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Links & Shared Entries ​

A weapon, rule, or unit is usually defined once and used in many places. Instead of copying the definition, you define it once and point at it with a link.

The real definition is a shared entry. By convention these live under a group called Shared Entries, or in a separate shared library catalogue.

A link is a reference to that definition. The editor shows links in blue text. When the builder loads a link, it pulls in the target's children, profiles, constraints, and rules as if they were written in place.

If you edit a blue (linked) entry, you are editing the shared definition, so the change shows up everywhere that links to it. This is intended, but it catches people out.

A link can still add things of its own:

  • extra child entries, which apply only to that link
  • its own conditions, constraints, and modifiers

A link cannot remove or replace the children that come from the definition.

When you want to override part of a definition ​

The format has no true inheritance, so you cannot link an entry and override a piece of it directly. But some of it needs no workaround at all:

  • A different cost needs no modifier. A link carries its own costs, and a cost set on the link overrides the definition's cost of the same type for that use. This is how one mount definition serves characters who pay different prices: the shared entry supplies the rules and profiles, each character's link supplies the price and category.
  • A link can likewise add its own constraints, conditions, and child entries for that use only.

For the rest:

  • A link's own name field does nothing (inherited legacy behavior from BS): to rename the entry for one use, put a set name modifier on the link.
  • Put a conditional modifier on the link for anything conditional, or for values the link cannot carry directly: changing a characteristic, or hiding an option that comes from the definition.
  • Or split the definition into smaller shared pieces and link only the parts you want, rather than one large entry you wish you could edit.

Library catalogues ​

To share entries across several catalogues, put them in a library catalogue. Marking a catalogue as a library keeps it out of the builder's faction list, so players cannot start an army from it directly.

Other catalogues import a library with a catalogue link. The library's shared entries, profiles, and rules then become linkable from the importing catalogue, which adds its own root links for the pieces it offers. Ticking Import Root Entries on the catalogue link pulls in the library's root entries directly instead.

The rule of thumb for where things live: the game system holds what every catalogue needs (cost types, profile types, categories, forces); a library holds what several factions share; a catalogue holds one faction's content. One direction to keep in mind: when authoring, a library cannot reference specific entries that live in the catalogues importing it; it doesn't know them. At runtime its rules resolve where they are used, so scope- or category-based conditions on a library entry still count the importing roster's selections normally.

Right-click an entry and choose References (the item shows the count); the right-hand panel then lists every place the entry is used, and you can follow a link to jump to its target. The panel shows two lists: structural links, and uses from conditions, constraints, modifiers, and repeats. The reference count on a node includes both, so a rule that mentions an entry counts toward it.