Ah, data entry for the 180+ Parts was a nightmare, but it’s finally done, lol. Normally I would’ve just made an edit to the changelog post and called it a day, but I ended up going way off the rails and making a lot of executive decisions that I wanted to explain and justify in a separate post.
Setting aside typos, errors, and straight-up missing Focuses, the big thing for me is that having only two Focuses really limits the ability to search/filter for parts, especially when Stat Boosts and Rolled Stats (i.e. Stats used for ATKs and Stratagems) compete for that space. There are also some rare cases where the Stats for a Part’s Basic ATK and Stratagems are mismatched, which makes choosing the appropriate Focuses difficult. I ended up carving out Stats and such into their own columns, and reprioritizing certain Focuses.
- MEC Stat Focuses were mostly deprecated, since the spreadsheet can already be sorted by one of the Stat Boost columns. Only one that stuck around was Stat Boost in the case of multiple Stat increases since I thought that might be valuable information.
- Element Focuses were entirely deprecated for the same reason. There’s just columns with checkboxes to show what Elements each Part is capable of using.
- Most Status Effect Focuses were deprecated, with the exception of Versatile (can apply 3+ different Effects) and new Free [Effect] Focuses for the handful of Parts that have “Once per Allied Phase, apply [Effect].
- There are also a handful of Basic ATKs that automatically apply Effects; these were termed “Basic [Effect]”.
I could go on, but my core philosophy after stripping out the Focuses with low information content was to determine which effects I would be most disappointed in missing after a search. Movement, Negate, and SYN effects stood out to me as being particularly valuable.
To help make my thought process a little bit more transparent, I added a Focus glossary with this sort of information. Together with the added instruction sheet/cells, I hope to make the sheet a bit easier to handle. That’s also the reason I chose to hide the detailed columns (Basic ATK/Stratagem Stats, Focuses, Elements/Effects), so that the Parts sheet doesn’t look too intimidating. The most important cells for number of parts bought/equipped and the Stat Boosts thereof remain exposed.
Ultimately, it’ll probably be difficult for me personally to “earn back” the time spent on the data entry, but I still think it’s worth it. Hopefully my deviations from the text aren’t received too harshly, haha.
EDIT: Part of it is the divide between the needs of a PDF and the strengths of a spreadsheet. Real estate in a page layout is very valuable. The Part listings could probably be rearranged to have ATK/Stratagem Stats separate. Each MEC does have its potential Elements listed beneath their Stat Focus and Team Focus, but that assumes all of its Parts are taken. So, Elements would probably be better off including in the Part listings themselves. Further, since the costs of most Parts are standardized (10,000c for Squire Parts; 15,000c for the vast majority of Parts, and 20,000c for two-handed Parts and the Gaccha Core), the Part cost could probably be a fair bit smaller if necessary to fit other information.
I took advantage of having a spreadsheet to pack information in a relatively dense space, with some concessions to readability. It was the sort of thing like, “I can, so I ought to”. While it ventures firmly into homebrew territory, I think that having more information empowers the user to make better decisions. The spreadsheet isn’t a replacement for the rulebook, but it provides a good starting point; some Focuses already invite further investigation with their vagueness, e.g. Utility.
I’ll stop rambling now, lol. Turns out I have a lot to say about the game. Hopefully that comes across as enthusiasm and constructive criticism.
