Federation Commander

I've just started trying to put together a character for the PD PBP game here on the boards, and HOLY COW! it's compli-ma-cated. Each character has about a bajillion different skills, advantages and disadvantages. I have GURPS 4e character assistant on my PC and may try to program in the templates for that to help put characters together, anyone know of any tutorials on how to do it?

Most template questions can be answered over at the SJGames forums. but fortunately, setting up templates is a lot easier nowadays.

Basicaly, Load up the Basic Set and Space GDFs (Gurps data files) in GCA and start with a fresh character.

If doing a template, just give the character all advantages, disadvantages, racial skills, etc... as listed in the source book. You'll probably have do tweaks or add new Traits that are PD specific, (ie Pan Immunity) to this character. This applies to both racial and professional templates.

When finished give the template a name (Rigelian or Prime Team operative or what have you), click Save as, the select Template within Data File (*.GDF). This will prompt you give the GDF a name, like Prime Directive. This will create the GDF file that you can access in the future. You can, if you so choose, make seprate GDFs for individual books. up to you.

Repeat, with any other templates, but just save to that GDF until you're done. (Note, you can do this for important NPCs or any mooks you want on hand as well. Real big time saver)

Not knowing ADB's web policy as well as I'd like, I'm just going to assume you're not going to distribute the finished file (except to maybe your players) . But any up to date GCA program can read that file just so you know.

It'll take a bit of work on your part, but it'll speed that game in the long run.

Have fun, Terry.

No I won't distribute it.

I may well ask SVC if ADB wants to make it available for download on starfleetgames.com, but I'll have to do the input and test it first.

Here are the files for PD:

http://www.motoslave.net/gcarepo/view.php?pkgid=24

For PD Klingons:

http://www.motoslave.net/gcarepo/view.php?pkgid=31


For PD Romulans:

http://www.motoslave.net/gcarepo/view.php?pkgid=32


And thank God! I would never make a GURPS character without these files. Took me 10 minutes to make the character for the PBP.

Thanks Eric for the template links !

Hope they asked first before posting them online. ADB is usually accomodating about such things if asked for permission first.

I don't know. I just Googled it and found it. However. It is not much use without the book. If they did not ask permission it is because SJ Games is cool about it for their books, and many people mistake PD for an SJ Games product (it even has a nice SJ Games webpage).

But thank goodness for them, I would never make a character for GURPS without GCA.

Ok I use to able to whip a GURPS Character in about 30 min I have been playing whith the GURPS Chacter Assistant for about 3 hours what am I missing?

First guess? Info overload. I f you let GCA Load every last GDF it has available, chances are you'll miss what you're looking for.

The way to have GCA let you choose the GDFs if it isn't set already is to go to tools->options then choose Program Options. Check the Choose Data sets on startup.

You can also move around the GDFs to your liking under Program Options.

Hope it helps.

So you know, I only loaded the files 4th Ed. Characters, PD 1 and PD 2, plus a file that has tones of quirks I use for inspiration.

I don't have a problem with what they did, since you have to have the book, and would be happy to host copies of the files on our site. Feel free to have them contact Joel about that.

terryoc wrote:I've just started trying to put together a character for the PD PBP game here on the boards, and HOLY COW! it's compli-ma-cated. Each character has about a bajillion different skills, advantages and disadvantages. I have GURPS 4e character assistant on my PC and may try to program in the templates for that to help put characters together, anyone know of any tutorials on how to do it?

Go to the SJ Games forums: http://forums.sjgames.com/ There is a forum for GCA. It's under the sub-forum "the Network." There is quite a few guys who regularly visit this forum. They are willing to help. One of them is Armin Sykes, the programmer who created GCA. Another is Eric B. Smith, the data file coordinator for GCA. There are many others too. I'm a frequent visitor as well under sjgames forum id: flyingwombat.

As stated above the templates are done. No need to reinvent the wheel.
I found some tweaking issues with these files but they are minor. One in a particular was the addition of a Mathematics (Starship) skill to Helm/Navigation "certification" requirements. This skill IS NOT in the core book. I emailed the file's author and he explained that he thought it should be necessary, but couldn't recall why. Personal preference I suppose.

As for information overload, sure. Even a 125 point PC that's fresh from Star Fleet Academy is going to have a lot of skills. It might be overwhelming for a beginning or even an experienced player. Last year I created the "StarFleet!" wildcard skill, which substituted for all the non-combatant skills in the template. This excluded skills in the character's specialty, which was higher than the character's StarFleet! skill anyway.

To date I've GMed five GPD games at cons. I don't claim I know all the answers. but I can answer a question or two.

Ok now I am really getting pissed.

I bought GCA went and downloaded the PD Files and when I try to creat a Character with the Star Fleet Academy Template I get as far as Engineer/TL [Insert Name Here] and then get a Run-time error '5': Invalid procedure call or argument. When you click ok it eats the file and closes GCA.

Going to start rolling one up by hand....

Huh... I think I've seen that when the program's not up to date or the GDF (which most likely was made with an older version) is no longer working right with the latest version.

attempting to duplicate the error so I can pass it along to Armin (the guy who made GCA.

@Terry: Did you ever finish up the PD GDF? Dal sounds like he needs a newer version that what was provided.

@Dal: I was able to make 2 characters with no issues, so I haven't been able to replicte the error. So I believe the standard troubleshooting rules apply. Uninstall and reinstall, updating to the latest version, seeing what else is running etc...

If you still can't find the error, you should post a request for help over at the SJG forums (if you haven't already).

Sorry I couldn't help more.