Draft GDF of Low Tech armor sets underway

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Which is why we decided not to do this in Low-Tech. We would have had to cut a lot of other stuff to make room for armour tables.

Never mind you'd put the audience to sleep after the first 20 pages :D

("... good lord is this ALL wickerwork?" "No, the leather starts in the next chapter.")

One of the luxuries of a database system, really. :D

EDIT: A little back of the envelope math here: 36 entries took up about a page (two half pages). That'd be about 54 pages, without touching on the fluted, splinted, banded, etc little variations, or even the helmets.

[sjard]

Moved to GCA subforum.

[panton41]

I'm sure it's early to ask, and apparently there is going to be a patch to GCA itself before even a semi-official Low-Tech data-file, but which one of these is best to use if I want to future-proof a new character or are both of these very interim until a final version can be made?

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

I'm sure it's early to ask, and apparently there is going to be a patch to GCA itself before even a semi-official Low-Tech data-file,

That's not necessarily true. GCA handles most things well enough that creating a Low-Tech file shouldn't be a problem, except for real life getting into the way of us actually writing the file.

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

but which one of these is best to use if I want to future-proof a new character or are both of these very interim until a final version can be made?

Both files are interim, but both are fine to use. My file contains 33 armor items that use menus for you to select which hit locations are covered. Bruno's file contains a couple thousand pieces of equipment, one for each combination of armor and hit location. Theoretically you should get the same, or at least very similar, results using either file (certainly, the few I've tested had the same results).

My file should be able to produce most every piece of equipment that Bruno's has through the use of it's selection menus. Basically, her file pre-generates all the possible pieces of equipment for you while mine relies on you building them as you add them to the character. My file has the slight advantage that it easily groups all hit location pieces into one piece of equipment. Note however that my file doesn't include Helmets or Shields, where as Bruno's file has them pre-generated.


Oh, a note for Bruno - I am leaning towards using split DR where appropriate to list the DR rather than using a note to convey the reduced DR vs. some attack types. This is to keep both the look and functionality similar to all previous GURPS books, especially since the equipment tables in all the print sheets don't currently print the full armor notes by default (and the DR block won't print any notes about it at all).

[Bruno]

I would personally suggest having both options available, but making something like Eric's the "default" Low Tech file.

Mine is, I suspect, more useful as a resource for GMs generating a specific equipment list for their campaign setting than it is for a "buy whatever you can afford that's at your TL or lower" type of game (such as most dungeon fantasy games!) - For a DF game, loading the entire list at once might be a bit of a memory-usage hit.

For a european game of the appropriate era, you might copy and paste the Plate, Medium (Shoulders) item and rename it "Field Plate Pauldrons", copy the Segmented Plate, Light (Abdomen) and rename it "Field Plate Fauld", etc. For a Japanese game for the 12th century you'd want different armor pieces and very different names, and so on.

The other purpose I see for my gigantic file of bits is for the kind of person that just plain visualizes information in a gigantic list easier ;)

But honestly my file was put together as a field-expedient brute-force solution that was easy to throw together quickly because I could see how to make the brute perl script easier than I could think up a nice solution for GCA.

I think Eric's solution is far more elegant.


By the way Eric, feel free to steal the shields whole-cloth for your file - I suspect you want to generate the helmets dynamically like you do the armor, but if you want to steal the helmets entirely or selectively, feel free as well :D (Far be it from me to comment on the validity of wicker greathelms).

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Bruno

By the way Eric, feel free to steal the shields whole-cloth for your file - I suspect you want to generate the helmets dynamically like you do the armor, but if you want to steal the helmets entirely or selectively, feel free as well :D (Far be it from me to comment on the validity of wicker greathelms).

Thanks, I probably will be adding your shields into my file when I get a chance to play around with it a bit more. As for the helmets, you're right, I think I am going to make a new set of dynamic armor specifically for the Helmets to cover some of the unique options the helmets have.

As for what to do with the big honking list, I think it may eventually stay as an optional secondary file to Low-Tech. I do see certain advantages to having the big grocery list, though as you say the memory hit will be somewhat big for anyone running a marginal machine these days (I do tend to forget that some people don't have a couple Gigs of RAM these days).

[Bruno]

My desktop machine may be a behemoth, but I use a netbook at the table and when I'm traveling or just tired of my office and want to go sit on the couch. A very cheap netbook that I got on clearance ;)

It technically has RAM.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Bruno

My desktop machine may be a behemoth, but I use a netbook at the table and when I'm traveling or just tired of my office and want to go sit on the couch. A very cheap netbook that I got on clearance ;)

It technically has RAM.

Heck, my netbook has 2GB of RAM, it's the dinky Intel Atom that chokes on GCA. I seriously think GCA needs a rewrite into a more modern language that runs faster. VB6 is downright slow compared to VB.NET. (Mind you, I'm aware that would probably break Wine compatibility for Linux and Mac, but it's worth it.)

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

Heck, my netbook has 2GB of RAM, it's the dinky Intel Atom that chokes on GCA. I seriously think GCA needs a rewrite into a more modern language that runs faster. VB6 is downright slow compared to VB.NET. (Mind you, I'm aware that would probably break Wine compatibility for Linux and Mac, but it's worth it.)

And even VB.NET isn't the fastest horse in the stable.

Personally, I would go for a cross platform alternative, meaning either Java, or Python/Perl/Ruby with the required interpreter bundled in.

[hal]

Having looked at the stop-gap low tech file, first, I'd like to say "thanks", as I will be using this for my Harn campaign.

Secondly...

Why not treat any armor location for the sub-categories of arms/legs as being armor for the arms/legs locations - but put in the notes section: "Protects the leg on a 5 or 6 on d6" etc?

Just a thought.