Custom data

Owned by Stefan Prelle
Last updated: Aug 05, 2022
2 min read

You can define custom data for Shadowrun 6 in Genesis. This is done by writing XML data files with the corresponding translation files.

Instructions

  1. Locate your data directory
    Go to the Genesis settings. First thing on the screen is an information about your current data directory.

  2. Create a custom/shadowrun6 subdirectory in your data directory
    In the “custom” subdirectory, create a “shadowrun6” directory.

  3. Create an XML-file and a corresponding .properties-file
    Genesis detects the kind of data by the prefix of the filename. E.g. if you want to define custom spells, create a file “spells_mine.xml” and the corresponding “spells_mine.properties”
    As an optional step, you can add a corresponding -help.properties-file (e.g. “spells_mine-help.properties”) to add full text descriptions.

 The currently supported prefixes are:

  • “gear”, “item”, “equipment” for any kind of gear

  • “modification” for item enhancements

  • “spells” for - Surprise! - spells

  • “complex” for complex forms

  • “power” for adept powers

  • “qualities” for positve or negative qualities

  • “skills” for new skills

  • “tradition” for magic traditions

  • “mentor” for mentor spirits

  • “metatype” for … well .. metatypes

  • “echoes” for Echoes

  • “metamagic” for Metamagics (handled identical to echoes)

The list above is not necessarily all we can do. You can issue a request for further types in our ticket sysstem.

File Format

Unfortunately there is no documentation on how to write data files yet. So your only option is to copy from the data from other products. We advise you to study the XML files here and the property file here.

A ) The data XML files need to start and end with the category, e.g. <items> some text </items>.
Within those boundaries, a new drone could look like this:
<item id="sg-100" avail="2" cost="2000" issue="2020-11">
<useas type="DRONES" subtype="MINIDRONES"/>
<vehicle han="3" acc="8" spdi="8" tspd="20" bod="1" arm="0" pil="2" sen="2" type="WATER"/>
</item>
Note that you have to use some existing “type” and “subtype”, otherwise the item will not show up in the selection menus. See the examples linked above for types and subtypes.

B ) The properties file needs to identify the content. For this it needs to include three lines like this:
plugin.Custom.productname.short=HOME
plugin.Custom.productname=HomeBrew
plugin.Custom.productname.full=HomeBrew Rules

In addition it should contain name and page per item. For above drone this could look like this:
item.sg-100=SG-100 Submarine Drone
item.sg-100.page=1

Note that you should assign a page number to the item, even if it is page 1 for everything, otherwise there may be display errors.

C ) The help file can contain the description of the item. To do this, use a simple line with .desc, like below:
item.sg-100.desc=The SG-100 “Spreewald Gurke” is a small, gherkin sized, underwater drone build by a local manufacturer in Berlin.

Note that there is no limit to the length of text you can add, however it needs to be in one line. If you want a line break in the output text, add “\n” into the text line and end the line with “\” (both without the ““s). Bold or Italic are not supported, but you can of course CAPITALIZE words.

For questions contact us.

Related articles