So as I've been fiddling around with different concepts, I kept cross-referencing the different species and trying to figure out what species would work with a given set of characteristics so I could find one that worked with the desired character. The giant GM database was a great help as it allowed me to look down the line and figure out what worked faster than comparing it from the books, and Oggdude's generator was great for testing out the final bits, but it still wasn't quick. So I decided to fix up my own tool! I would love any suggestions on streamlining this sheet as my Excel-fu is not exactly strong, but this helped me and I figured someone else might make use of it. It is a pretty basic layout, just featuring the species data and a few equations to calculate the XP needed to bring the base species into the desired shape (with allowing a potential +10 to XP for Obligation/Duty)

For example, maybe I want a Heavy who can craft his own weapons. I might focus on Brawn, Agility, and Intellect with those characteristics having at least a 3. Any species would work for that excepting Toydarian, Quarren, Ithorian, Falleen, and Chagrian. If I want him to be a little better, I can pick any one of those to have a 4, but I can't get any of them to 5 or pick up a second 4. If we drop Brawn down to a 2 because we have Burly, then we can try some new options. We can get a 5 in either Agility or Intellect if we take Verpine or Shistavanen, or we can pick up both as 4s if we take those species or Chadra-Fan, Chiss, Elomin, Ishi Tib, Klatooinian, Mirialan, Mon Calamari, Rodian, or Sullustan. Figuring that out took a minute with the spreadsheet, but would have taken much longer if i was just using the standard resources.

Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-EVQ4ya10YVD-ryobe1wUQsKk0raPoJ0spn7mRQgDIs/edit?usp=sharing

Yeah, so I can't look at this. I'm not sure if the forum here is happy with .xlsx attachements.

Do you have a dropbox or google file you can share?

Just now, Genuine said:

Yeah, so I can't look at this. I'm not sure if the forum here is happy with .xlsx attachements.

Do you have a dropbox or google file you can share?

Same Problem.

Does this work: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7DmDpqF8vxiZnQ1akVxaUI5VlE/view?usp=sharing ?

Thanks Rick, for putting in the time and effort. I can download the file (from your second link), but all the "interesting" formulae come back as "#value" errors.

If you put numbers into cells B2-G2 so there are desired values they shouldn't come back as #value entries.

For personal preference I'd suggest for those species with more than one line of Abilities you should either just let it wrap in column M, or use Alt-Enter (if Excel) to add a line break. This would then mean you could have one line per race, and see it all when filtering for Possible. I'd also highlight A4 to AB88 and apply an AutoFilter.

There is also a bug, which is your calculations in columns O to T are manual, and when the desired attributes are high can end up being False and not being summed, giving inaccurate results.

To get around this, you can use the fact that the sum from 1 to N of a string of numbers is N(N+1)/2. This means you can replace those complex if statements with MAX(0,5*B$2*(B$2+1)-5*(B5*(B5+1))) which should both always work and not generate False.

4 hours ago, Darzil said:

If you put numbers into cells B2-G2 so there are desired values they shouldn't come back as #value entries.

For personal preference I'd suggest for those species with more than one line of Abilities you should either just let it wrap in column M, or use Alt-Enter (if Excel) to add a line break. This would then mean you could have one line per race, and see it all when filtering for Possible. I'd also highlight A4 to AB88 and apply an AutoFilter.

There is also a bug, which is your calculations in columns O to T are manual, and when the desired attributes are high can end up being False and not being summed, giving inaccurate results.

To get around this, you can use the fact that the sum from 1 to N of a string of numbers is N(N+1)/2. This means you can replace those complex if statements with MAX(0,5*B$2*(B$2+1)-5*(B5*(B5+1))) which should both always work and not generate False.

The use of two lines for certain species may have been a holdover from copy+pasting the values from the GM database. I give credit for the organization to that creator. I am very lazy, and that saved me so much work.

I actually noticed the error after I uploaded the original document and forgot to update it. It was still a manual calculation, though, so I went ahead and used your solution. Much more elegant.

I went ahead and updated the link in the OP with those suggestions.