Questions on timer/alarm enchancements

[jfrazierjr]

In the Enhancement Requests forum, I asked:

Would it be possible to modify the settings to predefine settings for timers? Specifically, I would like to be able to define commonly used spells and quickly add them. Each spell would be named by a specific name and would have a specific duration.

As today, when creating a new alarm, it would be owned by the current initiative owner. The new functionality would have the name filled in already (selected as the first UI action), have the rounds active pre filled in, and start on the initiative of the current initative.

Additional things that would be nice to this would be:
* add X to the timer/spell's initiative, either in a hard casting time such as 5 initiative counts and/or full rounds. For example, lets say the current initiative is 17 and the spell is defined as 3 rounds casting time, so it begins taking effect on initiative count 14. Alternatly, a spell that takes 2 rounds to cast would begin on the current users initiative 2 rounds from now (assuming the caster does not get the spell ruined in some way, such as dieing!!) Perhaps there can even be some type of state for this such as "casting" to indicate it has not taken effect yet.

And jay replied:

Currently that isn't possible. I've added support for scripting to IT and I plan on adding spell support that will do what you ask. I'll add trackers for the ability to predefine timers and for a delayed affect. Those will be useful for the D&D spell support.

In the future it might be better to make Init Tool requests in the Init Tool forum. I check there more often

Could you clarify what exactly is not possible and what you will be adding? The reply to my multiple questions was rather ambigious...

Also, do you have an idea when the 1.1 will be the release code? I played with it a bit last night and while I found a few issues (with the character stuff as well as saving a group), the new features from what I could tell are really cool and I would love to be able to use them.

If the release is fairly soon, is there any idea when the documentation will likewise be available after the release. I am very interested in the scripting support you are putting into the code. Heck, I may even download the code to look at it.

[Dark Thoughts]

I'm also interested in what jfrazierjr mentioned but not so much for spells as for character conditions. In the Spycraft game, there are more than 40 character conditions and keeping up with them can be tough. It would be great if I could name each of these in IT and add descriptions in notes that would be displayed when a condition was activated.

Also, instead of just having a set number of rounds, would it be possible to enter a set variable such as 2d4 rounds, and have IT automatically roll for it?

And finally, are they're any plans to make custom sounds (.wav or .mp3s) available for use with timer alarms?

I'm currently using v.1.0.b23 after having some problems transferring my group files to a newer version.

[jay]

Would it be possible to modify the settings to predefine settings for timers? Specifically, I would like to be able to define commonly used spells and quickly add them. Each spell would be named by a specific name and would have a specific duration.

There isn't a way to add a list of predefined timers at this time. I do have a tracker to add this capability. I am going to provide an easy way for scripts to create them so that it is easy for the index cards to use them. This way you could press a button on the index card and then have a timer created with all of the variable stuff like duration (i.e. 1 round/level) pre calculated. All that would be left is to select who is affected. Eventually I would like to enable this support so that the scripts can automatically roll saving throws if needed.

As today, when creating a new alarm, it would be owned by the current initiative owner. The new functionality would have the name filled in already (selected as the first UI action), have the rounds active pre filled in, and start on the initiative of the current initative.

I'll add this to the tracker.

Additional things that would be nice to this would be:
* add X to the timer/spell's initiative, either in a hard casting time such as 5 initiative counts and/or full rounds. For example, lets say the current initiative is 17 and the spell is defined as 3 rounds casting time, so it begins taking effect on initiative count 14. Alternatly, a spell that takes 2 rounds to cast would begin on the current users initiative 2 rounds from now (assuming the caster does not get the spell ruined in some way, such as dieing!!) Perhaps there can even be some type of state for this such as "casting" to indicate it has not taken effect yet.

The timers can't do this right now. I'll add a new tracker to allow them to do this.

Also, do you have an idea when the 1.1 will be the release code? I played with it a bit last night and while I found a few issues (with the character stuff as well as saving a group), the new features from what I could tell are really cool and I would love to be able to use them.

I don't really have a time frame yet. Real life has been invading my coding time for awhile now so it is hard to figure out how much longer it might be.

If the release is fairly soon, is there any idea when the documentation will likewise be available after the release. I am very interested in the scripting support you are putting into the code. Heck, I may even download the code to look at it.

The scripting support will take a while to document. I will answer any questions that you might have however.

[jay]

I'm also interested in what jfrazierjr mentioned but not so much for spells as for character conditions. In the Spycraft game, there are more than 40 character conditions and keeping up with them can be tough. It would be great if I could name each of these in IT and add descriptions in notes that would be displayed when a condition was activated.

Any support for this that I added would be generic enough so that any game can use it. It will also have the scripting support so that it can be made to do specific support for any game.

Also, instead of just having a set number of rounds, would it be possible to enter a set variable such as 2d4 rounds, and have IT automatically roll for it?

When available this functionality will be there.

And finally, are they're any plans to make custom sounds (.wav or .mp3s) available for use with timer alarms?

Not right now. I could add a bell ring fairly easy. I assume I can find a free library to do .wav or .mp3 but then everybody would have to take the extra time to download it. How important would something like this be to everybody?

I'm currently using v.1.0.b23 after having some problems transferring my group files to a newer version.

I redid the file format between 1.0 and 1.1 so you can't use one with the other. I might make a converter when everything settles down more.

[Dark Thoughts]

Cool. Thanks for the answers.