Another Character Generator

By OggDude, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

I would love to see a way to lock/unlock a character from being viewed by others. Perhaps in the Description tab of the character there could be a lock/unlock button that when pressed asked the user to input a password. If you tried to view a character that was locked it would ask you for the password or have you cancel out. If you entered the right password it would let you view it and make changes. This would allow me to make characters but all my players would be able to see was their name without the password.

How would you store the password on the server folder without making it potentially visible to the players? If you didn’t store it on the server folder, how would the system know that you’ve typed in the right password?

I would love to see a way to lock/unlock a character from being viewed by others. Perhaps in the Description tab of the character there could be a lock/unlock button that when pressed asked the user to input a password. If you tried to view a character that was locked it would ask you for the password or have you cancel out. If you entered the right password it would let you view it and make changes. This would allow me to make characters but all my players would be able to see was their name without the password.

How would you store the password on the server folder without making it potentially visible to the players? If you didn’t store it on the server folder, how would the system know that you’ve typed in the right password?

Ideally you would store it as a one-way encryption. Though, password recovery sounds like it could be tricky.

How would you store the password on the server folder without making it potentially visible to the players? If you didn’t store it on the server folder, how would the system know that you’ve typed in the right password?

[geeky-tangent]

You don't - you use PBKDF2/bcrypt/scrypt to generate encryption/decryption keys on the fly from a password. There are all sorts of complications around this if you want to do it in a secure way (you can read about some of them here: http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/38828/how-can-i-securely-convert-a-string-password-to-a-key-used-in-aes), but seeing as breaking this encryption is going to have minimal impact (i.e.: money and lives aren't at stake), you could go with a relatively simple solution. However, it should be noted that once you go down this path there is a risk - if you ever lose or forget the password, then the files will be unrecoverable (at least in theory).

[/geeky-tangent]

Edited by gribble

Couldn't you just do this by using to different Instances of the program? Run from 2 different locations... 1 is linked to the Drop box... and the other is your NPC program.

If you want the PCs in the program... export them from the other and import them into the NPC program.

Simple no muss no fuss.

Total Security 360 is convinced there is a trojan in the zip from your latest character generator.

Just thought you might care. Supposedly contains this:

" HEUR/QVM03.0.Malware.Gen "

wanted to send you a PM but somehow I can't do that because you can't receive new messages at the moment. :(

Edited by derroehre

Another feature request: Allow vehicles to be sorted in the same fashion as gear.

It seems a few anti-virus programs erroneously finds this virus in a number of different products. I did check my system for it, and it's nowhere to be found :) I also use the same executables for running the apps that are in the ZIP and web install, and nothing's gone bad for me yet.

In general, if a virus is "detected" by heuristic means, it doesn't mean that it necessarily found a virus. It means that it thinks that the program does something that it thinks a virus might do. Depending on the heuristic approach used, it might think all sorts of things are viruses.

I thought I'd explain a bit about the new localization features of the upcoming release, and maybe get some opinions about a couple of things. As a warning, this is a rather long post :)


First, about localization: The next release will support language translation into your local culture. All text from all forms and controls, plus text generated by code, will be translated based upon the selected culture. The way it works is that the apps will install with a "Languages" directory that will contain XML files with all the supported translations. They'll be named so that you can tell what culture the file is for. The default "English (United States)" culture (Locale ID [LCID] 1033) will be called "Lang-en-US.xml", for instance.


You'll be able to select a culture from the Launcher. You'll have the option of selecting a specific culture (from the available Lang* files), or selecting the best match for the current Windows culture setting. For best match, it'll try to explicitly match a translation file for your LCID. If one does not exist, it'll try to match just the language code. Again, if no language code is found that matches, it'll default to US English.


You'll have the ability to add new cultures, or to modify the phrase translation of existing cultures. All changes and additions will be saved to your data directory under the "Languages" directory. Modified language files will be used by default, rather than the base files included with the install. To support future changes that include additional translations, each user file will be back-filled with missing translations from the base.


There will be an import/export feature so you can share translations with others. Also, I will include completed (or mostly completed) language files that I receive from others with upcoming releases. The more, the better! More than likely, there's going to be close to 2000 phrases that will need translating, so it'll be a bit of work.


As for data: as you know, there's already a mechanism in place for modifying data, including custom items and descriptions. The way it works now is that all changes to data is global. That is, data changes have no concept of a language or culture. It will be WAY too onerous for me to maintain data in different languages (it's difficult just doing it for English!), so, again, translations for items will need to come from the community.


That still leaves the question about how to maintain data to support multiple languages and cultures. This is where I need some advice :) . My current thought is to do this through Data Sets. What I could do is special-case data sets that conform to the language name of a translation. For instance, if you added a data set called "Lang-es-MX" for Mexican Spanish, it would only be added to the data if your selected culture was "es-MX". I could also include it if no other data set is available for Spanish. It would not be included if your language was set to English or French, or whatever.


Rather than modifying the included data, I could include language-specific data sets with the install, much the way I currently support Imports for adventures and the like. Of course, someone would have to do the changes :)


I could also expand a bit on "DescOnly" data items to include the name, as well as the descriptions. Standard item descriptors, including descriptors for skills, talents, and characteristics, will be included with the translation files under "ItemDescriptors", so you don't have to worry about those. Misc descriptors, however, wouldn't be able to be translated unless you made the item "CustItem", which, normally, isn't a problem, as data rarely changes. In fact, the only time it does change is if someone points out an error in something. In this case, I always include data changes at the top of my release notes, so it would make it easy to modify a custom item and release a new version of the data set.


Also, I'm not sure exactly what language features people might want. For instance, is it important to rename weapons, or gear, or whatever? What do users not mind seeing in English, if anything? Do French or German users still call a blaster a blaster? :)


Anyway... this is how it stands so far. Any suggestions, insights, questions, or comments are welcome :)

I'm enjoying the program, it's helping me learn the system and create characters fairly easily. Out of curiosity is there an section or area that folks have uploaded characters, minions, adversaries or any others that we can download from?

Total Security 360 is convinced there is a trojan in the zip from your latest character generator.

Just thought you might care. Supposedly contains this:

" HEUR/QVM03.0.Malware.Gen "

wanted to send you a PM but somehow I can't do that because you can't receive new messages at the moment. :(

I used to use Nortons Total security 360.

I was having way to much trouble with it as it Requires and uses up so much resources and it was claiming viruses and trojans all the time where there were none..

I no longer use Nortons Total 360 computer take over. (this from some one who relied on Nortons for over 10 years.

Also, I'm not sure exactly what language features people might want. For instance, is it important to rename weapons, or gear, or whatever? What do users not mind seeing in English, if anything? Do French or German users still call a blaster a blaster? :)
Anyway... this is how it stands so far. Any suggestions, insights, questions, or comments are welcome :)

In German a Blaster is called still a Blaster :D , but the Heavy Battle Armor is in German 'Schwere Gefechtsrüstung'. In the German Rulebook almost all Gear is translated.

Some of my Players don't understand English beside some basics and they want especially the Modifications translated, so they know what an Attachment does.

I think included language-specific data sets would be the best and we can do the changes for you. I will be doing the changes anyway for german for my players.

There is one problem. We here in Germany have to wait a long time to get all FFG Star Wars Books.

Released so far are only:

EotE Beginner Game, Core Rulebook, Game Master Screen, Beyond the Rim, Enter the Unknown, and Sons of Fortune should be released this month.

AoR Beginner Game

There is one problem. We here in Germany have to wait a long time to get all FFG Star Wars Books.

Released so far are only:

EotE Beginner Game, Core Rulebook, Game Master Screen, Beyond the Rim, Enter the Unknown, and Sons of Fortune should be released this month.

AoR Beginner Game

If you want the English language versions of the books, that’s a problem that is easy enough to fix, so long as you can either order directly from Amazon or one of the other online companies, or you’ve got a friend who can order from them and ship to you. Presumably money would have to change hands, and someone would have to pay for shipping and customs. But solving the technical problems of getting the books to you is do-able.

Getting the German language version of the books, that is much tougher. I’m not sure that anyone over here can help you with that.

Oggdude,

Any comment on the size of the text in talent trees? When I go to print my character sheets they all run off the bottom of the page. Some trees have entire rows cut off. I didn't modify any of the text, they all fit previously. I do have the book descriptions entered in through the data editor. They all fit before with the descriptions. They do not fit now.

Edited by rowdyoctopus

Total Security 360 is convinced there is a trojan in the zip from your latest character generator.

Just thought you might care. Supposedly contains this:

" HEUR/QVM03.0.Malware.Gen "

wanted to send you a PM but somehow I can't do that because you can't receive new messages at the moment. :(

I used to use Nortons Total security 360.

I was having way to much trouble with it as it Requires and uses up so much resources and it was claiming viruses and trojans all the time where there were none..

I no longer use Nortons Total 360 computer take over. (this from some one who relied on Nortons for over 10 years.

I used to work for Symantec and no longer use it. Too many false positives and not enough successful preventions.

Anyone having issues with it not remembering what career skills were checked?

Anyone having issues with it not remembering what career skills were checked?

What do you mean?

Well I started a campaign recently...and when I go back in after we've updated things I click on the career tab and all the checks have been removed. I've made sure to save updates but it seems to happen on each character.

Asking again about getting the career skill from Homesteads to stick. I've gimmicked it with GM Grants, but I'd like to get it working for real.

Well I started a campaign recently...and when I go back in after we've updated things I click on the career tab and all the checks have been removed. I've made sure to save updates but it seems to happen on each character.

I had that happen, too, but only with one character of my players. Not sure if it was something I did - I only keep copies of the characters to manage the group. I certainly did not change Specialisations or something like that.

Generally, this thread should really be stickied.

There is one problem. We here in Germany have to wait a long time to get all FFG Star Wars Books.

Released so far are only:

EotE Beginner Game, Core Rulebook, Game Master Screen, Beyond the Rim, Enter the Unknown, and Sons of Fortune should be released this month.

AoR Beginner Game

If you want the English language versions of the books, that’s a problem that is easy enough to fix, so long as you can either order directly from Amazon or one of the other online companies, or you’ve got a friend who can order from them and ship to you. Presumably money would have to change hands, and someone would have to pay for shipping and customs. But solving the technical problems of getting the books to you is do-able.

Getting the German language version of the books, that is much tougher. I’m not sure that anyone over here can help you with that.

Well, getting the english versions of the books isn't a problem. We can order them from the german publisher or amazon (or any distributer).

But the translations are kind of homemade so that the real wording is different. E.g. people are translating the Skill Trees and trying to catch the right words. In the official german book (released long time after) the names are completely different.

So language sets (in german at least) are not that accurate and need to be reworked

Another feature request: Allow vehicles to be sorted in the same fashion as gear.

You pretty much can when you're creating a new vehicle.

Oggdude,

Any comment on the size of the text in talent trees? When I go to print my character sheets they all run off the bottom of the page. Some trees have entire rows cut off. I didn't modify any of the text, they all fit previously. I do have the book descriptions entered in through the data editor. They all fit before with the descriptions. They do not fit now.

I actually increased the ratio so they'd take up more space on the printed talent trees :) I'll put them back to the way they were.

Asking again about getting the career skill from Homesteads to stick. I've gimmicked it with GM Grants, but I'd like to get it working for real.

It was a bug. I fixed it.

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but the talent trees don't fit on one page when you print the character sheets. (At least not when printing to pdf)

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but the talent trees don't fit on one page when you print the character sheets. (At least not when printing to pdf)

Which background option are you using?

I've got a datafile that's shared with my personal gaming groups with the full talent descriptions*, and for any trees with talents that have a lengthy text entry it overflows if I use the full background option (colors and datapad framing). Switch to the color option (i.e. no datapad framing) and it should fit on a single page.

*and before anyone asks, I will not be sharing said datafile.