ALIEN - PC Builder

Owned by Derek Batting
Last updated: Feb 03, 2022
5 min read

Version 3.0 of the ruleset introduced a PC BUILDER - wizard-assisted method for player characters creation. The following functionalities are available:

  • Ability to load all careers, talents and gear from the respective campaign libraries. This supports official modules, custom modules and campaign data.

  • Career, Talents and Gear information displayed in the PC BUILDER window without the need to open Reference Manual or access the reference page from the libraries.

  • Key Attributes and Skills are marked and their points tracked as per the Career description during the character creation process.

  • Two gear allocation methods:

    • Pre-Defined: this method supports official modules only. The player can select the pre-defined gear for the selected Career.

    • Free-Form: this method allows players to pick whatever gear they wish from the Close Combat, Ranged Weapon, Protection and Other categories, facilitating

  • Creation of Android characters

Modules and content shouldn’t be loaded/unloaded/created/deleted while working with the PC BUILDER.

The PC BUILDER can be launched from the Character Selection menu and clicking on the PC BUILDER button.

MAIN WINDOW

Summary View and Career Tab enabled automatically

The PC BUILDER’s main window contains one, always visible, panel on the left that provides quick summary of the character. The content shows the selected career, talent and assigned attribute and skill points. The buttons on the top define the order for creating a character. The order is as follows:

  1. Career

  2. Attributes

  3. Skills

  4. Talent

  5. Gear

Players and Game Mothers are advised to follow this order, as character creation in ALIEN RPG is serial process, each step depends on the previous one with the exception of the Career selection. Return to previous step for correction is supported.

Red exclamation mark ( ! ) is displayed on each button to indicate incomplete step.

Selecting new career will reset all allotted points to Attributes and Skills, clear the Android if selected and remove the Talent.

CAREER TAB

This is the first step in the ALIEN RPG character creation process. Players and Game Mothers will see all available careers from the respective library listed. Career information is displayed on the right side of the window for convenience.

CUSTOM CONTENT SUPPORT

In order for the PC BUILDER to support properly custom content and parse the key attribute and skills and talents, the Career entry must follow the format defined in the Core modules:

KEY ATTRIBUTE: Attribute

KEY SKILLS: Skill A, Skill B

CAREER TALENTS: Talent A, Talent B, Talent C

It is very important to follow the proper syntaxes, including the bold formatting and capitalization of attribute, skills and talents exactly as defined in the rules.

ATTRIBUTES TAB

Attribute points can be allocated here. ALIEN RPG rules are enforced and the PC BUILDER marks the KEY ATTRIBUTE for the selected in Step 1 career and marks it with visual indicator - green dot.

IS ANDOID, when checked, allows selection of Attributes that will be boosted with +3 as per the rules for playing Android. There is no enforcement on the amount of attributes that can be selected.

Message will be displayed in the chat log if player attempts to assign invalid attribute score.

SKILLS TAB

Skill points can be allocated here. ALIEN RPG rules are enforced and the PC BUILDER marks all KEY SKILLS for the selected in Step 1 career with visual indicators - green dots.

If COLONIAL MARINES OPERATION MANUALS is used during character creation and Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) is selected as career, the skill point distribution rules are modified to follow the requirements for MOS.

The visual indicators mark only KEY SKILLS. The three mandatory skills (CLOSE COMBAT, STAMINA and RANGED COMBAT) are not marked, unless they happen to be KEY SKILL for the MOS.

Message will be displayed in the chat log if player attempts to assign invalid skill score.

TALENTS TAB

Talent browser will show only Talents available for the selected career. Talent information is displayed on the right for convenience.

GEAR TAB

The GEAR section will load all equipment currently available from loaded modules and the campaign. Two gear allocation methods are available:

  • Pre-Defined: this method supports official modules only. The player can select the pre-defined gear for the selected Career.

  • Free-Form: this method allows players to pick whatever gear they wish from the Close Combat, Ranged Weapon, Protection and Other categories. Filters are available.

  • NONE skips the gear selection process completely.

The following rules and filters apply when gear is loaded from the Equipment library:

  • Ship Equipment, Armaments, Internal Modules, Upgrades and Vehicle Weapons are not added to the list.

  • Close filter shows weapons from the Close Combat category.

  • Ranged filter shows weapons Pistols, Rifles and Heavy Weapons categories.

  • Protection filter shows equipment from Protection category.

  • Others filter shows everything except the above-mentioned categories.

If you want more than one from a given item, add it twice to the list. Background process will ensure the item’s quantity is set to the right value when the character is committed to the campaign database.

SAVE & CLOSE

When SAVE & CLOSE button is pressed, the character is recorded in the database and Character Sheet window is launched.

At this stage, the character creation is completed and PC BUILDER is closed.