Small quick update went up today, fixing some bugs and what not.
Corrects an issue with the Junkion icon introduced in 1.01 where in the text box Leadership used instead.
Adds a filter to the Cybertronian text to filter out non alphanumeric characters so that there are no stray cubes or empty glyphs.
Further refinement of the background/faction selection script so it behaves better. Now mixed cards require the “Hybrid” selection to be made in order to select multiple factions at once.
Missing note from 1.01: Under “Set Info” you can turn off “Automatic Numbering” and manually assign IDs to the cards. This is enabled by default, so no existing set will be impacted but those hoping to be creative with their design and numbering have that capability now!
As always, the downloads are live at the Downloads page; this time, the only download required is the “Game” installer for those who already have the whole package.
I’m cheating today, like a dirty rat! As an aside, no matter what, whenever I hear the word “Stratagem,” I want to break out in song as from “The Great Mouse Detective” and “Ratigan”…”TO STRATAGEMS (TO STRATAGEMS!)! OH STRATAGEMS!”
Hear “Stratagem,” start singing…
ahem With the custom cards folks are designing, Stratagems, which debuted in Wave 5 “Titan Masters Attack,” are getting a lot of attention. For typically 1 Star, you get a boost to an existing card or for making a deck design choice. Custom Stratagems have been turning up, including here at Edge of Iacon, with no star cost to them which adjust minor aspects of the card.Today, I want to talk not just about Stratagem design, but I have the opportunity to spoil one of the fantastic Alpha Trion Protocol Stratagems as well!
Version 1.01 of the MSE Template is uploaded; the documentation will be updated shortly as well to reflect some new elements as well.
Included in the update:
Updates to the “card_fields,” “set_fields,” “keywords,” and “scripts” files to:
Bot 1 Mode, Bot 2 Mode, Character Mode and Unit Mode are added as acceptable modes
“Stratagem” reminder text has been generisized to “name card or trait” and added
“Mode” is now a keyword group and can be disabled, eliminating automatic text for Battle Masters, Minicons, Weaponizers, Stratagems and battle cards with stars.
Cleaner blending script for card backgrounds
Quintesson and Junkion now factions in the trait drop down and symbol fonts
Adjustments for later features and functions (IE Custom card factions)
Bug Fixes:
Fixed a missing mask for the “character-head” style.
Adjusted the Normal Character trait placement
Adjusted the Traits so that “Titan Master” will properly select
Go to the Downloads page to redownload the installers or the complete ZIP file!
Within the week, however, the fan community rallied. Survivors vowed to fight on. Factions arose, content creators banded together to devise their own material. “We shall carry on!”
By the end of the week, handfuls of members were drafting original content. New cards, ideas, characters, concepts. Some were gleaned from conversations with WotC official members and what they previously said they looked forward to; others were born of fevered dreams of madmen. And; on the fringes of Iacon, a lone programmer embarked on a quest to open the databanks to everyone.
Today, after a month and change of work…the gates are open wide.
Head on over to the Downloads page and grab the packages and install MSE and the Transformers TCG template for yourself and embark on your own adventures!
Hello everyone! Today we’re going to cover some questions about using the MSE software and the Transformers template so that once it hits, everyone is already off to the races! Lets begin, shall we?
The Transformers TCG template tries to take a lot of the workload out of your hands and automate it. To that end, we’ve done a lot of work to build in all of the symbols and icons the game uses and identify those automatically.
UPDATED: So, I jump the gun occasionally 🙂 I’ve added/updated some of the options since the OP. Ahead are the new additions as well as the original article.
Two fields, the primary text box and the stars box, will accept input in a way that produces icons relevant to the game.
Text Box:
Pips: Enter any of WOBUG (White, Orange, Black, Blue, Green) between brackets [] to produce pips of those colors, and in official order. Use any pair separated by a slash / to produce a hybrid colored pip. T produces the “Tap” icon when entered between brackets. All characters must be upper case to be recognized.
Traits/Factions: Traits and factions such as Specialist or Dinobot are recognized immediately; simply type the name and the system will bold the term and pair it with the appropriate icon. Plurals are recognized.
Symbols: ATK, DEF, and HEL produce the Attack, Defense, and Health icons respectively. AUT, DEC, MER, UNI, MAX, and PRE produce the faction symbols for Autobots, Decepticons, Mercenaries, Unicron, Maximals, and Predacons.
Stars: STR, ST5, S10 will produce the Star icons for 1, 5, and 10 star valuations in the text box. This is UNIQUE from the star bar.
Card Name: The card’s name can be made a special entry; type the tilde (~) or CARDNAME (all caps) into the text box and the entry becomes an “atom,” an unbreakable line of text which is automatically filled. As you update the card name, the atom will similarly update the text displayed in the card box.
Manual Insertion: Symbols can be manually inserted via “Format > Insert Symbols” into the text box. Additionally, all of the Faction pips can be selected from the Manual bar.
You can turn symbols OFF in the text box as well; put your cursor beside the symbol element you want to turn “off” and you can click the “Star” button beside the B (Bold) and I (Italic) buttons up-top, like you might in Office or Word, or you can click through Format > Symbols. The keyboard shortcut is CTRL + M to trigger the symbol.
Star Box:
STR, ST5, and S10 will produce the star icons for 1, 5, and 10 star valuations, just like the text box.
1, 5, and 0 will produce the star icons for 1, 5, and 10 star valuations, only in the star box.
The astrisk (*) will produce the star icon for single stars, only in the text box.
Typing any string of five single-star icons (11111, *, STR STR STR STR STR, 1 1 1 1 1, * * * * *) will produce a separator between each group. Each group must be of the same five variations.
This was posted to the Facebook page a couple days ago, but deserves a place here as well: check out the walkthrough for MSE and the Transformers Template!
In a first article for the site we’ll start talking about exploring unique design spaces, starting with tools we already have!
The above image was released last night as an announcement regarding the completion of the “Titan” card frame for the Magic Set Editor (MSE) template. In the game, Titans are reserved for the likes of Metroplex, Trypticon, and Fortress Maximus, though you can bet lots of folks are chomping at the bit to make even more. Even Omega Supreme got his first release on a super-sized Titan frame card.
For grins and giggles, I threw a Superion image into the frame…and it looked good. But more than that, the idea of making Superion not just a combiner but a stand-alone bot has some fun and interesting design possibilities.
Combiners are typically eschewed for their difficulty to assemble. They’re potentially a lot of fun, but it becomes a time-consuming affair and by the time the titanic monstrosity is assembled one or more of its components have been KO’d at least once and it becomes a slog as the combiner attacks, and then the opposing team gets 2-3 attacks in, and it keeps on going.
Conceptually, using the “Titan” frame and idea first floated by Omega Supreme we could remedy some of this by making a dedicated combiner-form card, with sane stats, that allows it to be a part of a team with a couple of smaller bots as backup/support. Doing it this way, we don’t have to worry terribly about super-weak support pieces or incorrectly costed parts being able to slot in elsewhere, and we can make some interesting adjustments with the combiners themselves.
Mind, this is a half-formed idea; there’s still a lot of ground to cover in terms of making this work. But, the basic idea isn’t too far fetched and could open a lot of possibilities!
