DesertDogSledder
First Post
Hooray! I just did some code cleanup and added cache clearing to the update and repair functions, so we hopefully won't run into that issue again.
WOIN [WOIN] WOIN Character Assistant, a character creation tool
Hooray! I just did some code cleanup and added cache clearing to the update and repair functions, so we hopefully won't run into that issue again.
Butler
a young brilliant Synthetic scientist who reads old literature (4d6)
Name: Butler
Race: Synthetic
Homeworld: None
Hook: reads old literature
Career track:
[1] Scientist (5 years)
[2] Scientist (3 years)
[3] Scientist (1 years)
[4] Scientist (5 years)
Stat totals:
STR: 6 (3d6)
AGI: 4 (2d6)
END: 3 (2d6)
WIL: 7 (3d6)
INT: 7 (3d6)
LOG: 9 (3d6)
CHA: 3 (2d6)
LUC: 3 (2d6)
REP: 4 (2d6)
MAG: 0 (0d6)
CHI: 0 (0d6)
PSI: -99 (0d6)
Skill totals:
astronomy: 1 (1d6)
botany: 1 (1d6)
climatology: 1 (1d6)
computers: 2 (1d6)
geology: 1 (1d6)
medicine: 1 (1d6)
perception: 1 (1d6)
physics: 1 (1d6)
xenology: 2 (1d6)
Exploits:
Aim - This is identical to the Feint exploit, but for ranged combat; it grants +1d6
bonus to an attack roll taken in the same turn. The attack action must come
immediately after the feinting action. All characters get either the Aim or
Feint exploit for free.
Analytical eye - You are able to identify the resistances, immunities, and
vulnerabilities of any creature you can see with a Difficult [16]
LOG check; if you use a hand-scanner, it is only a Challenging
[13] LOG check. This requires two full actions of observation.
Automaton - Synthetics do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, and are immune to the
Pain and Fatigued conditions.
Deadly strike - (requires AGI or STR 5+) You inflict an additional 1d6 damage with
a successful hit. For a ranged attack, this is likely a headshot.
This can only gain you one bonus damage die. By default, any
character can trade attack dice to increase damage on a 2:1 basis.
Deterministic - A Synthetic’s PSI attribute can never rise above zero, and an
android can never spend LUC dice.
Electronic vulnerability - As mechanoids, Synthetics are vulnerable (1d6) to
electricity damage, vulnerable (2d6) to ion damage.
Factory specs - Synthetics do not take an origin career; they come fully formed
from the factory and enter their first full career immediately.
Improviser - In the field, you need to improvise. Using your scientific know-how,
you can create a crude object or device from your surroundings. This
requires a LOG check, with a difficulty value equal to the purchase
value of the object, and takes 30 minutes.
Mindless - Synthetics are immune to any attacks which target MENTAL DEFENSE.
Modify - You may modify the output of any energy weapon or device to any other
energy type of your choice. This takes one minute. The device operates for
five minutes, but breaks permanently when this time is up.
Scientific knowledge base - Choose four [scientific] skills. You gain these four
skills at 1 rank (1d6). This does not increase the rank
of an existing skill.
Skill package - Synthetics are built with a purpose in mind. They begin play with
three bonus skills at rank 3 (2d6). These skills must be from the
Synthetic’s race skill choices.
Derived Statistics:
Health: Roll END (2d6) + WIL (3d6)
Speed: 5
Climbing: 2
Swimming: 2
Zero-G: 2
High-G: 2
Low-G: 2
Horizontal Jump: 8' (standing: 4')
Vertical Jump: 8' (standing: 4')
Carry: 90 (before exploits and size modifiers)
a young brilliant Synthetic scientist who reads old literature (4d6)
Name: Butler
Race: Synthetic
Homeworld: None
Hook: reads old literature
Career track:
[1] Scientist (5 years)
[2] Scientist (3 years)
[3] Scientist (1 years)
[4] Scientist (5 years)
Stat totals:
STR: 6 (3d6)
AGI: 4 (2d6)
END: 3 (2d6)
WIL: 7 (3d6)
INT: 7 (3d6)
LOG: 9 (3d6)
CHA: 3 (2d6)
LUC: 3 (2d6)
REP: 4 (2d6)
MAG: 0 (0d6)
CHI: 0 (0d6)
PSI: -99 (0d6)
Skill totals:
astronomy: 1 (1d6)
botany: 1 (1d6)
climatology: 1 (1d6)
computers: 2 (1d6)
geology: 1 (1d6)
medicine: 1 (1d6)
perception: 1 (1d6)
physics: 1 (1d6)
xenology: 2 (1d6)
Exploits:
Aim - This is identical to the Feint exploit, but for ranged combat; it grants +1d6
bonus to an attack roll taken in the same turn. The attack action must come
immediately after the feinting action. All characters get either the Aim or
Feint exploit for free.
Analytical eye - You are able to identify the resistances, immunities, and
vulnerabilities of any creature you can see with a Difficult [16]
LOG check; if you use a hand-scanner, it is only a Challenging
[13] LOG check. This requires two full actions of observation.
Automaton - Synthetics do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, and are immune to the
Pain and Fatigued conditions.
Deadly strike - (requires AGI or STR 5+) You inflict an additional 1d6 damage with
a successful hit. For a ranged attack, this is likely a headshot.
This can only gain you one bonus damage die. By default, any
character can trade attack dice to increase damage on a 2:1 basis.
Deterministic - A Synthetic’s PSI attribute can never rise above zero, and an
android can never spend LUC dice.
Electronic vulnerability - As mechanoids, Synthetics are vulnerable (1d6) to
electricity damage, vulnerable (2d6) to ion damage.
Factory specs - Synthetics do not take an origin career; they come fully formed
from the factory and enter their first full career immediately.
Improviser - In the field, you need to improvise. Using your scientific know-how,
you can create a crude object or device from your surroundings. This
requires a LOG check, with a difficulty value equal to the purchase
value of the object, and takes 30 minutes.
Mindless - Synthetics are immune to any attacks which target MENTAL DEFENSE.
Modify - You may modify the output of any energy weapon or device to any other
energy type of your choice. This takes one minute. The device operates for
five minutes, but breaks permanently when this time is up.
Scientific knowledge base - Choose four [scientific] skills. You gain these four
skills at 1 rank (1d6). This does not increase the rank
of an existing skill.
Skill package - Synthetics are built with a purpose in mind. They begin play with
three bonus skills at rank 3 (2d6). These skills must be from the
Synthetic’s race skill choices.
Derived Statistics:
Health: Roll END (2d6) + WIL (3d6)
Speed: 5
Climbing: 2
Swimming: 2
Zero-G: 2
High-G: 2
Low-G: 2
Horizontal Jump: 8' (standing: 4')
Vertical Jump: 8' (standing: 4')
Carry: 90 (before exploits and size modifiers)
I can't stop playing with this - it's such fun!
Quick thing I noticed: speeds should round up when halving, not round down.
Do you plan to add the combat derived stats (INITIATVE, PERCEPTION, DEFENSES)? Maybe roll the HEALTH, or use an average score?
One minor interface thing I noticed is that sometimes you press 0 to go back and sometimes you press enter. Not a big deal, obviously, but I've caught myself doing the wrong thing from time to time.
Another interface thing - as I go through careers and edit them to add skills and whatnot, I forget which I've done. I wonder if noting which have skills and/or exploits already selected would be useful?
It's really awesome that it literally takes me two minutes to create a character. It's so quick!
Quick thing I noticed: speeds should round up when halving, not round down.
Do you plan to add the combat derived stats (INITIATVE, PERCEPTION, DEFENSES)? Maybe roll the HEALTH, or use an average score?
One minor interface thing I noticed is that sometimes you press 0 to go back and sometimes you press enter. Not a big deal, obviously, but I've caught myself doing the wrong thing from time to time.
Another interface thing - as I go through careers and edit them to add skills and whatnot, I forget which I've done. I wonder if noting which have skills and/or exploits already selected would be useful?
It's really awesome that it literally takes me two minutes to create a character. It's so quick!
DesertDogSledder
First Post
This warms the cockles of my heart to hear! It was really fulfilling to actually complete this program. My previous project was a simple program to roll random worlds using the Stars Without Number world generation tables--nothing nearly as fleshed out as this.
Thanks for catching this. I'll put this in the issue tracker and correct it.
I held off on those because they were a little more intricate than the other derived statistics. The category that concerns me is MELEE DEFENSE only because the skill system is open-ended. I couldn't feasibly take into account every possible weapon skill or unarmed skill, so generating it with no further input seems out of the question. Thinking about it, I could add an option in the Edit Character section for the user to select their preferred melee/unarmed skill for the purposes of MELEE DEFENSE. That could work! Sometimes talking it out really helps.
Regarding HEALTH, I might go with an average value for now.
This is absolutely correct and something I've been cognizant of as well. Inconsistency is a big UX no-no and I'm guilty of that with this program. It comes down to how I've chosen to handle the situations where the user is given a more open-ended prompt (selecting and removing skills, choosing a name, writing out a hook, etc.).
Honestly there's nothing stopping me from having both 0 and empty/blank input aborting and returning to the previous menu for those instances, now that I think about it. I was just concerned that I might run into some unintentional behavior if I kept the 0 thing.
This is a problem I have as well, but I wouldn't mind some suggestions on how to handle this. If you have the time, could you give me a mock-up output of what would be more clear to you? That would be awesome!
Hopefully some of these user experience quirks will be squashed when I can get a proper GUI built. After I correct these issues I'm going to take another shot at throwing something together.
Thanks again for your time and support, Morrus!
Maybe just an asterisk next to careers which are completed with skills and exploits?
Dalamar
Adventurer
Morrus already made note of the couple of things I'd noticed when briefly playing with the program (Hook, enter/0 return).
Here's a few things that I've thought of since:
* Like Morrus noted, having something to show your choices in the edit views might be good. Even something as simple as name of exploit(s) and number of skills chosen.
* Some way for the program to handle exploits that grant skills at a certain ranks.
* if you don't take an exploit after seeing its description, I would think the more logical spot to return to would be the list of exploits, not the career edit menu.
* I took a look at your character save file, and saw that you're storing the full description of all exploits. Wouldn't it help with typo fix updates and (less so) to reduce save file size to store only the choices, and retrieve descriptions, derive stats and dice pools, etc. only when viewing.
Here's a few things that I've thought of since:
* Like Morrus noted, having something to show your choices in the edit views might be good. Even something as simple as name of exploit(s) and number of skills chosen.
* Some way for the program to handle exploits that grant skills at a certain ranks.
* if you don't take an exploit after seeing its description, I would think the more logical spot to return to would be the list of exploits, not the career edit menu.
* I took a look at your character save file, and saw that you're storing the full description of all exploits. Wouldn't it help with typo fix updates and (less so) to reduce save file size to store only the choices, and retrieve descriptions, derive stats and dice pools, etc. only when viewing.
DesertDogSledder
First Post
I will definitely look into this. It may require a few revisions to get something that feels right. A GUI would also handle the display of this much better.
In the future, I'd love to handle all of the boons that exploits can give to skills, money, carrying capacity, weight etc. I chose to keep things simple for now so I wouldn't get trapped in development limbo and never release anything. It's been in the back of my mind, but I don't want to promise anything on that yet!
I agree in some cases. I could add a prompt afterward to let the user pick what menu to go back to. This is something that would presumably be a nonissue with a GUI. Since I'm starting to see more and more UX issues that are exacerbated by the limited text interface, I may freeze the current interface tweaks so that I can focus on getting a GUI out.
This is a good point. I can explain my train of thought here! My original idea was storing just an index of what exploit was chosen, like you suggested. I refrained, however, because I chose to sort the exploit lists by the exploit name. If new exploits were ever added to these lists, then the index might change and then cause some errors.
Talking it out with you, though, I can think of a couple of better ways to handle this and implement what you're talking about. Either I can just sort the lists visually but without associating their "choice number" with their index or I can do a different search based on exploit name. I'll chew on that one for a bit.
Thanks for the feed back!
Yes, absolutely. I will admit to you that the traits portion was done at the very end. I was getting super anxious about release and was on a coding binge for far too long at that point.
This is something I intended on tweaking in the future.DesertDogSledder
First Post
Haha! I was wondering when someone would discover it. I should probably make the custom folder more apparent by putting it in the main directory.
The basketweaver career still makes me crack up.
Similar Threads
