This topic aims to put all lacking things for TWR to be perfect in one place.
This list will be used to create a backward-compatible 3.0 format.

• Multi language support
  possibility to define all string fields for multiple languages like:
  

    <name>  <tr lang='en'>Troll</tr>  <tr lang='fr'>La Troll</tr>  </name>

  or so
• Bonus templates
  To avoid repetition. Ability to define a bonus template and then just place a reference to it in unit and maybe override some parameters.
• Multiple(or zero) cost units
  Some game systems do not use points for units but some more complex rules. In theory some game systems could also have army sizes like '1000 gold and 500 crystals' and each unit have two cost values. This could also be used to represent core/special/rare slots in games like WFB without writing a validation script.
• Fractional point costs
• relative and non-relative bonuses
  relative parameter in bonus tag that will allow bonus point cost to be independent of its parent count.
  see this thread
• Ruleset icon
  16x16 image or so that could be displayed in various editors
• Models
  Ability to create a list of 'models' within ruleset. Like 'standard army', 'tournament rules'... etc. Every model will be constructed from different set of files. Validator/Display scripts would be able to see which model was selected.
• Unit categories in a tree
  Ability to define a tree of categories. see post below.

Feel free to discuss and write what you think should be included.







Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2010 03:13PM by francio.

Ability to count units by the category attribute.

Maybe a Transport option. It's usefull for WH40K: almost any unit as a vehicle that has different statistic, don't count as member of the unit and has option of his own (weapons for example).

pdumas73 Wrote:
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> Ability to count units by the category attribute.

If you mean to add such function to Lua interface then no problem. Good idea.

zerokappa Wrote:
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> Maybe a Transport option. It's usefull for WH40K:
> almost any unit as a vehicle that has different
> statistic, don't count as member of the unit and
> has option of his own (weapons for example).

Implementing this will be partially solved with Bonus templates. Vehicles can be defined as templates and added to more than one unit without needing to copy and paste loads of XML.

Solving this problem completely would require a lot more and this will not be 'backward compatible'
What I was thinking some time ago is that in fact the only difference between 'unit' and 'bonus' is that the first one is the 'root' of a small tree.
Maybe it will be better to make this two a one 'item' and make it possible to add units to other units and display army as a tree instead of a list.
But I am not sure if this will make whole thing to complicated unnecessary.
ArmyCalc project is trying to give a simple and portable tool to easily calculate points and print army.
But this for sure is worth consideration.

francio Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This topic aims to put all lacking things for TWR
> to be perfect in one place.
> This list will be used to create a
> backward-compatible 3.0 format.
>
>
> [*] Multi language support
> possibility to define all string fields for
> multiple languages like:
>
>
> Troll
> La Troll

I like!!
Convert easly Lonewolf AB files could be great but it's not the question...

--
Dreadaxe
French T³ admin

francio Wrote:
> ArmyCalc project is trying to give a simple and
> portable tool to easily calculate points and print
> army.
> But this for sure is worth consideration.

I just stumbled across army calc and I love your idea about an online/offline version that is compatible. Well done.

As a data file maintainer for Army Builder, I'm off course comparing some of the features. Bonus templates are essential I think.
Adding units as bonus items is also important. Mounts, vehicles etc. can be added that way. This means that a bonus item should be able to link to a unit.

bonus item scripts are also missing (e.g. a shield option adds to the armor rating of the containing unit.

How are faction rules handled? Adding mercenaries or using alliances doesn't seems to be possible without putting all units into one long list.

Keep up the good work!

Cosworth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Adding units as bonus items is also important.
> Mounts, vehicles etc. can be added that way. This
> means that a bonus item should be able to link to
> a unit.

This is for sure the most important thing and a big pain for me. It will be hard to do it without losing compatibility between TWR3 and TWR2. What do you think about extra fields for bonuses? isn't this enough? You can implement mounts as bonuses or bonuses templates. Their fields will be displayed in a table with unit fields etc.

I should have thought about an army as a tree not as a list from the start. The worst thing about doing a project on a hobby basis is that in moments like this when you see important lacks in basic concepts you feel the strong urge to drop everything behind and start developing again from scratch. This happened two times at the early stages of this project, back when it was just an online editor, and later on when changing from TWR1 to TWR2 offline editor was incompatible and useless for few months. I don't want to repeat this with TWR3. This way this project will be never finished and I will never publish the mobile application

> bonus item scripts are also missing (e.g. a shield
> option adds to the armor rating of the containing
> unit.

Good point. I was planning to do this at some point. Besides 'extra_fields', there should be also a possibility to add to bonuses something like 'extra_fields_modifiers' and when unit extra field is a number, value of this will be added(or substracted when negative) when bonus is selected.
Not sure if this will be enough.

Script for every bonus would be an interesting solution however first of all this would require another special interface and second of all OnlineEditor runs Lua scripts on server side. Army editing happens completely on the client side with javascript. So this would require rebuilding it and running those scripts with AJAX. Army Builder runs on desktop only so it does not have a problem with that.


> How are faction rules handled? Adding mercenaries
> or using alliances doesn't seems to be possible
> without putting all units into one long list.

Multiple units xmls in a ruleset were introduced to solve this somehow. For example all infinity rulesets are using mercs.xml which I simply copied and pasted from one ruleset to another.
But still all units appear in one menu in editor. If you are talking about that then I guess the ultimate solution would be to allow categories to be placed in a tree like:

• Core
• Special
• Rare
• Alliances
  
  • Kislev
    
    • Core
    • Special
    • Rare
  • DoW

etc...
and to put this tree into the menu.

Thanks for your reply. I know that software design is hard from the beginning so I don't blame you.

To explain the faction thing: Certain units modify the allowed alliances/mercenaries. this comes up i various game systems e.g:

Malifaux: Units with the tag mercenary are always allowed but cost more if chosen by another faction.
War of the ring: Some units allow choices (a subset of units) from other factions as core choices in the current faction.
Lord of the Rings SBG: Each faction has access to a short list of other factions, which are static.

So in essence a unit "filter" is needed for display purposes so the user only is presented with legal choices. Your category tree could be just that, if it was dynamic (i.e. you could change content of categories during runtime)

Multi language support is important for creator of ruleset for don't rework something do to another language.

Share option is important too for work in team easly.

--
Dreadaxe
French T³ admin

I'm coming from a WH40k-perspective so keep that in mind when reading my suggestions/feature requests:

* "Conditional bonuses": You need this in order to get that. Example: You need to equip a Terminator Armour in order to wield Lightning Claws. Preferably, you should not be able to select a bonus unless a prerequisite is met.

* "Conditional units": In some armies, you are able to make substantial changes to the army list if you purchase certain units. For example if you a fielding a White Scars champion as one of your HQ-choices and he is mounted on a bike, you can suddenly choose bikes as Troops, not as previously as Fast Attack (other type of unit choice). Something that makes a huge difference and would be extremely tedious to perform using the current featureset (maybe not even possible).

* Bonus choices should impact ExtraFields (like a certain item adding more attacks or strength for a unit (noticed this issue with the Dwarf 7ed Ruleset as well)).

That is what I can think of at the moment. I am currently trying to reproduce the Black Templar codex as a Ruleset, I will get back to this thread if I notice anything else.

---

Previously mentioned requests/suggestions that would be awesome:

* Bonus templates: That would solve a lot headaches for 40k people. Since a lot of characters can purchase items from the same Wargear list, and different units can use the same Transports, etc.

---

Apart from that, brilliant work! Keep it up. I will try to contribute as much as I have time for with building different rulesets and posting huge feature request lists!

* Conditional cost: Different costs for same bonus item depending on what other options has been taken. Example: If a character has a certain value of an ExtraField (for example 2 or more wounds), certain bonus items cost more than otherwise.

Thanks for all suggestions.
I think it would be impossible to implement all this and be 'backward compatible'.
I guess creating a conversion tool and switching the software to 3.0 format would be required.
I have a lot of ideas on how to make an awesome TWR 3.0 format.

I am currently slowly creating a draft on how this format should look like.
I will try publish it soon and ask you all for a review.

Sounds great.

Personally, I think that creating a great format is more important than backwards compability.

WarFoundry format could be interesting?
[games.groups.yahoo.com]

--
Dreadaxe
French T³ admin