Updating Mid's for I:16

Hello, and welcome to Kranik’s guide to adding Radiation Blast to the list of Blaster primaries!*

I: Introductions.
II: Eleven Steps
II: Assorted notes, thank you’s and closing.

.::Introductions::.
Since Mid's hasn't been updated since Dec. 2nd of 2008 many of us have come to the conclusion that we are on our when it comes to applying such updates. And while it may seem like an impossible task fret not! It’s a rather simple undertaking, accomplished in 11 easy steps.

*It is important that I stress that these same steps can be adapted to work for any power set you may want to add to an AT that currently doesn’t have it. The original version of this guide inspired many people to make their Mid’s Hero Designer I:16 ready, with all the proliferated sets added and ready for when it hits test server!

Now that all the formalities are out of the way let’s get on to the actual process shall we?

.::Eleven Steps::.

Step 1: Open Mid's Hero Designer, click "Options" from the Menu Bar, hover over "Advanced" (The second to last option from the list), and then select the "Database Editor" option.
<ul type="square">[*]Our first step is a simple one, and allows us access to the pop up window where the inner workings of Mid's Hero Designer. From here we can begin the real work.[/list]Step 2: Click the "Main Database Editor" button in the pop-up menu that appears (It's the first button in the list).
<ul type="square">[*]This step will open up the Power Database Editor in a new window. There should be three separate columns in this window. The far left showing a long list of the various archetypes, broken into twos by their primary and secondary, the middle showing the power sets available in the selected group, and the third showing the powers available in the selected power set.[/list]Step 3: Click on the group named "Blaster_Ranged" in the far left column then click the "Add" button at the bottom of the second column.
<ul type="square">[*]This step should change what is displayed in the second column to the available primaries for Blasters. The second part of the step will open up yet another pop-up window with an empty form that will serve as the start of our new power set.[/list]Step 4: Input the basic information of the power set into the newly opened form.
<ul type="square">[*]This step is the longest step in the process, but is also the easiest one. The best way to explain what to do is to show you. Click the link below and fill in the fields as shown in the screenshot.

Mid's Power set Editor

You'll notice that there is an icon selected for the set. You can insert the same one by clicking the "Select Icon" button then typing "RadiationBlast.png" into the file name field then pressing "Open". It will automatically be added into the field.[/list]Step 5: Click "Ok", click "Ok" in the error message pop-up, click the "Save &amp; Close" button in the lower right hand corner of the Power Database Browser, close the Database Editor menu, and then exit out of Mid's Hero Designer.
<ul type="square">[*]This is one of the most important steps in the process.

For some reason or another Mid's Hero Designer doesn't like naming new sets. You can toss in any name you want and it will always be invalid; however, it does add in the set, it just doesn't look like it. After this step you should now have a destination for all the Radiation Blast powers you'll have to copy in.[/list]Step 6: Repeat steps 1 and 2.
Step 7: Click on the group named "Blaster_Ranged" and click set named "Radiation Blast" in the second column.
<ul type="square">[*]This step will display the powers in our new Radiation Blast set in the far right column of the Power Database Browser, which for now is zero.

You will notice that, unlike the rest of the primaries, our new Radiation Blast one doesn't have a name under the "Set" classification; this is the result of the "Invalid Name" error we received in step 5.[/list]Step 8: In the far left column click the "Defender_Ranged" group, then in the middle column click the "Radiation_Blast" set. Click the "Neutrino_Bolt" power in the far right column, then select the "Edit" button at the bottom of the third column. Click the “Copy” button at the bottom of the Power Information Window, and close the window. Select “Blaster_Ranged” in the far left column, then select the “Radiation Blast” power set in the middle column. Finally, click the “Add” button in the far right column.
<ul type="square">[*]Steps 1-7 provided us with an empty power set, steps 8-110 will provide us with the powers for said set.

This step is a lot quicker than it looks in writing. You’re basically going into a current iteration of the Radiation Blast set and copying the first power from it for use in our new one. Overall it should take you less than 3 minutes to do this step. Step 9 finishes the process we started in this step.[/list]Step 9: Click the “Paste” button at the bottom of the Power Information window, and then edit the “Group” and “Set Name” drop down menus. Once both the fields have been edited click “Ok” at the bottom of the Power Information window.
<ul type="square">[*]When you paste in the info the database will fill in every field in the Power Information window except the “Group” and “Set Name” fields. You’ll have to fill these in on your own, but fear not, I’ll tell you what to put.

The Group field should read “Blaster_Ranged”, and the option can be selected using the field’s drop down menu (It’ll be the second option on the list). The Set Name drop down window on the other hand, doesn’t work. You must manually type “Radiation_Blast” into the field; once this is done click “Ok”. If you check out the far right column you’ll notice that Neutrino Bolt is now listed in the Power Database Browser in the Radiation Blast set.[/list]Step 10: Head back to the Defender list using the process outlined in Step 8, and copy the next power in the list into the Blaster Radiation Blast set using the process outlined in steps 8 and 9; however, before you finish step 9 click on the Power Attributes tab and locate the “Level Available” field. Change the number present here so it reflects that of a primary power set (Defender’s Radiation Blast is a secondary set).
<ul type="square">[*]Step 10 will take you a little bit of time. This is because you’re repeating steps 8 and 9 for the other 8 powers in the set. However, Once you are done will that you’ll have all the powers added to your Radiation Blast power set, and you’ll just need to save everything and restart Mid’s to have the changes take effect.

You may ask at this point or earlier on even, why we used the Defender secondary as opposed to the Corruptor primary. The reason behind this is two-fold. A) I forgot that Corruptors have Radiation Blast, B) When you perform steps 8-10 with the Corruptor set your Blaster will have Scourge info for all his/her powers. I figured it’d be easier to change the levels on 8 powers than it would be to deal with tons of folks suddenly wondering why their Blaster gained Scourge.

You may also be wondering if the numbers for your powers are accurate since you ported over the Defender versions of the powers. I wondered this too, but when you copy over the powers they are automatically modified, by the database, so they use the Blaster Scalars (Scales). You can check this by linking a power from the set in-game and then changing it to show the numbers when used by a level 50 Blaster. They should be identical.[/list]Step 11: Save &amp; Close the Power Database Browser, close the Database Editor, and close Mid’s Hero Designer. Reopen Mid’s Hero Designer, start a new Blaster build and you’ll find Radiation Blast as an option for you to use as a primary for your Blasters from now on!

.::Assorted Note, Thank You's and Closing::.

Here are some assorted notes for using Mid’s after all the database editing in no particular order (Nothing too bad, I promise you):

1)It was discovered not too long after someone posted a build they made in Mid’s after using this method that the datalink feature doesn’t work with the changes to the database. It loads the build, shoots up an “Unhandled Exception” error that will not go away no matter how many times you press continue. Now I’m not entirely sure what causes this behavior, but I have a couple ideas that I’ll run through to see if I can pinpoint a cause and when I do I’ll post what I find here!

2)If you happen to be slightly OCD or extremely orderly and would like your sets to appear in alphabetical order in both the database and the Primary drop down menu all you have to do is use the “Up” and “Down” buttons. It is recommend that you do this at the end of the process as to not run the risk of clicking the wrong set and possibly frustrating yourself, ideally right after you add in the ninth power and before you save and close everything.

3)It was reported that there were issues with Taunt when making Claws a possibility for Brutes. I personally attempted to replicate the reported problem (The builder shows Taunt as unselected as a power choice even when it is, and being able to create a Brute with Taunt as all its power choices from level 12 on), and couldn’t do it. If you run into any funky behavior with Taunt and Claws Brutes let me know EXACTLY what is going on, otherwise I’m not much help in fixing it. PMs or posts will be perfect. And I’ll add you to the list of thank you’s a thousand times over.

4)Quick request: If anyone finds a way to make the set name not invalid from step 4 I will greatly appreciate it. I have a hunch that that is part of the problem with issue 1 of this list. Shoot me a PM if you find something, and if it turns out to fix it I will definitely toss you on the Thank You list.

5)It was asked once but I figured I’d comment on it anyways: When deciding between Brute Electric Armor or Stalker Electric Armor as your palette for making Scrapper Electric Armor pick the Brute flavor! The Stalker one features Hide which Scrappers don’t get.

.:Thank You’s:.
Big thank you goes out to Kheldarn for all the help they provided by discovering issues 1 and 3, and reminding me of note 2. It was a big help.

.:Closing:.
If you have any questions feel free to ask, and I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities. If something doesn't work (Although everything should, I ran through the steps as I wrote this up), please let me know what step failed and I'll try to resolve it as soon as possible. If you have any comments for changes to the process go ahead and tell me those too! This is our tool, and as such I think we should all have a hand in keeping it up to date. Happy Building!

This guide is tasty, and wunnerful!

I think a big part of the problems comes from something in the source code. Mids' mentioned that there were problems with the current version of the DB editor, so I'm guessing that's the cause. Hopefully, Steiner will have the problem fixed in the next release of Mids'.

One of the great things about this guide is that you can use it to add ANY powersets. Wanna see how the numbers would look for an Energy Melee/Stone Armor Scrapper? Add the sets! Wanna see drool about maybe one day having a Dark/Dark Defender with access to the Ghost Widow Patron Pool? Make a new Epic named Defender_Soul_Mastery, and copy the data from the Corruptor version! You can even use the Up &amp; Down buttons to sort the powerset listings to any order you desire! Move the most used pools to the top of the list, and the first 4 will be there as the default pool options!

Just... don't make the mistake I made: Don't Delete Stuff You Added If You Have A Character Opened Using The Custom Stuff!

I was testing something, and made a character using the custom stuff. Didn't work, so I went to delete it. Since you have to close and restart Mids', it tried to find the data for the last loaded build. That data was gone, so Mids' crashed. I had to go into my Save Builds folder, and click a build there, making Mids' open that. &gt;_&lt;

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Biggest Troll on the forums? I'll give you a hint:

What kind of blaster did you solo the ITF with? lolz forum purge priorities.

&lt;/offtopic&gt;

Hahahaha! A Fire/Fire/Cold Blaster : )

Best guide evaR!!!! Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

You are very welcome!

First of all, thank you for this guide. I remember porting sets over a while back before the program became this complicated, and have been looking for a way to do it again.
I've followed this guide to port Electric Melee to tanks, and it works like a charm, but for some reason my Luck of the Gambler +7.5 Rech IOs now are giving 7 Knockback protection instead of recharge. I never went into any editor other than the Main Database Editor during porting. Though I've since opened other editors to see if I can fix it myself, I'm totally lost as to what I'm supposed to do to fix it.

Why thank you Champ.

Champ is right, I wrote this up in July, only after I finished did I even hear that Mid's had been picked back up on the coding side. I also heard it turned into a jumbled mess and was worse than the current, unupdated version (Like when bases were rehashed). This guide is going to serve as a hold over until Steiner helps us all out.


Ryxx, sorry it took awhile to get back to you. Did you figure out the issue? I'm not sure what would cause it myself...

actually no, but it seems to have worked itself back out.. which is really weird. My enhancements and set bonuses are all back to normal. Did I mention basilisk's gaze's mez protection switched to 5% recharge. So frustrating.

I couldn't say why it was fixed, and I didn't do any more database editing after that, I guess restarting it a few times just sort of ... fixed it. *shrug

Drats... just finished fiddling with Mid's to work with the 5yr vet reward for travel powers... pick just the travel power itself at level 6, without having to also pick the preliminary power in the set. I'm pausing before making all these I16 changes. Any update on when Mid's predicts their own I16 changes will show up?