Just what I wanted to hear! I will pay infinite dollars.

Lightning round! As these questions are a little more involved, it's time to caveat my answers: Singularity is, as you might imagine, still in development--and thus subject to change prior to release. That said, I'll do my best to fill you in on the details: Could Singularity make a character folio? Live at-table use hasn't been a focus of prior Singularity dev efforts (I personally think an iPad/tablet folio would be pretty fantastic...). That said, stats are recalculated pretty darn rapidly, most stats are displayed in the UI already, and if nothing else sheet generation is *fast*. The UI is still running through iterations though, so I wouldn't rule it out. How about table cards (sort of like 4th Edition D&D had, where it organizes things for your character in a card format; sleeve cards, AI cards, identity cards, software cards, sleight cards, et cetera)? Will it be able to handle custom sleights, equipment, rules, or whatnot? In the current build, it does not *by default* have card-formatted output. It does, however, provide full descriptions/stats for most of the stuff belonging to your character on the standard output--so all the data you'd need is present. More importantly, details regarding custom input (homemade slights, gear, morphs, etc) and output (custom character sheets or other outputs) are still being worked, but the final release will likely expose both of these to the saavy user. Will it have these things in a format that could be easily transferred to, say, one of my players' computers with little effort? Definitely--the character file can be saved off and transferred from system to system (and across platforms). Will there be an option for interoperability between my copy and my players' copies? At release, there are no plans for realtime (network, etc) communication between copies of Singularity. Any specifics on the platforms it'll be for (I'm already assuming the big three are covered: Win/Mac/Linux)? Got it in one--we're planning on supporting Windows, OSX, and Linux. Regarding the last, we've been up and running quite nicely on Ubuntu. I'm afraid Commodore 64 users may be out of luck. Is it open source? Will it be on Sourceforge, Github or some other codebase? At release, Singularity will not be open-source. There are long-term considerations for a transition to open-source, but that'll be considered in more detail at a later date. Thanks, by the way, for the interest! Keep them coming. Keep in mind, this isn't a closed feedback loop--suggestions and requests will drive development long after Singularity is released; I'm personally really looking forward to getting this out there for folks to see! Kyle Hankins Snow Dog Labs

Details regarding output formats are still being hammered out, but we expect to eventually release a data description or export feature for character files.

Kyle Hankins wrote:

Will it have these things in a format that could be easily transferred to, say, one of my players' computers with little effort? Definitely--the character file can be saved off and transferred from system to system (and across platforms).

I'm more worried about the optional rules and add-in materials. Will they be stored in a portable format as well, so that I can give my players any houseruled material with relative ease?

Kyle Hankins wrote:

Any specifics on the platforms it'll be for (I'm already assuming the big three are covered: Win/Mac/Linux)? Got it in one--we're planning on supporting Windows, OSX, and Linux. Regarding the last, we've been up and running quite nicely on Ubuntu. I'm afraid Commodore 64 users may be out of luck.

What about Android tablets and iPad? I'm absolutely excited about this, by the way. Especially since you have it running fine on Ubuntu.

mds wrote:

How open is the Singularity file format going to be? Having a canonical format for character data would make creating an interoperable software ecosystem much more viable...

roll20.net just rolled out their API and writing a parser to import a character from a open format would be... well... not trivial, but very possible!

We definitely have Mac/PC interoperability, Clunker! :)

nick012000 wrote:

Kyle: Will the Singularity character generator show the proper COG/INT bonuses from having Drive/Klar Drug Glands (for biomorphs) or Narcoalgorithms (for synthmorphs)?

This is a good question--and the answer falls a little outside the "yes/no" category. ;-) When handling gear in EP, there are a lot of 'grey' areas regarding what should or shouldn't be incorporated into general use-stats; temporary or situational bonuses, for example, are generally left off the sheet's stats (though they would be perfect for a character manager). In my current version of the data, I've taken some liberties--for example, I generally assume Adrenal Boost is always on when it matters, so the boost has been calculated in. By contrast, I've handled consumables as temporary--their bonuses are NOT built in to the stat blocks (though they are listed in the descriptions on the final character sheet). Drug glands are obviously a somewhat special case in that they are implants of a sort--but since they still represent taking a drug, I arbitrarily chose not to build that in. That said, there's nothing in the software preventing a user (or me, if sufficient feedback demands it) from creating a drug gland entry in the data file that DOES add bonuses and penalties in. Singularity supports it!

My game crews are on various level of English impairment ^^ We play in French, using BBE's translation -the official one- Singularity would be really helpful, especially in a French version!

Kyle Hankins wrote:

SO there are two sides to the multi-lingual issue: data translations, and application translations. The initial data offering for Singularity will be English--I can stammer out some (pathetic) attempts at Russian and Japanese, but my French is effectively nonexistent. This does not mean internationalization is out of reach, however. Much of Singularity is handled via data files--these encompass most traits, skills, background, factions, gear, etc. While the main data file may or may not be user-editable, we will have support for user created data files--so at the very minimum, users should be able to create native-language versions of their data, selectable alongside the english equivalent. (If a fan were to provide a French translation of the data, I expect that could be incorporated into a french-focused build, in fact!). That said, there are a number of things that have been built into the UI--both simple things like window titles, and some traits (etc) that have been handled specially (some morph traits, for instance). Internationalizing strings in the UI actually requires changes to the build, so it's unlikely this will be available immediately upon release; however, I'll be flagging these strings for translation in the code, so we may well be able handle that going forward!

Not necessarily a priority, per se, but I might recommend using XML data to retain menu text and the like. This would actually allow the fanbase to do the GUI translations for you, easing a lot of your burden when it comes to localization. Just a thought.

Do we have a timeline currently for the Singularity program? How are Muses, AGI, and AI handled? Under Transhuman you can build them as actual characters and there are some expanded options.. are those going into Singularity? (with all the other source books?) Actually how are Muses representedi n Singularity? If someone wanted a AGI or Uplifted Muse, is there a set up for building one?

My group is likely going to start an EP game sometime this year, so a character sheet management program to match Chummer is something I'm very interested in. Are there any updates on this project?