Draft GDF of Low Tech armor sets underway

[Bruno]

EDIT May 31, 2011:
The combined Low Tech file, including armor, weapons, and misc:
http://www.motoslave.net/gcarepo/view.php?pkgid=94

My Big List of Armor file is up here:
http://www.motoslave.net/gcarepo/view.php?pkgid=74
Eric's Smart Location-Generating Armor File is up here:
http://www.motoslave.net/gcarepo/view.php?pkgid=75



I've written a little perl script and some feeder files to generate armor according to the tables in Low Tech.

They currently do not get colorful location-specific names (no haubergons, no pauldrons) nor respect the guidelines about what locations would be plausibly covered by which type of material.

Instead, it generates one item per combination of hit location (from p 102) and material (from pp 111-112). This means that there is a separate item listed for Arms and for shoulders and for upper arms and for elbows and for lower arms. A veritable wealth of procedurally generated options and I TOTALLY understand why SJG didn't print these in the book. Ye frickin gods. 646 individual items of equipment, not counting the helmet variations and whatnot.


So yes, you too can have "Cane (Groin)" or "Mail, Fine (Elbows)". I am open to suggestions on better ways to name these, but I don't think there's much we can do before we start splitting away from the tables.

They are being put into groups to help people filter through the crapton of options.


EDIT: Aaaaand I meant to post this in the GCA forum. Um. Yeah.

So next time a mod comes by, this can probably be relocated. :/

[Woodman]

I havent really looked into it yet, but wouldnt it be easier to implemnt this in GCA the way it was published, as raw materials and a set of modifiers to account for hitlocations and other stuff?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Woodman

I havent really looked into it yet, but wouldnt it be easier to implemnt this in GCA the way it was published, as raw materials and a set of modifiers to account for hitlocations and other stuff?

You start having to manually rename every item to avoid duplication (and a rather confusing equipment list!)

As far as I know, also, the field that tells GCA which hit location your armor is for doesn't take modifiers at the moment, and the entire armor/DR/hitlocation system is being rewritten so I don't expect a minor patch for that before that major patch.

Long story short - this is a field-expedient solution.

[Woodman]

To bad, seemed like a nice and elegant solution, the renaming Problem could be circumvented with the _new_item approach, that also lets one fill the location field via a dialog. But it seems like we have to wait for Armin to implement some changes before Low Tech armor will work nicely.

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Ye frickin gods. 646 individual items of equipment, not counting the helmet variations and whatnot.

I'm curious, does that include Front and Back versions of all of the pieces? I'm working on my own variation, and still need to implement Front/Back, which will drastically increase the number of variations (Front Right Upper Arm anyone?).

Originally Posted by Woodman

To bad, seemed like a nice and elegant solution, the renaming Problem could be circumvented with the _new_item approach, that also lets one fill the location field via a dialog. But it seems like we have to wait for Armin to implement some changes before Low Tech armor will work nicely.

I've actually been toying with an approach like that, where you'd fill in check-boxes to select which locations are covered. No modifiers necessary, all the information will be filled in by a #ChoiceList(), just like the _New Items. I've got it working, I think, but need to do a little more testing and then take my "generic" armor I've been testing with and make copies of it for each of the armor types presented in Low-Tech. The only thing that GCA can't currently do is handle all the hit locations; currently hit locations are hard-coded into GCA, so there's no way to add more hit locations for armor coverage (such as Shins or Upper Arms)

Still, a complete list isn't necessarily a bad approach either. The final version of the data file may have both, provided Bruno keeps going with the individual pieces.

[Bruno]

Heck, GCA doesn't handle "front" or "back" very gracefully at the moment either.

And no, I hadn't thought of the Front/Back because it wasn't on the two big tables :D

I can modify my little perl script to spit those out too, though. A whopping 1938 different versions of ... stuff... if we do that. Since it's not on the two big tables, it might be an idea to make it a modifier? I don't mind spitting it out, I'm just wondering about information overload for folks.

I've got the shields and helmets by the way - the shields is just a straight dump of the table into GCA format with some notes, the helmets are, again, procedurally generated so you can totally have a plate coif or a straw greathelm if your GM doesn't care.

Cloth, Padded incidentally corresponds neatly to that padding mentioned in all the helmet entries, for folks who want padding.

It's up on the Repository, current version does NOT include Front/Back variations:
http://www.motoslave.net/gcarepo/view.php?pkgid=74

[Bruno]

Updated the first page of the thread with links to Eric's GDF and both of my GDFs.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Updated the first page of the thread with links to Eric's GDF and both of my GDFs.

Thank you for doing this, Bruno.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Thank you for doing this, Bruno.

I thought I'd replied to this earlier, but it looks like I never hit send. Oops!

My motives are not all altruistic - I'm writing them up for myself and my gaming group :)

But if I'm already doing the work, I don't see why someone else should have to do it over again, so you are all very welcome to benefit from my own selfishness ;)

Speaking of which, I've started on the armor quality modifiers too.

Eric, where's the latest version of your file? The only one I can find, on the Repository, doesn't have the helmets.

[demonsbane]

Originally Posted by Bruno

My motives are not all altruistic - I'm writing them up for myself and my gaming group :)

Then this may be a more accurate phrase:

...Thank you Bruno for sharing this ;)