Radical changes to my Excel Character Sheet

[coronatiger]

Hi forumites!

One user of my Excel Character Sheet (links in signature) suggested I combined the Equipment and Containers tables into one, and I'm likely to do that in the next major release. There really isn't that much that separates a thing (in general) from a thing that one can put other things inside. An oil lamp, for example, isn't generally considered a "container", even though it has oil inside, and it might be convenient to have the lamp next to the torches in your inventory list. As it is, if you want to keep track of the oil in your lamp, you have to list the oil as equipment, and the lamp as a container. This puts the two in different sheets, which can be inconvenient.

The way I'm going to solve this, is to add a few columns to the Containers table, and then delete the Equipment table. This change will take some work on my part to implement, but it isn't anything I'd normally ask about before doing.

However, the suggestion got me thinking. It's perfectly possible to have a sword with a hollow hilt where you can hide small items. It's quite common to adorn armor with stuff, both decorative and useful things. So, why not add weapon and armor stats to the new, gigantic, equipment table? Then you can have all your things in one place, and you can combine any of them, using the contained-in mechanic that is currently only available to the things you have in the Containers table.

This will be a major change to the user experience, and I don't know if it's actually for the better. Yes, you'd have all your stuff in one table, but the table would have so many columns, you'd have to scroll left/right to find the ones you want. (I think, from left to right, the columns would be: General equipment columns, container columns, weapon stats, armor stats.)

So, dear Character Sheet users (and others with valuable opinions), should I:

1. Keep things as they are
2. Combine Equipment and Containers as originally suggested
3. Combine everything

Or do you have a better idea for how I should structure the "stuff" parts of the Character Sheet?

[Hide]

Hey there, I will take a look and if I have suggestions for you I will deliver them via PM. Great job there!

[Celjabba]

I agree that combining Equipment and Containers would be nice.

For Weapons/Ammo/Armor stats, I think you should keep the 3 separates tables.

1. Easier and faster to lookup in game
2. You can have 'natural' weapons/armor/ammo that are not gear (starting with Punch/kick)
3. You can have the same piece of gear filling several line as Weapons/Ammo/Armor

That said, moving the relevant weight/cost/... columns of Weapons/Ammo/Armor tables to the expanded equipment sheet would make sense. (but keep/link quantity visible and editable on the ammo sheet)

Weapons/Ammo/Armor items would have to be (partially) stated twice :
as gear/container, as Weapons/Ammo/Armor.

It may be possible to automate this, perhaps with 3 toggle "is armor" "is weapon" "is ammo" on the gear/container table that auto-create the entries on the respective tables ?
I am not sure if it is possible without running a macro, however.
Or even desirable given (2) and (3) above.

[Hide]

The files in your cloud drive are the "legacy" version, right?

Do you have an Excel layout of the new format? For example a spreadsheet with Mattea's data, presented as you expect the proposal would turn-out.

[coronatiger]

Originally Posted by Hide

The files in your cloud drive are the "legacy" version, right?

Do you have an Excel layout of the new format? For example a spreadsheet with Mattea's data, presented as you expect the proposal would turn-out.

I haven't started work on the proposed changes yet. It's going to take a lot of work, so I thought I should ask for opinions before I wasted my time doing something that might not be well received. If you want, I can make a mockup. It won't be functional, as I won't create / update the formulas required for the full version, but at least you'll be able to see how big the combined table would be.

[coronatiger]

Just to be clear, if I decide not to include Weapons and/or Armor in the new, combined table, it will still be possible to have weapons and armor that work as containers. To a certain degree, this is possible in the current version of the Character Sheet as well, but there are some kinks to work out. I'll describe in the user manual how to use this work-around, if necessary.

[Hide]

Originally Posted by coronatiger

I haven't started work on the proposed changes yet. It's going to take a lot of work, so I thought I should ask for opinions before I wasted my time doing something that might not be well received. If you want, I can make a mockup. It won't be functional, as I won't create / update the formulas required for the full version, but at least you'll be able to see how big the combined table would be.

Yes, a mockup would be nice!

[coronatiger]

The mockup is created and uploaded to the Google Drive folder.

My first impression after seeing it was that the table was too big. I knew it was going to be large, but this was something else. Still, if a majority of users disagrees with me and wants it this way, I'll (most likely) make it.

[coronatiger]

I had a chat with some members of my regular game groups, and this is what we concluded:

• The weapons and armor tables are seldom used, except when buying/upgrading weapons/armor. Therefore, it doesn't matter that you have to scroll far to the right to get to their columns in a combined table. (We found that in most cases when you need to look up data, you check the Current Status sheet, not Weapons or Armor.)
• In the combined sheet, the first column (name of equipment) should be frozen, so it remains visible when you scroll right.
• Weapons sheet will be removed, and its contents (Weapons and Ammunition tables) will be moved to the combined sheet.
• Armor sheet will be removed. Armor stats will be part of the combined table. The Body Parts table may be moved to Current Status, most likely below the Power Items table. I will keep the Body Part / Armor lookup that is already in the Current Status sheet. If I choose not to move the Body Parts table, I'm renaming the Armor sheet instead of removing it.
• Equipment sheet will be removed, and its contents moved to the combined sheet.
• Containers sheet will be renamed.
• There was also a request to change the default concerning autocalculating armor weight based on which body parts are covered. (Currently, if you don't write anything in the Autocalculate column, No is assumed, and the weight of the armor piece is what you entered in the Weight Base column; if you write Yes, the calculated weight depends on which body parts are covered.) I don't think I'm going to change the formula, but I will instead enter Yes in the Autocalculate column (instead of leaving it empty). This can of course be overwritten by users.

If any users strongly disagree with the changes proposed above, please respond. If I find the time for it this weekend, I'll begin working on the Character Sheet.

[Hide]

I just checked the mockup, taking into account your recent post, it is good! Looking forward to see the upgraded version of your ECS.