First of all: Happy new year to all and especially to our great Aprone!

I've been struggling with an idea last night. And i am totaly splitted!
One part of me is of the opinion that one fact would spoil the original concept of this project too much.
But the other part of me likes this idea very much!
I will post it and i will come to a little offtopic question.

OK, here is the idea:
What if you could have access to a certain card in your deck by pressing f1 for example.
I will try to explain the derivation:
There is one normal random picked card which tells you, that one of your crewman asks if he is alowed to specify in Tactical technics. After you selected "OK" a new card will be added in your deck. This card alowes the player to set to manipulate the shieldpower or weaponstrength.
Aaand, thats the main point, you can activate the card with the f1 key as long your special weapons-technics-officer is alife. Sure he can die. Thats a nother random-event card, haha.
The important question is: Will this key-assignment spoil the game-concept too much?
In my opinion yes. So this post brings me more to another question.
Aprone: Would you maybe like to create another game-creator-engine? It would still be based on more random events and selecting decisions. But the main part would be a little bit more complex in case of controlling?
For example you could try to mix in this cards-concept plus dices and maybe a Board?

The point is: I dont want to push your DD-Engine too much out of the track.
I see the scripting-language and ask my self how high we can go with this and still keep it simple.
Hope you get my point!
Realy! This is only a little mindgame!

Again: Best wishes for all of us and a great 2019!

Keithwipf1 I really like that idea!  I'll be sure to add that feature in, for sure.

Firefly, for your first suggestion, I believe I have a way to handle that.  Currently you can assign custom keys to have messages, but with a little bit of tweaking I can have the custom keys support scripts just like the cards and free-floating scripts do.  This would mean you could create the same idea you've described, by using scripts.  For example, use a temporary variable $x (this will all be easier when I add support for longer variable names) and lets say it gets equal to 1 when the officer is allowed to "specify tactical techniques".  The key is set with scripts [OnlyIf$x=1][Add=Tactical][NextCard=Tactical][$x=0].
This means the key now causes a new card to be added, and to pop up next.  The variable resets to zero so the key can't be pressed repeatedly to keep getting the new card.  I'm not sure this 100% works for what you were thinking, but it would be pretty close.

The second idea, of me creating a game creator focused more on board games and dice, definitely got me thinking.  I had started on one of these a while back, but the code got set down and abandoned (like 95% of everything I work on, haha), and I went back to find it in my old backups.  It turns out I last worked on it in October of 2016, Yikes!  Time flies.

Anyway, I agree that the scripting language Dynamic Deck uses would probably work pretty well in it, so I've already started playing around gutting out this old code and seeing how much of this I can get running.  I'm not saying for sure I'll have anything for you guys with this board game maker idea, but you've at least inspired me enough to be looking into it.

At dinner I was talking with my wife about the old board game maker project, and wondering how many of the old ideas would work out better now that I have a few different ways I'd approach the design.  It's been fun to think about.

Hi Aprone!
I got a little question:
Could you add the syntax to create automatically changing variables after each card?
I will try to explain it:
The ship is consuming a certain amount of energy and the crew is consuming food after every round?, turn?, card.
I dont want to specify that calculation on each cards action.
Would this syntax be OK for your concept?

If Firefly is wanting multiple scripts to happen on each card, then Keith, I would imagine your solution would work quite well.  If however Firefly is only wanting 1 thing to happen (like just [$p-1] or something) on each card, then the solution is actually just as much work as him doing it the long way.  Without knowing which way you are thinking of doing this, I guess we can't really know if that would help.

I think I understand the main request you are making Firefly, which is to just have some sort of Free floating script command that will execute every time a card is played, no matter what.  I do like this idea, and I will write it down so I don't forget.  I've not added anything to the Dynamic Deck lately because I've been trying to add in board game support.  Actually I'm still trying to figure out if this board game stuff I've been adding needs to be it's own separate game engine, of if I can keep them bundled together.  So stuff is still happening behind the scenes, I just haven't been at a point where I could upload any new version for you guys yet.  But yeah, I'll write this idea down for sure, and in the mean time I guess copying and pasting the calculation onto each card is probably the only way.

If I wasn't going to be out of the house all day, I'd actually try to cram such a feature into the engine for you today, just so you can move forward with your game without wasting any time on a slower way.  Sorry man, but I don't even think I'll be home until like midnight tonight.

Another creative gem.  I hope folks find the time to write some blasts.