Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Tank · Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:38 am Post subject: The Junkman Cometh to Excel...

Well, I figure that it's about damn time that somebody handles this, so I started out on it. Building a Junkers wet dream in Excel is turning out to be quite a task, especially since my skills there seem to be limited to the 1d6 region. I'm trying to build a database & automated tables for calculating devices/powers. Just plug in the power and your information on it, and the spreadsheet does the rest. Autocalcs slots, frames, components, target numbers, etc. I even went as far as including the three most commonly used tool tricks (as experienced by myself and other gamers I've played with) Miniturization, Flow, & Finish. Now, the problem here is that this project must be completed at all costs and I just don't have the know-how to get the job done by myself. Any takers on a collaborated effort?
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Psykoguy · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:20 am Post subject:

I've been tinkering with the idea. I'm a bit worse off in the situation (defaulting on my rolls, to use your metaphor). Still, it's something that would just make things so much easier and faster, I think that it has to be done.
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ZombieRancher · Novice Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 10 Location: London, OH

I can give it a go with you. Some friends and I used an older Excel spreadsheet for building vehicles for Car Wars a few years ago. We took it and made many modifications to it to improve and update it. I picked up a lot of handy and useful tricks on creating forms for Excel that way.

Laces · Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2006 4:53 pm Post subject:

Hey, let me know how it turns out. I wish I could help, but I never really used excel so I won't be much help. I would love to have something like that.
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ZombieRancher · Novice Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 10 Location: London, OH

It's coming along prety well. I haven't worked on it in a few weeks, but it's probably 80-85% done. Can we post attachements here, or will I need to figure out a way to post it for download somewhere?

Old Patch · Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 6:52 am Post subject:

You'll need to post it somewhere else. You can do a link here in the forums, but not files. I suggest trying the SAVAGE HEROES site - they are great for hosting file downloads for PEG stuff.
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Psykoguy · Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:09 am Post subject:

i know the thread's kind of quiet, but I'm a bit interested in the progress of this little program Smile

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ZombieRancher · Novice Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 10 Location: London, OH

I got pretty far along, but got sidelined around the end of April because of real life (I hate that Wink

). I can post what I have so far, and y'all can take a look and provide feedback, if you like.

The One · Veteran Joined: 14 May 2003 Posts: 768

I'm pretty good with Excel when it comes to data retrieval (LOOKUPS and the like) as well as IF forumulas, post what you've got or shoot me an e-mail with the sheet and I can take a look
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ZombieRancher · Novice Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 10 Location: London, OH

You can find it here:

home.columbus.rr.com/dlange/HOE/Junker.xls

Feel free to take a look at it and play around with it. The spreadsheet is in a pretty primitive state right now, as I said, it got put aside a couple of months ago. It's intended to cover the Junkman Cometh, plus other available supplements like Waste Warriors and Road Warriors. It's also intended for Classic Deadlands, not Savage Worlds or D20. If anyone has any feedback or suggestions, please post them here.

ZombieRancher · Novice Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 10 Location: London, OH

So, has anyone taken a look? Comments? Questions? Harsh but constructive criticisms?

Psykoguy · Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 7:07 pm Post subject:

Sorry, I've had some school and work to deal with.

You were right though, it is pretty bare bones at the moment. Still, it's got a bit of the needed tables here, but I haven't really had time to get into the guts of the thing.
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ZombieRancher · Novice Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 10 Location: London, OH

Mostly I'm concerned with how the individual powers are layed out for design purposes. I've tried to make them as consistent as possible, but the design rules aren't as streamlined as they could be, so there are several places where one-off power layouts were necessary.

Electrocuted · Novice Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 2

I, for one, not being the junker in the party, am absolutely excited about streamlining our factory generation of junker loo... I mean, facilitate our junk-inclined brethern... or somesuch.

What actually needs to be done on the project? It looks like you have it pretty well in hand from what I was able to poke around on there. Then again, I'm at work and using excel viewer... so no functionality for me.

ZombieRancher · Novice Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 10 Location: London, OH

Well, most of it is working through the remaining junker powers in the Junkman Cometh book, plus whatever other powers are scattered around the other books (just Waste Warriors and Road Warriors, I think). The powers need to be defined individually. The last bit would be to tie it all together and pretty it up, which shouldn't be much.

I've been hoping to get back to this, but haven't been able to. Maybe the new year will bring some more spare time. Smile

WingRider · Novice Joined: 07 Feb 2006 Posts: 12

There's a power or two in Iron Oasis, as well.

Ferance · Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 3:42 am Post subject:

(bear with me as this was written over the course of several hours as i scoured my books for other junker powers)

I've heard people talk about these other mythical junker powers (mostly flow) but have yet to really find them.

I'm the junker player Electrocuted (a post or two above) is refering to. he sent me the link and the excel sheet a few days ago and aside from the fact that i'm a bit excel deficient i really can't make heads or tails of it.

it seemed there were a few powers missing from the spread sheet (correct me if i'm wrong but ...) specifically Gunsmith, Sensor, Shelter, Shield, Spirit Trap, Spirit Weapon, Spook Juice (though it's more a fomula rather than a power so i assume you could skip it), Super Strength, Targeting, Temperature, VTOL, and Weaponsmith

also maybe as a suggestion, i looked through the tricks as well and really nothing but Debug, Finish, and miniaturize affected the over all componants, slots, or stability so maybe those 3 merit an entry as well

another suggestion might be some way to add the effects of Side-effects both major and minor to the device as well. i'm sure ther are any number of 'extras' that could help with creation like selector switch, ports, dead space allocation, etc.

i purchased the PDF's of Iron Oasis and Waste Warriors and already have the Road Warriors book.

WW has plenty of weapons and vehicles to base junker stuff off of but no powers i could find.

RW has a lot of extra vehicle buff stuff a junker can make good non-stability check equipment with but no powers i could find.

IO has a few (understandably so cause it's a junker city). These are all the flight powers they couldn't cram into the Junkman Cometh specifically Balloon, Jet, Prop, Rotor, a reprint of VTOL, and another new one called Biomechanics that specifically for cyborg/scrapper stuff, plus an update to the warhead/explosive aspect of the Ammo power, and a change to the Sensor power as well (all in all a very busy book)

i couldn't find anything in the wasted west setting book, Brainburners, children of the atom, monsters muties and misfits, spirit warriors, or the last crusaders

that all sums up my HOE library and i know there are more out there so if i missed something or don't have a book and someone knows theres a power in there could they correct this or let me know.

Yeah yeah, all this to really say i don't know anything about excel but would like to see this finished.

Sitting Duck · Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 8:15 am Post subject:

Shattered Coast has a power for designing water vehicles. Other than that, you appear to have already collected all the books with junker powers.
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ZombieRancher · Novice Joined: 04 Jan 2006 Posts: 10 Location: London, OH

The spreadsheet I posted was extremely preliminary, I was mostly just looking for feedback on how usable it was in its current state. I haven't worked on it in months (thus it's missing a bunch of powers), but it sounds like I should get back to work on it. Smile

Ferance, when you say you couldn't make heads or tails out of it, what do you mean? What I'm going for in the long run is for the user to able to select what powers are present in a device, and the sheet keeps track of slots, etc for you. In its present state, you probably need some Excel knowledge to try it. When it's done, it will be a matter of selecting powers and choosing options for those powers, all through standard drop-down lists and such.

As for the power Flow, it didn't make it into any of the main books, but I believe it was described in an Epitaph (?) later on. I'll have to go through them when I get home tonight to find where exactly I've seen it.

Ferance · Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 11:44 am Post subject:

ahhhh, heh yeah things got a little convoluted i guess. so i'll try and critique what i can.

In it current state, with only a cursory understanding of excel (ie i know there are 3 pages Wink

) it seemed at least partially workable ... the stability calc seems like it has an issue and a few directions on what slide does what would help. perhaps some way to select frame size first or if no frame size is selected, to just start counting slots used (problem with that being the powers that require a frame size to work a percentage from.)

From what you state as your vision for the project i think it'll be easy to deal with as long as you include a guideline or two for functionality and the like. i'm getting very used to working with the junker powers (including the official accumulated errata/rulings) so if you need help with anything short of the programming in excel just let me know.

Also once you find Flow if you could let me know where it is i'd appreciate it.