More tools are always welcome, though I personally think making Ufopedia articles is so trivial that using an automatic tool is more hassle than doing it by hand
Making Ufopedia articles is trivial? Hmm. There are ca 400 items in FMP, ca 180 manufacturing entries etc. I personally would need a couple of months to do it by hand.
Pros of the tool:
- you can generate a whole Ufopedia with one click
- you can use any mod combination
- you can use multiple template "themes" (tables, articles etc.)
- some data can be calculated automatically (manufacturing profit, weapon effectiveness, psi-defence, average armor strength etc.)
- you can easily compare two or more items (or units, or ...) in the table view (select the rows and click "show only selected rows")
- you don't need to track the changes and modify ufopedia by hand for each change (simply execute the tool)
- ...
If I was to choose a tool to be created, I'd probably stick with an update on Falko's tools: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,2349.0.html These are immensely useful, but some of them are outdated.
It was intended to be used by gamers (and modders). I play the FMP and i miss the FMP-Ufopedia. In-game Ufopedia has only basic infos (no weapon weights, dropoff, no table view etc.). If i need to find a good item to manufacture for profit, i need to go through all items and compare them. It's annoying.
I have planed a second tool - Ruleset Batch Modifier. You can define the rules to modify the Rule-Files. With this tool you can modify existing mods, e.g.
- increase the armor of the aliens (leave the good armored aliens unchanged and give the weaker aliens better armor (e.g. +50%)).
- replace all weak weapons in deployments with more powerful (this mod can be activated in the late game)
...
As for the sorting stuff, Meridian already did it for OXCE: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.0.html; you may find it helpful.
I have not found the sortable tables in this thread. Not for FMP anyway. Have i missed them somehow?
