b203

* Bug fixes

There was a bug in the logic for calculating modifiers, so that rounding UP was restored if every modifier on a tier didn’t set it to DOWN. It’s supposed to set to DOWN if any modifier sets it to DOWN, and keep it that way for the tier. So, for a single modifier it worked correctly, but for cases where there were normal UP modifiers listed after a DOWN modifier, it would be wrong.

Some users have reported GCA crashing when one or more of the support files (usually an XSD file) is missing. GCA can still function without those files, so crashing is a pretty negative outcome. I have added checks to ensure those files exist before GCA tries to use them. GCA will now also send a message to the Log when it sees that such a file is missing, so that the user can try to Check for Updates to possibly restore it. (Of more concern is why those files are going missing. I suspect there may be a bug in the Updater that is deleting them but not updating them when it runs. I will be looking into that.)

When using Save as Template for saving a character as a template in a book file, GCA should now correctly *not* include traits that are already components of other traits that will be added. For example, if you included the Quadruped template on your character, and then saved it as a template, GCA would include Quadruped as an item to be added, and also include all the components of Quadruped as items to be added. That will no longer happen.

* Miscellaneous

Swapped the order of processing techlvl -> TL and TL -> TL to do TL first. This way, custom items can keep the standard techlvl() tag for when items of that type become available, and use tl() to set the TL of the specific item. GCA will no longer attempt the techlvl -> TL procedure if TL is already set for the item.

I’ve extended the #any and #none keyword support for name extensions to bonus targeting. So you can now target a bonus to a trait with a name extension of (#any) to target any variant of that name, and (#none) to exclude any that have a name extension. As with other such uses, you can use ‘of’ and ‘except’ clauses as well, so you could target a bonus to any Animal Handling specialty except Big Cats by using gives(+1 to SK:Animal Handling (#any except “big cats”)), or you could target only Big Cats by using gives(+1 to SK:Animal Handling (#none except “big cats”)). This extension also works with Conditionals.

Added ‘displaycost’ to the list of tags removed from trait tags when they’re being created from system tags or being resynced.

I’ve added the ability to change the order of your character’s log entries on the Campaign Log. You can now drag entries to new positions in the list, or you can use Ctrl+Up or Ctrl+Down to move the current entry up or down a position.

* BookCodes.xml

Added GURPS Power-Ups 4: Enhancements.

* TagDefs.xml

Added ’round’ to the list of modifier tags. Adjusted the text slightly for ’round’ in trait tags.

b201

You can now check if the character is currently processing a randomized template by checking char::random or char::randomized. It will return “1” if it is and “0” if it is not.

* Book Processing

I found a number of checks for duplicate values that were being done inside the check for Verbose status for error reporting. Those checks needed to happen outside that check since only the reporting matters for Verbose, not the safety of the data and avoiding a crash. Fixed the ones I found, which were related to duplicate hit location tables or duplicate notes within those tables.

* TL

GCA did not assign a TL to equipment items. These items had a techlvl() tag showing when they typically became available, but GCA didn’t create a TL tag for them when taken by the character. Now it does. The tl() assigned will be the techlvl() if its higher than the character’s TL, or the character’s TL if it’s higher than the techlvl() (as it is assumed to be a product of the character’s TL). This shouldn’t affect much of anything within GCA itself, but may affect malf numbers for a small number of items where GCA calculates those. (If the character’s TL is easily determinable as a numeric value, that numeric value is used for comparison, if not, it’s simply assigned to the tl() because GCA can’t do any of the other checks.)

With the change to always try to generate TL for equipment items, this would also result in the default Display Name routine always appending /TLx to every equipment item. That’s likely far more annoying than useful, since most characters use items manufactured for their TL. I have therefore added an option to show the /TLx appendix on equipment names, and it is Off by default. You can turn it on in Options on the Lists panel of the the Program Options tab.

* Bonuses

Gains bonuses (+X to me from Y) had an issue where any ‘from’ reference that didn’t use a prefix type and was not found, such as “+1 to me from hell”, would result in a bonus of +1. That should now be fixed.

I have added support to Gains bonuses for ‘from’ references of ‘char’ for the character itself, and of ‘parent’ for children and/or template components.

Gains bonuses should now be able to gain bonuses from the tags of ‘from’ references, such as points, level, or whatever. For example: gives(+1 to me from char::example) would give a bonus equal to the value of the ‘example’ tag on the character (or 1 if it is not a numeric tag value, while a char:: tag that is empty or doesn’t exist would result in a bonus of 0). You can also use this with traits, such as gives(+1 to me from SK:Acrobatics::points), which would give a bonus of +1 per point spent in the Acrobatics skill to the trait. Same for using a ‘from parent’ construction, such as gives(+1 to me from parent::points) which would give +1 per point spent on the parent trait.

* Functions

GCA will now remember the last value returned for the @Roll, @Random, and $RollValues functions. Bear in mind that these saved results will change each time these functions are called, so they’re only really useful inside the same operation, such as in an @if, and only reliable even then if you only use one of that function in the evaluation.

Note that all of these saved values are universal to GCA, *not* to the character or the trait.

To get the last returned value, use one of these functions. Note that they don’t have parameters, but you still must include the ().

@LastRoll()

Returns the last value returned by the @Roll() function.

@LastRandom()

Returns the last value returned by the @Random() function.

$LastRollValues()

Returns the last value returned by the $RollValues() function.

@NamedRandom(name, value1 [, value2] )
@NamedRoll(name, number [, sides] )
$NamedRollValues(name, number [, sides] )

These functions each work the same as their unnamed counterparts. The only difference is that you can name the roll by specifying the name as the first parameter. By using these functions and specifying unique names, you can retrieve them later by name and be less concerned that another use of the unnamed functions will overwrite the values.

These named versions do *not* place their results into the the LastX values used by the unnamed functions, so you can’t retrieve a value generated here with the LastX() functions (but you can with the LastNamedX functions). This allows you to use named results for longer storage and unnamed ones for transitory values without one messing up the other.

Note that all of these named results and their stored values are universal to GCA, *not* to the character or the trait.

@LastNamedRoll( name )

Returns the last stored/returned result for the given name. Returns 0 if there is no such name.

@LastNamedRandom( name )

Returns the last stored/returned result for the given name. Returns 0 if there is no such name.

$LastNamedRollValues( name )

Returns the last stored/returned result for the given name. Returns “0” if there is no such name.

@HasModIncludesText( text )

Searches the item’s modifiers (name and name extesion only, and each is checked separately) for all those that include the text specified, and returns the highest level among those that include it. Returns 0 if none found.

@HasModIncludesTextMin( text )

Searches the item’s modifiers (name and name extesion only, and each is checked separately) for all those that include the text specified, and returns the lowest level among those that include it. Returns 0 if none found.

@HasModWithTag( tagname [, tagvalue] )

Searches the item’s modifiers for all those that include the tag specified, and returns the highest level among those that match the tagvalue given (ignoring case as usual). If no tagvalue is given, any value for the tag counts as a match. Returns 0 if none found. (This performs text matching, so “0” matches “0” but does *not* match “0.0” or any other variation that would match numerically. See also @HasModWithTagValue.)

@HasModWithTagMin( tagname [, tagvalue] )

Searches the item’s modifiers for all those that include the tag specified, and returns the lowest level among those that match the tagvalue given (ignoring case as usual). If no tagvalue is given, any value for the tag counts as a match. Returns 0 if none found. (This performs text matching, so “0” matches “0” but does *not* match “0.0” or any other variation that would match numerically. See also @HasModWithTagValueMin.)

@HasModWithTagValue( tagname [, tagvalue] )

Searches the item’s modifiers for all those that include the tag specified, and returns the highest level among those that match the tagvalue given. If no tagvalue is given, any non-zero value for the tag counts as a match. Returns 0 if none found. (This matches tagvalue with candidate tag values numerically, so all values will be converted to numbers before comparisons are made. Tags with non-numerical values will evaluate to zero. This is a direct conversion, not a math-enabled Solver evaluation. See also @HasModWithTag.)

@HasModWithTagValueMin( tagname [, tagvalue] )

Searches the item’s modifiers for all those that include the tag specified, and returns the lowest level among those that match the tagvalue given. If no tagvalue is given, any non-zero value for the tag counts as a match. Returns 0 if none found. (This matches tagvalue with candidate tag values numerically, so all values will be converted to numbers before comparisons are made. Tags with non-numerical values will evaluate to zero. This is a direct conversion, not a math-enabled Solver evaluation. See also @HasModWithTagMin.)

b200

* Miscellaneous

GCA should no longer claim #Verbose On is a bad data file command (but still work) when it is a good command. Same for the #ModifierGroupWarnings command.

The #Clone data file command should now work with templates, and should better handle unsupported prefix tags.

Addsorincreases() didn’t correctly increase equipment counts. Now it does.

The combination attacks version of Edit Traits was crashing when trying to add a new combination. That is now fixed.

Added a system flag so I can have some system messages not go to the log when I’m doing things where they are repetitive or unnecessary. And then added support for that flag to a number of messages (such as new character and library loaded messages in randomized templates).

When handling an adds() or addsorincreases() for a trait name without an extension, and GCA only finds versions with extensions, GCA would pop up a dialog asking the user to pick one of those found. When doing a random template, this pop-up still popped up and waited for user input. That is now fixed and a random selection is made from the items found.

I have added a new engine option for verbose template processing. This option is off (False) by default. The idea is that nearly every message that gets logged during template processing is actually only useful for template writers, but not for users. Having all those messages get sent to the log cheapens the log for the typical user by filling it with what appears to be nonsense. (And much of what gets sent to the log is just noise to users, since many templates these days rely on certain behaviors to work correctly, but those behaviors also often send messages to the log). So, with this new option, just about every template processing message that used to get sent to the log now only gets sent if this new option is turned on (True). This option is available in Options, on the Program Options tab, on the Characters pane as the “Show all status messages when processing templates.” checkbox.

In Select dialogs, sometimes the options meant to be available are built from things that were chosen in previous dialogs. This sometimes means that an option may have a different name extension on the character than in the library. Previously, GCA wouldn’t find it in the library and would just give up on that item. Now, if GCA doesn’t find the specified item in the library, it will see if it can find a version on the character, and if so, use that as the template for the item in the selection list..

The new template tag setloadout() can be used to change the character’s active loadout to the loadout specified in the tag. This can be used inside triggers().

* Random Character dialog

I have restructured the order of things in the process that the Random Character dialog (called from either Randomized Template option in the Tools menu) uses when adding random templates. First it names the character, then runs the template. This will allow for templates to be built that apply random character names.

Also, the character names are no longer modified to include “- but Canceled” if it looks like the template didn’t complete properly. GCA will now wait until all the random characters have been built, then print one “Randomized template issues:” block to the Log pane, with a message about that for each such character.

I have also made the system check for the #deleteme command in the initial template, so that it will not assume a canceled template just because the initial template deleted itself once finished.

* Functions

@ItemsInLibraryGroup( GroupName )

This function returns the number of items for the GroupName specified, as found in the character’s loaded library’s Group collection. This is specifically the Library count, as currently loaded, just as it would be referenced if you were creating a group list for use in a Select dialog.

@ItemsInLibraryList( ListName )

This function returns the number of items for the ListName specified, as found in the character’s loaded library’s Lists collection.

Be aware that List usage is not the same as Group usage in GCA, as a List is just a collection of text lines, while a Group is specifically a collection of items, one per line. This means that a List may consist of many items per line, and its usage by the file author will likely not correspond to one item per line, but may result in many items in the destination output. Instead of counting the items in the List, you may want to use @ItemsInList to count the items in an equivalently constructed text list instead.

@ItemsInList( [ #codes() ] item list )

This function allows you to count the items in the given list and return that value. The #codes() special directive allows you to specify special commands to control how the list is processed.

By default, the list of items is considered to be comma separated, and each individual entry may be enclosed in quotes or braces as usual.

The only code currently supported for #codes() is #codes(sep=X) to change the separator from a comma to some other character. NOTE: If you specify multiple characters, each one individually is a separator, NOT the whole string as a single unit. You may enclose the separator in quotes or braces, such as #codes(sep=” “).

@Random( value1 [, value2] )

The @random() function returns a random integer value. Note that the values are applied differently depending on whether one or two values are supplied.

The templates for this are:

For an integer 1 to max: @random(<max>)”)
For an integer min to max : @random(<min>, <max>)”)

If only <max> is specified, then the value returned ranges from 1 to the <max> value. If both <min> and <max> are specified then the value returned ranges from the <min> to the <max>.

@Roll( number [, sides] )

The @roll() function returns the sum total for a series of random results simulating rolled dice.

The templates for this are:

For rolling Xd6: @Roll(<number>)
For rolling XdY: @Roll(<number>, <sides>)

If <sides> is not specified it uses six-sided dice. So using @roll(2,4) would ‘roll’ 2 4-sided dice, and would return the total sum of all ‘rolled’ values.

$RollValues( number [, sides] )

The $rollvalues() function returns a text value that is a sequence of values separated by + signs, representing every roll made for the given parameters

The templates for this are:

For rolling Xd6: $RollValues(<number>)
For rolling XdY: $RollValues(<number>, <sides>)

If <sides> is not specified it uses six-sided dice. So using $rollvalues(2,4) would ‘roll’ 2 4-sided dice, and would return the value as something similar to ‘1+4’, so that it can be included in a math expression.

$ListNoBlanks( [ #codes() ] item list )

This function allows you to process a list of items and remove the empty entries. The #codes() special directive allows you to specify special commands to control how the list is processed.

By default, the list of items is considered to be comma separated, and each individual entry may be enclosed in quotes or braces as usual.

You may specify #codes(hasprefix) or #codes(prefixtags) to tell the function that the entries in the list are expected to be trait names tagged with prefix tags and therefore any item that does not have both, or where either part is not specified, are considered to be blank items.

You may specify #codes(sep=X) to change the separator from a comma to some other character. NOTE: If you specify multiple characters, each one individually is a separator, NOT the whole string as a single unit. You may enclose the separator in quotes or braces, such as #codes(sep=” “).

If you specify multiple codes entries, separate them with commas.

* #Loadout() / Loadout()

Support for using the #loadout() special directive has been added to adds(), addsorincreases(), and creates().

If you use the #loadout() special directive to add an item to a loadout, then GCA will now automatically apply protection from any armor or shield items so added. This seemed to be the most likely desired action, so it was made the default. If you do NOT want that to happen, include #noarmor as part of the loadout name inside the #loadout() directive for each loadout not receive protection.

If you are adding a shield, you can use #arc() as part of the loadout name to specify the protected arc. At this time, the supported arcs are ‘none’ (the default), ‘back’, ‘left arm’, and ‘right arm’.

Example:

Loadout Tester (Adds),
displaycost(0),
cost(0),
page(User),
noresync(yes),
adds(_
{EQ:Backpack, Small #loadout(Pack)}=1,
{EQ:Blanket #loadout(Pack)}=2,
{EQ:Canteen #loadout(Pack)}=1,
{EQ:Leather Jacket #loadout(Pack, Combat)}=1,
{EQ:Heavy Leather Leggings #loadout(Pack, Combat)}=1,
{EQ:Gauntlets #loadout(Pack #noarmor, Combat)}=1,
{EQ:Small Shield #loadout(Pack #arc(back), Combat #arc(left arm) ) }=1,
{EQ:Steel Breastplate #loadout(pack #noarmor)}=1_ 
)

This template will apply all items to the ‘pack’ loadout, and some of the armor to the ‘combat’ loadout. The Steel Breastplate is not being worn, so it’s flagged as #noarmor in the ‘pack’ loadout where it resides. The Small Shield is worn on the back in the ‘pack’ loadout but on the left arm in the ‘combat’ loadout. And since gauntlets are annoying to wear casually, they’re also not being worn in the ‘pack’ loadout.

Note that the loadout() tag, which inserts the item with that tag into loadouts in a similar fashion, now also applies protection by default and also supports the #noarmor and #arc() directives.

You can also use this feature to assign protection for the virtual ‘All unassigned items’ loadout by leaving the loadout name portion blank, or by explicitly referencing a blank loadout using empty quotes “”. Note that this means using an empty loadout() tag on a trait will trigger GCA trying to assign it to a loadout and to apply protection, so don’t include empty loadout() tags unless that’s what you want to happen.

* Plugins

In compile.xml, you may now use the variable %home% in a ‘reference’ element to point at the plugin’s home install folder. This should allow for the compiler to properly find and reference additional DLLs that you may need to include with your plugin.

* Export to Roll20

A new exporter from Mad Coder that creates a json export file for importing into the Roll20 VTT.