DOE: Locations Extension

[dulux-oz]

Dude, the documentation is a tome in itself!

"Good documentation is a joy to behold, rare to find, and never fully appreciated." - My old C-Programming Lecturer from Uni.

I figure that if I write good doco (or produce good doco videos) then it benefits everyone - including me, because its a cross-check on wether there are any (obvious) bugs still - take note, all you young whipper-snapper coders with your fancy Java and Ruby and such - in my day we use Pascal! And liked it!

So far, so good. In practice, all of the empty fields that I don't use of know the info for just disappear when the record is locked, so it's pretty flexible. It's looking like it's going to be more useful than I anticipated, so hat's off to you again!

As was designed: maximum flexibility! And feel free to "Rep" me as much as you all like

Seriously, I'm glad you like it.

Cheers

[Nylanfs]

"Good documentation is a joy to behold, rare to find, and never fully appreciated." - My old C-Programming Lecturer from Uni.

I figure that if I write good doco (or produce good doco videos) then it benefits everyone - including me, because its a cross-check on wether there are any (obvious) bugs still - take note, all you young whipper-snapper coders with your fancy Java and Ruby and such - in my day we use Pascal! And liked it!Cheers

Truth, and this is coming from the entire PCGen team that has to work on a 625k+ line code beast that is PCGen (Plus inline comments in the Code).

[dr_venture]

And feel free to "Rep" me as much as you all like

I'm pretty much limited to one rep, sadly. You really deserve more, given the magnitude of the work. Once this and the weather extensions have been vetted for a bit and had any bug/features worked through, they should really be strong candidates for inclusion in the CoreRPG ruleset. The amount of functionality added is jaw-dropping.

On to the business at hand...

I've run into a bug (there are a couple I've seen - all pretty minor, other than this one). I'm finding in C&C that I can't drag items from the Players Handbook or Castle Keeper's Guide into the Inventory page of a Location, but I can drag items from character sheets onto the Inventory tab.

FWIW, I'd prefer to have the base price hidden from players and only show the market price (assuming that the market prices is what the merchant is selling the item for). I'd prefer players not really pay attention to mark-ups, but rather just see an item and a price, and decide if it's worth it to them to purchase or not, or go somewhere else.

In playing with the Inventory tab, this has the potential to be a pretty major feature, at least to my mind. Currently (and again, my observations are limited to the C&C ruleset, though probably relate to many others as well), having draggable inventory items is a *fantastic* feature in FG, and the Party sheet and chat notification features when dragging items between characters is very useful and cool. But when it comes to gearing-up a new character, or making a between adventures trip to the local stoneWalMart, buying items is a huge hassle because individual purchased items have to be totaled and manually subtracted from monies. If the purchase is more than a few items, and the character has limited funds, it becomes a PITA (Pain In The 'sitting-region').

What would be *extremely* cool -- if it's reasonably possible -- would be to split the Inventory page into two sections, just like the NPCs page, with the bottom section being a "shopping cart" type arrangement... players could drag items from the top inventory into the bottom section, and a total of item costs would be tallied (and given the minimally structured nature of money in FG, I'm guessing that this would be the problem... but perhaps some careful price field parsing could address this and/or fail gracefully?). The items in the cart would only represent a potential purchase. When somebody wanted to commit to the purchase, you'd probably post something to the chat window indicating who was purchasing what from which store, and hopefully a price total... then all of the items would be put into the character's inventory, while being removed from the Location's inventory.

You'd have to enforce some kind of logic to deal with multiple players trying to purchase a unique item, as well as the idea that FG doesn't really deal with shared windows having unique content based on who is looking at them (i.e., I don't think you can easily have a "shared" shopping cart that has different items for different players). Perhaps limiting the store to one character at a time would solve both that issue, as well as indicating which character the shopping cart is interacting with. Basically, one at a time, folks, at least in terms of each individual business... which makes sense, too.

If that could be added, that would really revolutionize my games! I could have either specific stores with specific inventory and markups, or a handful of representative stores with basic markups and inventory that are generic stand ins for specific businesses if I don't have one prepared. Players could then put their purchases together themselves from what's available, and transfer everything at once into their inventory, easy-peasy.

I'm sure there are more issues to work out, but basically, what do you think? Not of me asking you to do a lot of work, but the idea, of course

[dr_venture]

Also, are players supposed to be able to transfer items from the Inventory page to their inventory? That functionality doesn't work in C&C, if it supposed to.

[dulux-oz]

I'm pretty much limited to one rep, sadly. You really deserve more, given the magnitude of the work. Once this and the weather extensions have been vetted for a bit and had any bug/features worked through, they should really be strong candidates for inclusion in the CoreRPG ruleset. The amount of functionality added is jaw-dropping.

I'm happy for it to go into the CoreRPG if Doug, Moon and Zeus think its good enough (& provided I get a mention as the author - gotta stroke that ego, don'tcha know )

I've run into a bug (there are a couple I've seen - all pretty minor, other than this one).

Well, let's hear 'em, otherwise I can't fix 'em.

I'm finding in C&C that I can't drag items from the Players Handbook or Castle Keeper's Guide into the Inventory page of a Location, but I can drag items from character sheets onto the Inventory tab.

OK, 1st Q: is C&C based on the CoreRPG Ruleset? If its not, than I can't be expected to make it work as its not supported.

If it is, then let me have a crack at what might be the issue - I don't have a copy of the C&C Ruleset so I can't be sure, but I suspect that the Extension is operating as designed - I've set things up so that the Inventory Page will only accept copies of records marked as Items (as they are in the CoreRPG Items sub-system and as they will be on a CoreRPG Character Sheet) - this is to stop the accidental/deliberate act of dropping a non-Item record onto the Inventory page. So what I suspect is that the Records coming from the two sourcebooks are NOT marked as Items but as something else. Hence the Extension not accepting them, even though they appear to the user to contain the same information.

As a design philosophy I ALWAYS favour tight "casting" of variables, records, etc - its normally more work for the coder but provides a better experience for the user and better, more disciplined code for the coder. Thus, this is what I suspect is the issue here - I someone who has a copy of the C&C could have a look-see and let me know if I'm right (and let me know what the record-type is) I'll see what I can do to fix the issue.

FWIW, I'd prefer to have the base price hidden from players and only show the market price (assuming that the market prices is what the merchant is selling the item for). I'd prefer players not really pay attention to mark-ups, but rather just see an item and a price, and decide if it's worth it to them to purchase or not, or go somewhere else.

More of a Feature Request than a Bug, but again, I'll see what I can do.

In playing with the Inventory tab, this has the potential to be a pretty major feature, at least to my mind. Currently (and again, my observations are limited to the C&C ruleset, though probably relate to many others as well), having draggable inventory items is a *fantastic* feature in FG, and the Party sheet and chat notification features when dragging items between characters is very useful and cool. But when it comes to gearing-up a new character, or making a between adventures trip to the local stoneWalMart, buying items is a huge hassle because individual purchased items have to be totaled and manually subtracted from monies. If the purchase is more than a few items, and the character has limited funds, it becomes a PITA (Pain In The 'sitting-region').

What would be *extremely* cool -- if it's reasonably possible -- would be to split the Inventory page into two sections, just like the NPCs page, with the bottom section being a "shopping cart" type arrangement... players could drag items from the top inventory into the bottom section, and a total of item costs would be tallied (and given the minimally structured nature of money in FG, I'm guessing that this would be the problem... but perhaps some careful price field parsing could address this and/or fail gracefully?). The items in the cart would only represent a potential purchase. When somebody wanted to commit to the purchase, you'd probably post something to the chat window indicating who was purchasing what from which store, and hopefully a price total... then all of the items would be put into the character's inventory, while being removed from the Location's inventory.

You'd have to enforce some kind of logic to deal with multiple players trying to purchase a unique item, as well as the idea that FG doesn't really deal with shared windows having unique content based on who is looking at them (i.e., I don't think you can easily have a "shared" shopping cart that has different items for different players). Perhaps limiting the store to one character at a time would solve both that issue, as well as indicating which character the shopping cart is interacting with. Basically, one at a time, folks, at least in terms of each individual business... which makes sense, too.

If that could be added, that would really revolutionize my games! I could have either specific stores with specific inventory and markups, or a handful of representative stores with basic markups and inventory that are generic stand ins for specific businesses if I don't have one prepared. Players could then put their purchases together themselves from what's available, and transfer everything at once into their inventory, easy-peasy.

I'm sure there are more issues to work out, but basically, what do you think? Not of me asking you to do a lot of work, but the idea, of course

Already kind of covered (as to why its impractical) in post #27 - basically, as this is for the CoreRPG Ruleset which Monetary System do we do the mathematics in: GP, SP, CP, Credits, $, Yen, Pounds, Shillings, Pence, Sovereigns, Crowns, Shekels, Euros, something else? Sure, it could be done for an individual Ruleset (although even in D&D3.5 do we use 10 gp per pp or 5gp per pp) but to keep it generic for the CoreRPG...

[Andraax]

OK, 1st Q: is C&C based on the CoreRPG Ruleset?

Yes.

[dr_venture]

is C&C based on the CoreRPG Ruleset?

As Andraxx said, it is.

If it is, then let me have a crack at what might be the issue - I don't have a copy of the C&C Ruleset so I can't be sure, but I suspect that the Extension is operating as designed - I've set things up so that the Inventory Page will only accept copies of records marked as Items (as they are in the CoreRPG Items sub-system and as they will be on a CoreRPG Character Sheet)

Looks like you nailed it: items in the C&C ruleset have itemtype nodes of "armor," "misc," "weapon," etc. Unless you're looking for an element or attribute that I'm not thinking of. Here is an item node in its entirety:

<axehand>
	<damage type="string">1d6</damage>
	<identified type="formattedtext">
		<p>This weapon can be thrown, with a maximum range of 10 ft.</p>
	</identified>
	<isidentified type="number">1</isidentified>
	<ev type="number">2</ev>
	<itemtype type="string">weapon</itemtype>
	<name type="string">Axe, Hand/Throwing</name>
	<range type="number">10</range>
	<value type="string">4</value>
	<subtype type="string">melee</subtype>
	<weightlbs type="number">4</weightlbs>
	<wield type="number">1</wield>
</axehand>

More of a Feature Request than a Bug, but again, I'll see what I can do.

All feature request, no bug at all. If you can do something, then that's great... but if the C&C items won't work in the extension, then there's no point on my behalf.

Already kind of covered (as to why its impractical) in post #27 - basically, as this is for the CoreRPG Ruleset which Monetary System do we do the mathematics in: GP, SP, CP, Credits, $, Yen, Pounds, Shillings, Pence, Sovereigns, Crowns, Shekels, Euros, something else? Sure, it could be done for an individual Ruleset (although even in D&D3.5 do we use 10 gp per pp or 5gp per pp) but to keep it generic for the CoreRPG...

Well, again, if C&C items don't work, then the point is rather moot. My suggestion would be simply to total coin types that match but don't do any other math, such as converting between coin types. If the total purchase is 1gp and 10sp, so be it, even though that's the same as 2gp in C&C. Just having similar coin types tallied would be a huge advantage, be they GP or ASDFG or whatever - leave the conversion to humans. When a purchase is made, just post the totals to chat and transfer the items, don't worry about automatically debiting the money. Players can already drag things into their inventory if they want to cheat, so there no trust issue there.

Again, all FWIW... I'm just advocating what I think is a cool idea, but I'd never wish more work on you unless you got a kick out of it. You've done plenty already! This is basically an incredibly time-consuming hobby, after all.

[dulux-oz]

Looks like you nailed it: items in the C&C ruleset have itemtype nodes of "armor," "misc," "weapon," etc. Unless you're looking for an element or attribute that I'm not thinking of. Here is an item node in its entirety:

<axehand>
	<damage type="string">1d6</damage>
	<identified type="formattedtext">
		<p>This weapon can be thrown, with a maximum range of 10 ft.</p>
	</identified>
	<isidentified type="number">1</isidentified>
	<ev type="number">2</ev>
	<itemtype type="string">weapon</itemtype>
	<name type="string">Axe, Hand/Throwing</name>
	<range type="number">10</range>
	<value type="string">4</value>
	<subtype type="string">melee</subtype>
	<weightlbs type="number">4</weightlbs>
	<wield type="number">1</wield>
</axehand>

Actually, no, its one "layer" further up - but I'll fix it up because the same issue effects all "Item" data coming from Modules for all of the Rulesets - I've just got to add in the appropriate conditional checks so the Inventory Page accepts drops from those sources.

As for the rest of it... thanks for "volunteering" to test it for me <WEG>

[dr_venture]

As for the rest of it... thanks for "volunteering" to test it for me <WEG>

I'm happy to do what I can

[shemantis]

Is there any way to remove certain tabs from this extension? For example, I don't need the Cosmos tab. Can I remove it in the code?