some little thing about WarFoundry and Warmachine

[Frostlee]

since a friend of mine decided to start Warmachine, i had the occasion to look at requirements for creating roosters for that system. i want to share some thinkings on how to use WarFoundry with Warmachine. Since basic rules are the same also for Hordes, if WarFoudry worsk well with Warmachine it will works as well with Hordes.

• warmachine have 4 categories: warcasters (generals), warjacks (big moustrous "robots"), units, solos (elits one-man units)
  well, WArFoundry handles well this.
  
• in warmachine do not exist "equipment" or "options" the way we think in warhammer: since it is based on stats-card, every piece is "as-is", usyallu with long (3-8 lines) special ability on description.
  well, it would be nice if the plugins are allowed to "modifiy" the GUI to adapt the unit window, but it is not really important, WarFoundry still look nice.
  
• warcasters (from Warmachine MkII), instead of costing points like any HQ choice would do in WH40k, grants you some extra points to be spended only in warjacks.
  actually WarFoundry is not able to handle this issue unless you use some hacks. the first way is to make you warcasters cost zero and add the points manually by creating a list with higher points. this is really ugly. the second way is to modify the race schema to allow negative numbers in points cost. but this will require a modification to the core and i'm sure it's a good idea. the last is to allow a plugin to add some units "for free" instead of the listed cost but i'm not sure this will work. also the validator plugin for warmachine will check that the points of the warcasters are used for warjacks, i.e. there are enough warjcks worth the extra poitns granted by the warcaster.
  
• warjacks are assigned to a warcasters and form "battlegroups". this has no impact on the list creation, but a plugin could specifies battlegroup and when the list is exported would be nice if also the blattlegroup is printed in some way. in the end something tha WarFoundry will handle.
  
• warjack do not have a total "wounds" stat, instead they have a "damage box grid", a sort of grid (usually less than 5 x 6 cells) where they mark damage. the easiest way to handle i could imagine is a plugin that add an image stat that shows this grid.
  
• units usually comes only in one or two size, i.e. ther dimension is usually fixed or could be choosen from just two different size. the validation plugin could check also this (but where do it take the information on wich size is allowed?) or if you prefer a little modiication to the core something like
  

  Code: Select all

  <xs:attribute name="stepSize" type="xs:nonNegativeInteger" default="1"/>

  
  combined with min and max size i think will do the work.
  
• unis usually have a leader and require multiple stat lines. also some unit have "units attachements" like champions or standard bearer (units attachements cannot be picked without the unit they refer to). if you rework the stats, WarFoundry will handle this.
  
• also some units has some constraints like, "only one per army", "only one every on of..." and other things like this, that even Rollcall can handle.

at a glace i think this is everything needed to make WarFoundry a nice army rosters creator for Warmachine.
by the way, tomorrow i'll also post some suggestion about the API-plugins infrastructure...

[furrie]

has for point number 3, can't you make it that a warcaster can take the warjacks as upgrades (when the stat line thingy works you can even add the stat line)
As for the last points, its already possible to say only one per army allowed.

[IBBoard]

Thanks for looking into some of the other game systems. We are, of course, completely game system agnostic and in no way piggy-back on the IPR of others while sending threating letters to other groups about our IPR, however it is useful to know what people can do with the tool in their own homes

Please correct me if I make any incorrect assumptions or if I misunderstand anything

in warmachine do not exist "equipment" or "options" the way we think in warhammer: since it is based on stats-card, every piece is "as-is", usyallu with long (3-8 lines) special ability on description.
well, it would be nice if the plugins are allowed to "modifiy" the GUI to adapt the unit window, but it is not really important, WarFoundry still look nice.

I know what you mean there, but I'm not sure the best way to do it in a fully pluggable and cross-platform/cross-toolkit way. For now I'd be inclined to have a simpler feature in each version of WarFoundry that checks if the unit has any non-required equipment and just makes sure that all of the buttons are disabled. We still need to keep the list, though, because I'm guessing they still have equipment even if it isn't selectable.

warcasters (from Warmachine MkII), instead of costing points like any HQ choice would do in WH40k, grants you some extra points to be spended only in warjacks.

The slightly bodged way to do it would be to have "special" Warjacks that are free but only available when the Warcaster is taken. We don't handle it yet, but the basic "allowed X per Y of unit Z" requirement would handle it.

Alternatively, I could investigate making the pluggable "requirements" modules modify more than just unit or equipment selection limits and instead let them modify the army price as well (although you would need the additional validation that the points were spent on the right unit, which might make my first idea easier)

warjacks are assigned to a warcasters and form "battlegroups". this has no impact on the list creation, but a plugin could specifies battlegroup and when the list is exported would be nice if also the blattlegroup is printed in some way.

Sounds a little like how the Chaos armies used to be defined in terms of retinues. If it is a requirement that they're like that then we could structure it as a "contained unit" (once we support them). Alternatively, I think we'd need some kind of more complex "march order" that lets you arbitrarily group things purely for the purposes of output.

warjack do not have a total "wounds" stat, instead they have a "damage box grid", a sort of grid (usually less than 5 x 6 cells)

That sounds awkward. An image would be one way, but we currently only use strings. You could try ASCII boxes, but we wouldn't be guaranteed to have perfect formatting everywhere.

It may be that the best solution is to have the output plugin have its own plugins that tell it how to render each stat (as-is or a special value), and that could create the boxes. The problem with that would be that the unit views would have to show a temporary value such as "-" or "*".

units usually comes only in one or two size, i.e. ther dimension is usually fixed or could be choosen from just two different size. the validation plugin could check also this (but where do it take the information on wich size is allowed?)

I like the idea of the customisation for the XML - I'd assumed that all units were allowed any size between their min and their max. As for where the information would come from, we've got the "data" elements, which are intended for that kind of situation where you want some non-standard data in a place that a plugin knows to look. Just give it a consistent ID and you'll know how to access it.

unis usually have a leader and require multiple stat lines

Okay, at least that's one definite need for multiple stat-lines rather than taking it as equipment/"options" then

also some unit have "units attachements" like champions or standard bearer (units attachements cannot be picked without the unit they refer to).

The "can't be taken without unit" will be handled once we have requirements. Champions will probably be contained units, although I'd treat standard bearers as "options" rather than individuals. Perhaps that's just an old Warhammer way of looking at it, though.

also some units has some constraints like, "only one per army", "only one every on of..." and other things like this, that even Rollcall can handle.

As furrie said, some basic levels of that are in and we'll get the rest once we have requirements. I started a list of similar use cases a while ago, so if you want then I can give you write permission on the wiki and you can document the requirements more fully

[snowblizz]

warjack do not have a total "wounds" stat, instead they have a "damage box grid", a sort of grid (usually less than 5 x 6 cells)

That sounds awkward. An image would be one way, but we currently only use strings. You could try ASCII boxes, but we wouldn't be guaranteed to have perfect formatting everywhere.

It may be that the best solution is to have the output plugin have its own plugins that tell it how to render each stat (as-is or a special value), and that could create the boxes. The problem with that would be that the unit views would have to show a temporary value such as "-" or "*".

If you need "wound boxes" instead of a wound stat couldn't we use a number 5x6 (is there some meaning associated with the distribution?) = 30 and then the output could render those and the unit would then say e.g. 30.

Something like this would conceivably be useful in other places. At least BfG uses "structure points" and it would actually help if you'd have them on the armylist and could cross them off as you go.

I've seen some other skirmish games (Mordheim) using O, O:O, O:O:O, as a wound stat to allow for this kind of thing.

I guess other ship based games, and possibly stuff like Mech-whatitsname could use similar techniques.

[IBBoard]

Good point, there probably are quite a few different ways in which it could be useful. The problem is that once you get to something that isn't just a box (all I can think of is RPG games at the moment, or Man o' War - the old boats game from GW) then the layout gets a lot more complex.

Perhaps what might be best is custom output modules. That way you could make use of the "extra data" elements to store something to tell the output module how to output the wounds grid and the output would then put it somewhere else on the page (since I assume it would often be a bit too big to fit in the standard stats grid - I know Epic used to have separate titan/gargant cards).

[Frostlee]

i think the "custom output modules" idea is the best way to do it...

[IBBoard]

Good, because I was getting a little worried about people wanting hideously complex things in the code For now I'd suggest using a value like "-" or "*" for the "wounds" for those unit types that have "wound maps" and then keep a reference sheet from the game with you.

[stfas]

I'd rather have simplicity over complexity, unless it hinders the functions of course, but then again i don't use these tools either way.

[IBBoard]

True - the more usable apps have to be simple without being so simple that you can't find anything. I find KDE (one of the Linux desktops) overly filled with options, but KDE users tend to find Gnome (the other main Linux desktop) a bit lacking in options - I think they've generally got it just right. Hopefully I'm hitting the right balance with WarFoundry, but I'm always open to input (in the appropriate topic, of course).