Format for Minimal GCA4 file?

[joshualevy]

I was hoping to write a program that would generate GURPS characters, by generating GCA4 files. Then the GM or play could easy "tweek" them using GCA. When I look at a GCA4 file, I can see that much of it looks like boiler plate, some of it is unique to the character, and some of it looks like description of the traits that the character has.

Is there any file format document for that file type? Or any hope of getting that kind of documentation in the future?

Or is there a quick way to describe the minimum text needed in a GCA4 file to describe a character? For example, one of my characters has these lines in it's GCA4 file:
[Disadvantages]
idkey(124)|,name(Charitable),cat(Mundane, Mental, Mundane Mental),cost(-15),mods(Self-Control),page(B125),syslevels(0),points(-15.0),baselevel(1),level(1),premodspoints(-15.0),needscheck(-1),taboofailed(0)

Could I just put in this:
[Disadvantages]
idkey(124)|,name(Charitable)

If DI:Charitable was already defined in the loaded GDF files?

Joshua

[johndallman]

As best I understand it, the idea is that GDFs provide text to be copied into the .GCA4 file. That means characters are independent of the GFDs, which makes it easier to move .GCA4 files between GCA installations without them all having to have perfectly matched sets of files.

The links to the extant documentation can be found here, if you scroll down a bit.

[Armin]

Originally Posted by joshualevy

Is there any file format document for that file type? Or any hope of getting that kind of documentation in the future?

There is no file format document, no, as there never seemed to be a pressing need for one. People have generally seemed more concerned with data files than character files. And simply displaying the info you're interested in, if writing a character viewer for example, is much less difficult than knowing what to include in the file in the first place to get a functional character.

Me spending time writing up docs on the .GCA4 file format at this point, while investing my time heavily in the next version of GCA, is extremely unlikely. Unlikely enough that I'd say "no hope".

Originally Posted by joshualevy

Or is there a quick way to describe the minimum text needed in a GCA4 file to describe a character? For example, one of my characters has these lines in it's GCA4 file:
[Disadvantages]
idkey(124)|,name(Charitable),cat(Mundane, Mental, Mundane Mental),cost(-15),mods(Self-Control),page(B125),syslevels(0),points(-15.0),baselevel(1),level(1),premodspoints(-15.0),needscheck(-1),taboofailed(0)

Could I just put in this:
[Disadvantages]
idkey(124)|,name(Charitable)

If DI:Charitable was already defined in the loaded GDF files?

As johndallman said, the idea behind the character files is that everything needed for the character is contained in the file. GCA is able to load and manipulate a character correctly and accurately without any data files at all.

So, no, you couldn't just define a trait with an idkey and a name, and expect it to work. There are no database lookups going on. For your example, that would be a cost(0) disad with a point cost of 0 and level of 0.

Obviously, not all the values being saved are necessary for GCA to function, as many of them are recalculated by GCA as needed, or are simply reference values. Many of them are saved solely for reference, in fact, in case someone had a reader-type app that just displayed the desired info to the user.

I'd say the most difficult prospect you face isn't what info to include, which I can help boil down for you, but how to get right the relationships that need to exist for more complex characters to function as users will expect. For example, there are a LOT of attributes that need to exist for all the bits of a character to work correctly, due to various things like Lifting ST and Striking ST, and One-Handed ST and so on. As well as things like the various Magery attributes, which are what allow you to have a properly working mage that might have One-College Magery in addition to Magery. And so on.

A simple character in GURPS is not so simple if you have to be a computer program tracking the various things that might need to be handled. I don't even know most of those relationships off the top of my head, as many of them were built up over time as support evolved, and as Eric enhanced support for things through data file improvements.

[joshualevy]

Thanks very much for the replies. I suspected it worked the way you described, but I wanted to be sure.

Joshua

[Armin]

Originally Posted by joshualevy

I was hoping to write a program that would generate GURPS characters, by generating GCA4 files. Then the GM or play could easy "tweek" them using GCA.

If I may ask, what was your intended approach here? What kind of need were you trying to fill with this program? I ask, because I can't really visualize what it is that you're trying to accomplish by using one program to create characters for modification in another program that creates characters.

I'm not opposed to it, of course, I just don't understand what you're trying to get to in the end.

(And, not that it helps right this minute, but GCA 5 is being written with the GCA5Engine as a separate component, so you could theoretically use it as the back-end for something like what you're trying to do, and all the data handling would already be included for you.)

Armin

[joshualevy]

I did not ask the question because I had a specific plan for a program that I wanted to write. Rather, I asked the question to see if it was even reasonable to think about such a program; to plan out such a program.

I had two vague ideas rattling about in my head. The first was a program sort of like this one: http://ayinger.no-ip.info/NPCGen/NPCGen, but that would generate a GCA4 file. Then, if I wanted to make small changes to the generated character, it would be easy. Also, I could use the flexibility of GCA's character sheets to produce many different formats of the same character (text only, etc.) This program might be be a converter which took output from NPCGen (or similar, and just translated them into GCA4 files.

The second idea, was to generate the crew of a starship at once. So the program would figure out what skills were needed (based on the size/type of ship), and then generate a group of GCA4 files that would represent a crew. The program would make sure they could run the starship, but also include some random elements as background.

Again, the two advantages of generating a GCA4 file, is that small (or even not so small) changes could be made to the character easily using GCA's great GUI, and also the character could be printed out using GCA's flexable printing system, not to mention: my players all have GCA, and they like having their character sheets in that format.

Make sense?

Joshua

[Mr_Draco]

A friend and I discussed this very same thing yesterday. About once a month or so we have the need to generate a lot of NPC's (20+) that will only be used for a couple sessions. Instead of having to sit down and hand build every single one, it would be great if GCA had a random character generator built in.

[Armin]

Originally Posted by joshualevy

Make sense?

Yes, thank you, that was very helpful.

Originally Posted by Mr_Draco

it would be great if GCA had a random character generator built in.

I have thought about this before, but it's always been way down on the "think about it" list, under lots of other stuff.

I think the least difficult approach might be to base it on character templates, which provides a direction and guidance for what to generate.

Armin

[joshualevy]

If you're thinking along those lines, then I'd try to make the random character generator a plug in (sort of like the character sheet printer is now). That way different people could experiment with, and even distribute different character generation systems, just as they now do different character sheets.

I agree with you that templates can and should form the basis of this.

Also: for me, generating one character is the easy part. It's generating a group of related characters (like a startship crew, a tank crew, a SWAT team, etc.) that is the hard part. I'm not sure how that would fit into GCA5, but you've got time to think about it.

Maybe, you could have a "group template" which would describe the skills/advantages/disadvantages/etc. of the whole group. Then you would have a button to generate the characters, which would exist as different open tabs, so you could modify them, and save them. Just thinking out loud there......

Joshua

[Mr_Draco]

Originally Posted by Armin

I have thought about this before, but it's always been way down on the "think about it" list, under lots of other stuff.

I think the least difficult approach might be to base it on character templates, which provides a direction and guidance for what to generate.

Armin

For my needs it wouldn't have to be too complicated. Something like you choose which race the character is so GCA would know which racial template to use and choose between ranger, fighter, and mage.