Spell Dialog Taking Shape

Right now all this dialog box does is display the players spells, and gives the GM all the information they are going to need to cast the spell, including the description. When it comes the XML database for this particular dialog I have included only the spells from Spell Law. I do have all of the spells from the entire line of Rolemaster RMSS/RMFRP in my computer in Access Database form and this XML spreadsheet came from that database file so in time I can augment this XML file to include other books, however this release is geared to be simple and small. As you can see only the spells the player can cast are present. By clicking the spell you get a description.

From here, the user then enters the rest of the information: Preparation rounds (if the spell is Instantaneous, marked by an asterisk, this field is ignored), modifiers if any and then the 1D100 roll. The program automatically adds the +50 per RMSS rules and also any modifiers from the Spell Casting Table such as Base Lists mods, use of voice, hands, etc. Also if not instantaneous, then it grabs the modifiers based on preparation rounds. The result from the Spell Static Maneuver table is returned. If the spell is automatic the result will simply state: "Spell is cast".

I hope to have a window pane like a marque that will display all spells currently active for the round. I don't have it here right now but also if the player fumbles, the fumble roll will happen here.

The difference between all three dialog boxes depend on the action the player is taking. Sometimes they combine. For example a Directed Spell attack would mean the player needs to first cast the spell from the Spell Dialog, then if successful, the Player then uses the Attack Dialog selecting the Directed Spell Attack and rolling normally for the attack.

Logic to Movement Maneuver Complete

The Movement Maneuver Window for Orc has been completed. The last thing to do is link to the attack dialog in a way where the user could go back to this window to get movement information or save that information to the Player Object to use in conjunction with either the 5 Step Melee Process with Rolemaster or Ceats.

The Movement Maneuver dialog takes the Movement Maneuver table and allows you to cross reference the difficulty and a 1D100 roll to get a result. If you add a speed value you will get the distance traveled by your character based on their BMR. You will get four values, one for each action phase (snap, normal, and deliberate) and the total. The value for each action phase is the distance the player is to move for that action phase. For example, let's a say a player decides to perform a press and melee. They need to roll a Movement Maneuver first. Using the example above we see the player rolled pretty high and therefore can move 2 hexes (he's a hobbit by the way). If there is a description with the value, that description is displayed. Currently any hit point information is not automatically saved.

Here is a summary of what is left to do with Orc before full debug testing will being.

1) Link the movement generated here to a variable in the Player Object to reference later on.
2) Have Movement Maneuver update hit points or anything else from the description
3) Start the Spell Dialog Window and implement the ability to cast spells and get the results of the cast.
4) Link the Spell Dialog as well to the Player Object to reference later
5) Implement the 5 phase Action sequence for RMSS. This will be a Dialog window at the beginning with a Selection List for each phase. The player needs to pick a phase and an action. They need not fill in for each phase. From here the program will parse through the list and display what needs to be done by what player. Program will take away the percentage from that action to calculate movement and attacks.
6) The ability to update any information on the character screen by clicking the node and having a text box come up.
7) Implement a pane to show casted spells if any.
8) Additional time for other enhancements such as implementing Ceats and a Skill Window.

I'm hoping to get up to number 6 by the end of this month where I plan to move into closing out enhancements and moving into debugging for a few weeks. Middle of March I plan to have a beta ready to test.

April is when I plan to start development on the Character Designer for RMSS. I'm hoping to have something available from that by August of this year.

New Development: Movement Maneuver

Time to start adding a few final touches to Orc which includes the Movement Maneuver Dialog, followed by a Spell Dialog and maybe a Skill Dialog but that will remain to be seen. The Spell Dialog will certainly happen.

The Movement Maneuver Dialog is a necessary component in that a player might opt to either move for the whole round, or perform a press and melee during combat. As you can see on this dialog the user enters the Difficulty (Medium, Hard, Very Hard, etc) and Speed (Walk, run, Sprint, etc) and the number of feet or meters (for you metric users out there) per hex. Entering the player's roll, plus any mods and clicking enter will give you a result from the Movement Maneuver table. You will either get a number or some text that might be a fail or a spectacular success. I will let the user deal with that number in their own way. However I will display a spread of values to help the user with some number crunching. As you see there is a Snap, Normal, Deliberate and Total Label below the Result area. Under these labels will be a value depending on which button is toggled at the time: Feet/Meters or Hex. In order for these numbers to get calculated I have to add a new value into the Add Player dialog box to hold the BMR. Snap will represent the first 20% of the maneuver and can be used for Press and Melee or just a snap action run. Normal is the next 60% and is done while everyone else performs their action as well. Deliberate is the last 20%. The total is self explanatory.

It's much simpler than the Attack dialog that's for sure.

Opensource Rolemaster Combat

Orc
A Rolemaster Combat Management System

This is the initial release of Orc 1.0 which is right now in an Alpha state. This release is not stable and is just a Demo release to show everyone what I am developing and to give you a basic idea of what this application does and could do in the future. You can download the binaries here. Because the main idea is simply to introduce the application I'm not currently taking any bugs from the application as of yet, but I will be opening the bug tracker for beta testers when we have a beta version. There are definitely bugs and the application itself could crash during use. The risk is minimal to any user's computer if the program does crash but let it be known that in rare cases, an application crash could cause instability issues on your machine. Most of the time a simple reboot fixes the problem.

Overview

"Orc" is a new Open Source project programmed in C++/WxWidgets that can create and manage player characters and non player characters through a melee combat using the Rolemaster RPG system. Orc will maintain a player's hits, power points, stuns, bleeding, etc, look up damage from an attack, calculate defensive bonuses based on an attack, track targets and most of all initiatives keeping the GM from having to keep track of these timely tasks himself. Orc mainly uses rules from the RMSS, however tables are generated using the new RMFRP templates.

Works on most operating systems:

Because Orc is programmed with wxWidgets and C++ it will work under most modern operating systems including Windows XP/Vista/Win 7, OSX and Linux, targeting more specifically the Ubuntu line, however it should also work under other Linux distributions. All databases are developed using XML markup language so any user can easily update these databases using any text based editor or even an XML editor if you choose.

Installation:

Right now there is no installation file to use. Simply unzip the file to wherever you choose and run the application from this folder. The xml database is included as well as a manifest file which really only gives the application a facelift on the GUI. The application itself was compiled on Windows 7, so I don't think the binaries are going to work under OSX or Linux. However if there is a developer out there who is interested in getting binaries for OSX and Linux let me know and I can get you access to the Source Code.

Free:

Because Orc is open source, it's freeware. You get the whole application. No ads, no limitations, no annoying text warnings. You get the full application, databases and all.

Expandable:

Because all databases are written in XML markup language you can also expand or even create new databases. Just follow the included DTDs for each xml file.

Shout out to developers:

If you are interested in helping develop Orc further please goto the Rolemaster OpenSource Group and sign up.