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[Rii Nagaja]

Hello everyone,
I have made an Excel Sheet that helps you oversee the calculation of KI Techniques and makes it alot easier to play around with the various options to optimize ones vision of a technique with the given rules.
I tried to make this a year before, but failed at the attempt to make it automatically optimizing every cost entry - I had to realize that Excel is fully unable to find results for real multiple solution problems (at least without some fancy VBA-Programming/ but I didn't want to learn that just for this occasion). Additionally Dominus Exxet was announced, so I would probably have had to start over again too (and I just got it two weeks ago).
So this time it is just a selection table, where you can define everything by yourself, but must trust your senses to find the real optimal solution. (how does the brain do that what excel can't, I still wonder..)


The sheet is quite self explanatory and the project is at 100% completition in terms of all the necessary comforts (so I  won't implement major design changes or even just add more space to type or whatever). What I am still pretty sure of however is, that some errors will still occure somewhere in some situation I didn't think of, even though I established crash barriers to at least spare the eye. I tested it of course, but the complexity of such problems will never make the flow of surprises really end I guess. A simple typo in the data sheet can turn a whole calculation to something like ->###<- this. Same with formulas, perfection is needed.
So if you stumble across a strange problem, some numbers dissappear, an obviously not wanted error message (in contrast to the wanted ones.. ), occult symbols, or just something written in the rules that I didn't get right, just report it here (with a screenshot or the saved file at best) and I will see if I can fix it.
You can also report spelling and grammar errors you spot - I am just not fit enough for perfekt inglish writthing.

If you are knowledgeable in Excel however, you can change and manipulate the sheet as much as you want, even post it on other boards, because I don't really care about some strange copyright here. If one doesn't make money with something, there shouldn't be a reason to restrict handy things.


Problems you might have while opening the sheet:
- I made this sheet with Excel 2010 and I am not sure about the downward compatibility here. If something happens, you can report it, but I am not exactly an expert with all the real potential funcionability of excel, so i can't guarantee solutions.
- I also used a small variety of fonts (the eye calculates with you), where I am not sure if they are standard or imported (I happen to run alot of imported fonts). If you get some unreadable results, or the program straightforwardly tells you at the beginning, that it can't read some lines, than report it and I will either change the font or give a link to it if I consider it essential to the style.
- The sheet was made on a 16:9 screen where the full table was exactly in the size of the screen. In the middle of the project I recognized, that if you are using a 4:3 screen you might be a bit disappointed with scrolling or something... . But I don't want to change everything just for that. I would have to change the layout to something totally different otherwise, since the spacing at it is makes totally sense with everything.


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I would totally like to see if this tool can make the creation of KI techniques spread a bit more, because I find the fanwork in this still a bit short. I guess I will make a different thread soon to see if some people here would like to get creative about it, because for me these rules were the thing that initally attracted me to Anima.
I allready transcribed some techniques of Final Fantasy 7, where the limits are actually organized in a way that easlily fits the technique level system of Anima.
I can also forsee Animes like Bleach getting mapped through Anima, where maybe the first weapon transformation is an Ars Magnus for improbable weapons, and the Bankai being the advanced form or a real Ars Magnus depending on situation. This + Techniques.
We will see.

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Link to the sheet (reuploaded):
Anima - Ki Technique Calculator.xlsx





(I tried to upload it here directly, but besides of being inside the file size limit, it just told me the file was too big, and froze my post thereafter.)

[Rii Nagaja]

I've run into problems while downloading my own file, so here is an alternate download link. The one above should still work, but for some reason didn't trigger one time I tested it. Only after I deleted all my cookies and cleaned the cache.

///Edit: The updated link is in the first post.

[Dynaes]

I can't play with it while I'm at work, but this is a great idea.  I will definitely give it some testing and provide feedback.  Thanks for doing this!  I have 2007, so I'll see how it works there.  Assuming no major issues, do you mind if I incorporate it into the excel character creator (that at this point has had several authors/editors, so it's very much a collaborative effort)?  I think it would be a nice addition.

[alphawhelp]

Well I can open the file in Open Office physically but nothing works.  Oh well.

[Rii Nagaja]

Well I can open the file in Open Office physically but nothing works.  Oh well.

As far as I know Excel 2010 extended its limit on possible function per cell and there are some very calculation rich cells. This is why I was concerned it might not be downwards compatible (or even to open office).
If Dynaes should report, that it doesn't work on 2007 either, I would go and see to convert it.

I can't play with it while I'm at work, but this is a great idea.  I will definitely give it some testing and provide feedback.  Thanks for doing this!  I have 2007, so I'll see how it works there.  Assuming no major issues, do you mind if I incorporate it into the excel character creator (that at this point has had several authors/editors, so it's very much a collaborative effort)?  I think it would be a nice addition.

Yes, you can absolutly do that. Be cautious to get the hidden columns and the data sheet.
By the way, it is absolutly possible to multiply the main sheet to have more than one technique. Just the Elemental Binding disadvantage will not automatically be carried over (every higher level technique needs it too after you choose one), so you would have to oversee that by yourself.

[Dynaes]

Seems to work pretty well in 2007.  I didn't find anything I couldn't do.  Some things are a little wonky, but just doing things in a different order made them work.  One example I remember is that the Sustenance dropdown had nothing in it while I was making a level 1 technique.  I changed it to level 2, and I could then choose from there, and when changing it back to level 1, it stuck.  I'm not 100% sure everything was calculating correctly as I haven't spent much time making Ki techniques, but most looked right to me.  Hopefully someone with more expertise can play around a bit to corroborate that.  All-in-all, I think it's a wonderful tool.  Thanks again for putting this together.

[Rii Nagaja]

One example I remember is that the Sustenance dropdown had nothing in it while I was making a level 1 technique.  I changed it to level 2, and I could then choose from there, and when changing it back to level 1, it stuck.

Ok, that was one real error. I packed sustenance and maintenance together and when I restricted sustenances availability to level 2 and 3, I accidently cut off maintenance too.
It is fixed now and I updatet the download.

[Dynaes]

Cool, I figured that might be it.  By the way, I saw your hidden cells that you called The Wake, and literally laughed out loud.  Nice touch.

[Rii Nagaja]

 


// I updated another time because the column for additional KI-Cost with sustenance options got cleaned at sometime and I didn't recognize it. That would be a major issue of course, but is corrected.

// Oh, and another thing, I will have to add another row for maintenance KI distribution, which is still missing and somehow essential (so much for 100% design completition). But it must wait until tomorrow morning.

[Rii Nagaja]

Ok, now with 100% more maintenance. Download is updated.

[Skywatcher]

The sheet is amazing! I did notice that Automatic Transportation has a REF Error. I cannot figure out where to fix it .

[Rii Nagaja]

The sheet is amazing! I did notice that Automatic Transportation has a REF Error. I cannot figure out where to fix it .

Yepp, allready corrected it (a typo in the reference as previously foretold) and some similar errors. I also improved the error correction for the primary effect error and multiplied the sheets by 5, so one can have a classic technique tree.
This still doesn't include the necessity of taking an elemental binding disadvantage to every higher leveled technique (I don't think I will ever do that - I think it is even impossible since the total number of sheets stays open, and excel doesn't like uncertainty).

I will make another update in the next days or so which should correct the problem with adding multiple supernatural states to one technique (at the moment it adds only the KI-Points of the first and ignores the others). That will take some time though and if you don't plan to use supernatural states just this week ( ), you can allready download the version between.

[Rii Nagaja]

Ok, i made the rest happen and corrected errors with Impact and Phantasmal Illusions.
You can now add as much multichoice optional effects (like supernatural states or interruption) as you want and it will be correctly calculated.

I don't know why it took me so long to do it. I was expecting it to be somewhat of an research effort to get this to function, but it was actually so easy, that it hardly took 10 minutes to fix it.

As a standard and a homage to the creation of this sheet, a specially tailored "Science Set" technique tree will now serve as the standard example in the sheet. It demonstrates how it works, it's a joke, ..delete it and put your own ideas in.

[Rii Nagaja]

To leave a directional signal buoy: If there are any updates like error correction or so, I will not upload it here, but instead inside of this sheet where I embed the calculator: http://cipher-studios.com/AnimaBB/index.php?topic=6453.0

The reason is that I did quite an amount of formating in the background there to make copy-paste work for the builder module, and I don't feel like doing it again another place.
I may one day re-extract that calculator again and make it a seperate file so whoever just wanted to create techniques can then live without the 2mb of additional data payload everytime. I will see, just not now. (I would sing the song of procrastination, but I'm too tired)