gets pissy and throws all the cards into an 'Other' deck. I don't think I want to throw in the logic to convert other decks into a UCS compatible deck, so I'll probably keep this logic.

Also - it's written in my language of choice: C# on the .NET platform. That means it won't run on Linux or on the Apple. If you want to run it, use WINE and don't whine to me about wanting it compatible, because it's not going to happen.

-- Hirahito

eloquentaction · Feb 12, 2009

While looking through the code for the Deck Splitter, I realized the UCS set now contains a field called 'time modified'.

So, what I plan on doing is also aggregating a new deck for each modified time. This will mean that the request for a deck with only the new items will automagically 'appear' when the Deck Splitter is run.

This may mean that a few small decks need to be re-joined manually to make the 'Beta 567.1' release deck, but it should be far less work than any other method I can think of.

-- Hirahito