Basics

A piece of gear is a collection of RPG specifc attribute values. For gear, something you can buy with Nuyen, a very basic object might look like this:

<item id="cyberHeadSomething">
  <attrdef id="PRICE" value="400"/>
  <attrdef id="ITEMTYPE" value="CYBERWARE"/>
  <attrdef id="ITEMSUBTYPE" value="CYBER_HEADWARE"/>
  <attrdef id="DEVICE_RATING" value="2"/>
</item>

The lines above describe an item with the internal identifier “cyberHeadSomething” that costs 400 Nuyen and is listed in the Cyberware category, and the Cyber Headware subcategory. When attacked in the Matrix, the device has a device rating of 2.

Shortcuts

For easier input and backward compatibility with Genesis, the attributes PRICE, ITEMTYPE and ITEMSUBTYPE can be abbreviated like this:

<item id="cyberHeadSomething" price="400" type="CYBERWARE" subtype="CYBER_HEADWARE">
  <attrdef id="DEVICE_RATING" value="2"/>
</item>

Note that Genesis used cost="" instead of price="" .

In addition to the method above (that works for all roleplaying games), more shortcuts are supported:

Instead of

<item id="fichetti_tiffani_needler" avail="2" price="435" type="WEAPON_FIREARMS" subtype="HOLDOUTS">
  <attrdef id="DAMAGE" value="3P"/>
  <attrdef id="ATTACK_RATING" value="10,6,2,,"/>
  <attrdef id="FIREMODES" value="SS"/>
  <attrdef id="AMMUNITION" value="4(c)"/>
  <attrdef id="SKILL" value="firearms"/>
  <attrdef id="SKILL_SPECIALIZATION" value="firearms/holdouts"/>
</item>

all weapon attributes can be entered in one line using the <weapon> shortcut.

Other shortcuts that exist are: <vehicle>, <armor> and <matrix>.

These shortcuts don’t have the expressional power of the long attribute definitions, but are sufficient for the majority of data to enter.

Mixing shortcuts and attribute lines

Sometimes there is just a handful of items that require additional attributes - or attributes not matching for a specific shortcut. In this case just add the shortcut and the attributes.

The evaluation order is: shortcuts first, attributes later - so attribute lines override definitions from shortcuts.

The effective damage would be 4P.