Author Topic: AutoHARP SF  (Read 2908 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline GMLovlie

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 524
  • OIC Points +0/-0
  • For the future I only hope...
    • Jegergryte's cubic box of stuff
AutoHARP SF
« on: December 19, 2016, 07:27:13 AM »
Hi,

I love the idea of this software, but I have several issues with it, from a user's perspective. This may sound harsher than it is intended, but below are my issues with the software and some of the issues I have met when trying to make use of it.
  • Why is the skill ranks from race, profession and adolescent portrayed in such a confusing manner? I gather I have to fill out some of the ranks myself, as they are free ranks, 5 from human, 20 from pilot ... but the whole GUI is a bit confusing and not clear about where things comes from.
  • Also, how do I apply Skill Flexibility? And does this have to be done manually when I apply skill ranks? It's not clear.
  • Why can't skill specialisations, and similar profession abilities, be done in a more orderly fashion rather than being a manual task in the skill rank add window when you level up... what do you do if you forget about it and need to add it later? Remove 1 level and add it again or is there an edit function I haven't found?
  • I've had 2 issues when trying to print: 1) the printout is not great as text goes missing as it's placed under the "line", and 2) printing to PDF results in hundreds of pages ...
"What about the future...? We can only hope, we cannot however account for the minutiae of the quanta, as all accidents in an infinite space are inevitable."

Homebrew folder
Ongoing campaign
Inspirational images for my games
My box of stuff

Offline pyrotech

  • Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 337
  • OIC Points +45/-45
Re: AutoHARP SF
« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2016, 08:48:51 PM »
I just picked up AutoHarp SF the other day myself.  I had some issues figuring out some of these same questions.  I suspect for most of the Skill specializations, Skill Flexibility, Human Bonus skills, and Profession level bonuses you just have to manually adjust the values (and preferably edit the associated talent names to reflect where you have done so).

My issue I'm trying to figure out now relates to Training Packages.  It seems I can only ever add a training package once.  When you level a character up you can not apply the same training package again.  Is this intentional?  Is this a known issue?  Or am I just doing something wrong as I learn this new software?

Best Regards,
-Pyrotech

Offline GMLovlie

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 524
  • OIC Points +0/-0
  • For the future I only hope...
    • Jegergryte's cubic box of stuff
Re: AutoHARP SF
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2017, 12:03:55 PM »
One question I cannot find an answer to... what is "Stamina point" in the combat tracker?
"What about the future...? We can only hope, we cannot however account for the minutiae of the quanta, as all accidents in an infinite space are inevitable."

Homebrew folder
Ongoing campaign
Inspirational images for my games
My box of stuff

Offline DavidKlecker

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 697
  • OIC Points +0/-0
  • Everything is coming up Milhouse!
Re: AutoHARP SF
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2017, 10:20:08 AM »
Hi,

I love the idea of this software, but I have several issues with it, from a user's perspective. This may sound harsher than it is intended, but below are my issues with the software and some of the issues I have met when trying to make use of it.
  • Why is the skill ranks from race, profession and adolescent portrayed in such a confusing manner? I gather I have to fill out some of the ranks myself, as they are free ranks, 5 from human, 20 from pilot ... but the whole GUI is a bit confusing and not clear about where things comes from.

Adding ranks from the race, profession and adolescent is actually convoluted from the start. From a pen and paper perspective you have to add the ranks from the adolescence table, then you need to add ranks based on profession and then you need to add ranks based on race, and then the free ranks, and so on and so on. My solution to that was to make the whole thing linear. Sure you get a lot of repetition, but in the end it seemed like the right direction. The biggest thing from a New Character builder is knowing you are dealing with a software "wizard". Wizard being the term for a program that "builds" something for you automatically however you need to go through some "steps". Adolscence ranks is complicated but it's not entirely complex. The idea with Page 3 is to simply take the adolscence property list (the stuff on the right), start on the top and just work your way down. You have a number of sections, separated by the description of what you are adding and the list of skills/subskills you can add it to. You also have the number of ranks remaining to add to this particular section. There may be even some text that tells you exactly what to do.

So, in summary, start from the top, check out the small description and add the ranks to the skills you desire to have ranks added to. The program is designed to be as flexible as possible, so for me to add logic that manually checks skills and subskills added for very particular scenarios of adding adolescence ranks was a bit daunting. I may do that later though.
Quote
  • Also, how do I apply Skill Flexibility? And does this have to be done manually when I apply skill ranks? It's not clear.

This must be done manually right now. I could add another step in case a person has this particular talent. But right now, you go to the skill tab, click the skill and cost column and change the cost there.

Quote
  • Why can't skill specialisations, and similar profession abilities, be done in a more orderly fashion rather than being a manual task in the skill rank add window when you level up... what do you do if you forget about it and need to add it later? Remove 1 level and add it again or is there an edit function I haven't found?
It's been a while since I have coded that particular area of the program but my guess was the daunting nature of coding something for it. It seemed so much easier and practical to just do this manually. You can add skill specializations at any time. You don't have to delete a level. In fact you never really have to delete levels unless you want your character to go down a level. You can always adjust ANYTHING you want on your character sheet. If the option is not available to edit in the software you can edit the XML itself and that will work as well.
Quote
  • I've had 2 issues when trying to print: 1) the printout is not great as text goes missing as it's placed under the "line", and 2) printing to PDF results in hundreds of pages ...

This sounds like a bug and I will look into it. I have limitations when it comes to the static DC printing with windows. This is why I am moving to the HTML print. It removes many of the limitations, or just plain daunting code in order to get things lined up and on the right page.

Sorry for the confusion. I can look into making things a bit easier in the future. [/list]

Offline DavidKlecker

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 697
  • OIC Points +0/-0
  • Everything is coming up Milhouse!
Re: AutoHARP SF
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2017, 10:21:45 AM »
My issue I'm trying to figure out now relates to Training Packages.  It seems I can only ever add a training package once.  When you level a character up you can not apply the same training package again.  Is this intentional?  Is this a known issue?  Or am I just doing something wrong as I learn this new software?

There must be a reason for me doing that because obviously it's coded but I cannot exactly remember the reason. My first impulse is that the books told me from a rules standpoint that training packages can only be bought once a level. So multiple purchases of the same TP are not allowed. If that is not correct hopefully a rule expert can let me know.

Offline DavidKlecker

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 697
  • OIC Points +0/-0
  • Everything is coming up Milhouse!
Re: AutoHARP SF
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2017, 10:22:38 AM »
One question I cannot find an answer to... what is "Stamina point" in the combat tracker?

This is something from the books however, I believe that Stamina isn't really used in the program. I think I have it in there for future coding, but right now, I don't think the program makes use of the information.

Offline GMLovlie

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 524
  • OIC Points +0/-0
  • For the future I only hope...
    • Jegergryte's cubic box of stuff
Re: AutoHARP SF
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2017, 06:18:24 PM »
Hey man! Thanks for your replies!

So, I got over myself and sat down and made some characters. It's working fine. I'm no longer confused.

The printing issue is partly due to my settings being for A4, but the letters are still a bit cut-off at the bottom in Letter size. Also, I've not been able to reproduce the hundred of pages pdf problem, so ... fluke?

I can't find the Stamina points in the books ... I'll have too look again then.  ::)
"What about the future...? We can only hope, we cannot however account for the minutiae of the quanta, as all accidents in an infinite space are inevitable."

Homebrew folder
Ongoing campaign
Inspirational images for my games
My box of stuff

Offline DavidKlecker

  • Senior Adept
  • **
  • Posts: 697
  • OIC Points +0/-0
  • Everything is coming up Milhouse!
Re: AutoHARP SF
« Reply #7 on: January 12, 2017, 08:15:41 AM »
Hey man! Thanks for your replies!

So, I got over myself and sat down and made some characters. It's working fine. I'm no longer confused.

The printing issue is partly due to my settings being for A4, but the letters are still a bit cut-off at the bottom in Letter size. Also, I've not been able to reproduce the hundred of pages pdf problem, so ... fluke?

I can't find the Stamina points in the books ... I'll have too look again then.  ::)

My guess is stamina is from Harp Fantasy, it might not show up with Harp Sci-Fi so if you are using Harp Sci-Fi that might explain the disconnect. As of now, neither AutoHARP application uses it. It's there if the GM wants to keep track, but the GM will have to keep track of it manually. I'm happy to hear the issues are disappearing. Is Architect still slow for you?

I checked out the adolescence ranks step in the new character wizard. I think some confusion stems from the description not telling you that you are applying an adolescence rank, yet the concurrent steps tell you that you are adding a profession rank. The description is not consistant. So that will be something I will try and fix up. The other issues concerning the new level, I could look into creating an extra place where the computer shows you what to do.

If you are having any "issues" such as the application crashing or coming up with wrong values, please let me know. ;)

Thanks for the input.