Campaigns with Divergent Tech Levels

[Phil Masters]

I'm currently trying to design some characters for a setting on a divergent tech path. The trouble is, every time I try to enter "5+2" into a Tech Level box, it changes to simply "5".

I don't suppose that it's possible to persuade the program to accept non-numeric values here, is it?

[ericbsmith]

Unfortunately there isn't a good way to track Divergent Tech Levels in GCA.

The Phoenix character sheet provides a handy note field to add a notation next to the TL, so you could add the divergent TL as a note there.

For skills you can edit them and change the TL; If you use ctrl+click you can select multiple skills, go to the Edit then Full Edit window. Here you can easily Copy & Paste the desired TL into all of the skills then OK your way out of it.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

The Phoenix character sheet provides a handy note field to add a notation next to the TL, so you could add the divergent TL as a note there.

Okay, I looked, but I can't seem to find this. Sorry - how do I get at it?

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Okay, I looked, but I can't seem to find this. Sorry - how do I get at it?

At what, the Phoenix Character Sheet or the specific option?

To get Phoenix go to http://www.motoslave.net/thom/gca/phoenix/

To print the note using Phoenix you will need to add a User Note to Tech Level. If you are using Phoenix in the Quick View tab there will be a field right next to the TL where you can enter the User Note. If not, go to the Attributes Tab, select Tech Level, click Edit. In the Simple Edit window there is a User Notes field where you can enter a value such as +3. When you print with Phoenix that note will sit right next to the TL on the sheet.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

At what, the Phoenix Character Sheet or the specific option?

It was the latter, and yes, that works fine - many thanks.

(Well, for some reason Phoenix precedes the note with a bracket "{", but I can live with that.)

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

(Well, for some reason Phoenix precedes the note with a bracket "{", but I can live with that.)

Yeah, I'm not sure why that curly bracket is there. I'd forgotten I'd edited it out of my copy of Phoenix. If you open Phoenix.gcs in a text editor (notepad, notepad++, etc) it's actually a pretty simple edit. On line 5086 you will find the following code:

PrintAtRight "{", TLNoteLeft - (spacePad / 1.5)

Just change it to this:

PrintAtRight " ", TLNoteLeft - (spacePad / 1.5)

[Phil Masters]

Right, thanks for that - it worked.

[tmedwards]

It's meant to both separate and yet show the association of the extended TL info on the right with the base GCA-compatible TL shown on the left. When you're not doing something simple like "5+2", then not having a separator looks odd—especially, when the extended info is long enough to require Phoenix to scale the font size down to make it fit.

For example: (from one of my own characters)

9 { Medicine TL10; ^ Monoblades, Fast-growth clones

General TL9, Medicine at TL10, with super-science-y monomolecular blades and fast growth clones. The extended info actually renders in a smaller font and over two lines, relative to the general TL (e.g. techlevel-extended.png).

At the time that I chose the opening curly brace, sheets were, essentially, limited to US-ASCII, so I used what I had available within that limited selection. Sheets can now be, and Phoenix is, written in UTF-8, so I suppose that I could choose something else—or just draw something, a shallow chevron perhaps.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by tmedwards

At the time that I chose the opening curly brace, sheets were, essentially, limited to US-ASCII, so I used what I had available within that limited selection. Sheets can now be, and Phoenix is, written in UTF-8, so I suppose that I could choose something else—or just draw something, a shallow chevron perhaps.

Honestly I think it looks fine with nothing - the color & borders are sufficient. I never really noticed it until I went to put a TL note in a while back, at which point I decided I didn't like it so did a quick edit to Phoenix.