New feature: Army 'modifications'?

[IBBoard]

I'm not sure how to describe this, but it was a random idea I just had that I thought I'd suggest.

Basically, I've just realised that I have on my desk in front of me an army list (hand scribbled) for 1500pts of Orks with a "modifier" addon to take it up to 2000pts, and an "anti-heavy armour" "modifier" that uses either of those base lists and swaps weapons and troops in and out to get a more anti-armour list.

Now, you could easily do all of that just by using the tool (after-all, if it is an easy point-and-click interface then you can play around and just not save your changes), but would it be a good idea to allow for a similar setup of an army and then a "modifier" list - something that adds and removes items/units? It'd need some good planning to make sure that we handled it well, but it might be a useful feature (if people don't think I'm too mad!)

[snowblizz]

I think I understand exactly what you mean.

GW used to provide "unit cards" in their boxed game (along with the roster sheets) that you could fill out and then just pick a couple of standard units you often used, or some such. So you could have a anti-infantry devastator squad (4 heavy bolters) and an anti-tank devastator squad.

I think the issue there is how the user is going to define what something means to them. I think it'll add quite a lot of overhead, not necessary being of much benefit ultimately. Over just choosing the same standard loadout, and tweaking it a bit. Taking the previous roster and adding a unit e.g.

It could well be an interesting feature, no doubt. But the critical stuff first, then you can go wild on "features".

[IBBoard]

That would be one example, but I was planning that as a feature anyway. Rollcall let you export single units as a ".unit" file (IIRC) that you could re-import and re-use later. That is useful if you know you've got a block of 20 spearmen that you take most of the time, but you don't want to keep creating them, upping them to 20 models, adding the champion, upgrading to heavy armour, etc. What I was thinking of was more like "patch files" that can add and remove units or equipment.

As you said, definitely not on the critical path, but I'm just thinking about how WarFoundry could be extended to be better than anything else

[snowblizz]

I see I was as clear as you. I meant exactly that. And not simply saving units.

Myself, I've never used the saving of units. A certain program I'm not going to mention does that as well.

Point was I tend to "continue" from the last army I used. So usually there's little tweaking to be done. Maybe one new unit I've just painted or something liek that. It's the making of those "patches" that will be the problem. As in the user will be too lazy to. In essence it has parallels with end-user development and hinges on the attention investment "cost" . It takes effort to do so you don't, especially if you are unsure you will need it in the future. And it keeps on going on like that well past the point where you would have been better of spending the initial effort. Well that's the simple short verison of it at least.

I'm not saying it's bad idea. Could be a very interesting feature.