If you read the description for a "basic lightsaber" as per CRB, it says "This lightsaber is a basic lightsaber hilt containing an unmodded Ilum lightsaber crystal. ... This crystal occupies two of the weapon's hard points." I think the intent is that the lightsaber "has" 5 HP total, but the pre-installed crystal brings it to 3. If they just listed the lightsaber as 3, it might confuse people who wanted to mod the lightsaber in the future, or it might imply the saber had 1 HP left for other mods... I don't know, all kinds of miscommunication. That said, it makes it a challenge for systems like this one. With PnP, you can just make a little note on acquiring a lightsaber, but -- from my more or less limited coding experience -- adding those exceptions to a computer's mode of thinking and making it actually work would be pretty tricky.

Since it's my first time posting here, I also want to say a big THANK YOU to OggDude. I'm just starting a group for Force and Destiny with friends and family that are hours, sometimes even entire states apart. I was agonizing over how to get them good character sheets that are easy to update and hard to lose, and then I found your software. Not only is it accessible for sending character sheets around the country, I think the end product looks better and contains more information than an equivalent hand-filled sheet, since the talent trees and stuff can be printed alongside it. I'm really excited to use this update to translate my basic notebook version of the characters into a real sheet my players will be happy to see!

This may have been pointed out before, but the thread is so very long. When I add or purchase a basic lightsaber, it seems to have no attachments (despite it technically having an Ilum crystal, otherwise it would be a hilt) and has all of its hard points empty. Now, the simplest solution seems to be just adding the Ilum crystal and everything seems fine except for the cost. It adds the crystal's 9000 credits on top of the 9300 credits the basic lightsaber costs. Am I doing something wrong?

You're not doing anything wrong. Stock lightsabers include the crystal "built-in" and it is reflected in the cost. If you add another crystal to it, it'll add the cost of the new crystal to the base price. Think of it as being the cost of the hilt, the original crystal, and the new crystal. After all, you're not going to just throw out the original crystal if you sell it.

If you want to bulid a lightsaber from scratch, buy a hilt as the basic weapon, then add the crystal yourself. One thing which, at first glance, seems odd, is that a lightsaber and its equivalent hilt have the same number of HP. However, I'm assuming they did that so you can "replace" the crystal with another one and the HPs even out. Of course, technically, you can add more non-crystal attachments to a basic lightsaber than you can a hilt, as long as you don't replace the crystal. As a GM, I probably wouldn't allow them to use the extra HP, or just have them make one using a hilt.

Ah, I see. In that case, would it not be a little more practical if the basic lightsaber had the Ilum crystal (I believe that is the one) as an pre-attached... err... attachment which you could then either remove and put some other crystal in its stead or simply leave as is. This way, 2 of its 5 HP would be taken up from the get go as I think is the intention. Far as I can tell a basic lightsaber hilt has 5 HP with 0 of them used up, while a basic lightsaber also has 5 HP but with 2 of them used up courtesy of the crystal powering it.

Or maybe have the lightsaber hilt change its type into a lightsaber once a crystal has been installed? I know it is mostly semantics and how it looks on the character sheet, but just thought I should ask.

Currently, you can't design a basic weapon that already comes with attachments. You can do that now with vehicles, but not gear. I'll look into that later.

If you don't like seeing "Basic Lightsaber Hilt" displayed on your character sheet, just rename it (click "Rename"). You can call it "Basic Lightsaber", "My Lightsaber", or "Bob's Glowy Pig-Sticker" if you want. An Ewok in my group with a big, modded blaster pistol calls it "Chaka Boom Stick" (the character's name is Chaka)

If you read the description for a "basic lightsaber" as per CRB, it says "This lightsaber is a basic lightsaber hilt containing an unmodded Ilum lightsaber crystal. ... This crystal occupies two of the weapon's hard points." I think the intent is that the lightsaber "has" 5 HP total, but the pre-installed crystal brings it to 3. If they just listed the lightsaber as 3, it might confuse people who wanted to mod the lightsaber in the future, or it might imply the saber had 1 HP left for other mods... I don't know, all kinds of miscommunication. That said, it makes it a challenge for systems like this one. With PnP, you can just make a little note on acquiring a lightsaber, but -- from my more or less limited coding experience -- adding those exceptions to a computer's mode of thinking and making it actually work would be pretty tricky.

Since it's my first time posting here, I also want to say a big THANK YOU to OggDude. I'm just starting a group for Force and Destiny with friends and family that are hours, sometimes even entire states apart. I was agonizing over how to get them good character sheets that are easy to update and hard to lose, and then I found your software. Not only is it accessible for sending character sheets around the country, I think the end product looks better and contains more information than an equivalent hand-filled sheet, since the talent trees and stuff can be printed alongside it. I'm really excited to use this update to translate my basic notebook version of the characters into a real sheet my players will be happy to see!

Glad you're finding the software useful If I set the basic lightsaber to 3 HP, then you couldn't replace the crystal and still have HP left over. Eventually, I'll look into having stock items with built-in attachments, like I did with vehicles. Until then, keeping it 5 HP will still allow you to replace the crystal and have your extra HP as well.

I will admit I do not know the first thing about coding. I did not suggest listing a lightsaber's HP as 3. It would still be listed as 5, but as 2/5 in the Attachments screen after you have purchased it or added it in your weapons and gear. The Attachments screen starts empty at 0/5 HP and you basically add attachments and mods. What if in the case of the basic lightsaber and its "brethren" it did not start empty, but had already the Ilum crystal attachment, thus listing its HP 2/5 instead of 0/5. This way you could remove the Ilum crystal entirely, bringing it to 0/5 Hp and -9000 credits (as a basic lightsaber costs 9300 credits and a basic lightsaber hilt costs 300 credits). This way the "problem" of the 2 "surplus" HP would be solved.

In the case of the basic lightsaber hilt, it indeed begins with 0/5 HP, but adding a crystal to it and turning it into a basic lightsaber does not change its name; it remains as a basic lightsaber hilt.

Of course, I am just thinking aloud and asking if it can be done more or less, as I do not know if it is hard or how hard it is.

And I will certainly second the notion that the Generator is an awesome awesome tool. And thanks and kudos to OggDude for it.

Edit: And ninjaed by the creator himself...

Edt 2: And because I suck, I had not noticed the rename button... Sigh... Sorry about that.

More big thank-yous go out to RodianClone and Justin Chow for their donations. Thanks guys! I really appreciate the support.

Donations? You accept donations?

Good sir, I have been using your fantastic software for many months now, and I find it as good as (in many ways), or better (in some) than commercial software I paid good money for.

Where, pray tell, might I send a donation?

More big thank-yous go out to RodianClone and Justin Chow for their donations. Thanks guys! I really appreciate the support.

Donations? You accept donations?

Good sir, I have been using your fantastic software for many months now, and I find it as good as (in many ways), or better (in some) than commercial software I paid good money for.

Where, pray tell, might I send a donation?

Button at the top of the character builder. To the left of the "Options", "Print", and "Save" buttons. It's labeled "$ Donate $".

I tried this yesterday and thought my donation had gone through, however I have still gotten no confirmation from PayPal so I will have to look into this deeper once I get home this evening.

I think PayPal is kinda slow.

Deffinitely looking forward to release. The current version has so far proven its worth in the week or so I've had it. But now I have truely insane ideas for a F&D campaign and having those new features will make planning, testing and tweaking it a lot easier. My poor players and PCs will be going mental by week four... :-D

By the way, I nixed that logo. It was way too 60's groovy for me. Here's the one I'm going with:

Awww... that's a shame, I really liked the new logo, despite the 60's groovy.

By the way, I nixed that logo. It was way too 60's groovy for me. Here's the one I'm going with:

I like it. Effective and not too much.

I agree, it's a good logo.

The best logos don’t have any words in them at all. Think Nike, Pepsi, AT&T.

If you have to have a word in them, the fewer the words, the better. Think Coke, or Amazon.

Two words can still be okay. Think Pizza Hut or Star Wars.

The more words you have to include, the more it becomes a description of the product and not really a logo anymore. As you get more and more words involved, it becomes a throwback or a caricature of the way they named and described products back in the late 1800s.

All IMO, of course. YMMV.

The best logos don’t have any words in them at all. Think Nike, Pepsi, AT&T.

If you have to have a word in them, the fewer the words, the better. Think Coke, or Amazon.

Two words can still be okay. Think Pizza Hut or Star Wars.

The more words you have to include, the more it becomes a description of the product and not really a logo anymore. As you get more and more words involved, it becomes a throwback or a caricature of the way they named and described products back in the late 1800s.

All IMO, of course. YMMV.

Well... call it a splash screen then I'm still keeping the "Vader and Sabers" icon for the apps, so I guess technically, that's the logo. I just wasn't sure where to put it in the splash text. If anyone has any ideas what would be an aesthetically-pleasing way of combining them, I'm open to suggestions.

I like the logo. It tells me exactly what I am going to get.

Well... call it a splash screen then

It does make for a good splash screen, indeed.

I'm still keeping the "Vader and Sabers" icon for the apps, so I guess technically, that's the logo.

Agreed.

I just wasn't sure where to put it in the splash text. If anyone has any ideas what would be an aesthetically-pleasing way of combining them, I'm open to suggestions.

Now that I have a sense of what you would like to do, I’ll take another look.

When will this update launch? Can't wait. Appreciate all the hard work.

I keep finding things that need changing Last night, for instance, I realized that I hadn't set default or cancel buttons in any of the forms. Default buttons are the ones that are "clicked" when you hit enter, while cancel buttons are "clicked" when you hit Escape. So... about 50 forms later, and after enhancing my image button to accept default button images (the green button will now have an enhancement when it is set as the default), they now all do.

I'm doing another test pass, and if I can manage not to screw around with stuff for a day, I'll release it.

I keep finding things that need changing Last night, for instance, I realized that I hadn't set default or cancel buttons in any of the forms. Default buttons are the ones that are "clicked" when you hit enter, while cancel buttons are "clicked" when you hit Escape. So... about 50 forms later, and after enhancing my image button to accept default button images (the green button will now have an enhancement when it is set as the default), they now all do.

I'm doing another test pass, and if I can manage not to screw around with stuff for a day, I'll release it.

Thank you for all of your hard work in making the program, but especially for fixing that! It was bugging the hell outta me that I couldn't hit Enter to complete a form.

Has anyone used a shared cloud service to host the character/game files for an entire player / GM group?

Actually, CAN the game data files be hosted on a cloud service for multiple people to use?

Also I wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to the one-page character sheet! The regular sheet is neat and all, but it's got critical data spread out over so many pages that I find it rather unwieldy.

Has anyone used a shared cloud service to host the character/game files for an entire player / GM group?

Actually, CAN the game data files be hosted on a cloud service for multiple people to use?

It looks like the character files are stored on Windows at Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\SWCharGen\Characters. So you could presumably download the xml file and place it in that directory. I don't know if the filename is important, though.

I use Google Drive.

For setup, I have to install the Doogle Drive sync application, but I'm ok with that. I don't know how the other services work.

With the sycn'ed folder, I can run OggDude's program from any of the 7 computers I normally use and any changes I make on one show up on the other without even thinking about it.

Regardless of the service you use, once you've gotten your shared folder configured, simply launch OggDude's launcher, click "More Options", then click "Data Path" and point to your shared folder. Viola, done. Do that for each install, and everything is now linked.

It looks like the character files are stored on Windows at Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\SWCharGen\Characters. So you could presumably download the xml file and place it in that directory. I don't know if the filename is important, though.

Yes, although it's easier to use the environment variables. You will find the SWCharGen folder at:

%APPDATA%

The filenames are very important, and yes, they can be copied around if you want to do it maually. Just copy the entire SWCharGen folder.

ACK!

Copy.com says,