First some general guidelines:

There are four sheets to the excel sheet. Sheet1, is the actual record sheet that will be printed out and played on. Sheet2 construction sheet. This is where you build the unit. Sheet three is the weapons/equipment list. Sheet four is the ECV calculator. There is also going to be a sheet five which is the basic training record sheet. (once basic training layout is finally hammered out, you will get this also.)

Constructions rules have not been fleshed out all that great and as of now I am going over them more completely. I am going to send to you specific directions for how to fill out each sheet. If anything is confusion (and there will definitely be some) let me know so I can change the text. Justin and I have been doing this for a long time, so we have likely forgotten, or can't even recognize huge gaps of logic that you will need to fill this out.

As you had already guessed construction can be involved, especially if you have a unit you have in mind and you want to tweak it out. Don't worry with practice it gets much easier. But be prepared for those first couple to be a real pain in the tuckuss.

If you are building a historical unit (One that mirrors a real life unit) you can get close but not exact. You have to kind of guess what proportions of armor were used on the tanks. Especially with modern units. The gov has done an excellent job of letting us know in general what the stuff out there can do, but none of the specifics, so we have to do a lot of guessing. Use the Abrams and the Apache's, the T-72 and the Hind as good frames of reference.

For things like rounds of ammunition, for cannon ammunition it can match piece for piece. In things like Machine gun ammo, you have to realize that a six second round is a lot longer burst than these guns are usually used, so you really have to kind of equate what this translates into in the game.

If in these directions I ever sound condescending, it is not done on purpose. I know you are an intelligent person and I don't want to make it sound like I am talking down to you. But sometimes when you want to make a point clear you have to be simplistic to make sure the point is taken correctly.

Also as a backup. I always store a backup copy of the construction spreadsheet somewhere else and write protect it. If anything screws up it will completely render the unit you made worthless. It will wind up too powerful or too weak and will be a break in the game. (IF you don't know how to write protect let me know)

Okay lets begin.

Sheet 3

This is the starting point. As you can see this lists pretty much all the equipment and weapons that are "sanctioned" at this point in the game for modern and future combat. If you are doing WWII units, let me know because some weapons are specific to this era. You will see that slightly to the left of the main column is the special ammo section. Be very careful not to change anything on this page. Many of the pull down lists link directly to these columns which in turn need to match other parts of the spreadsheet.

Lists the Weight and Volume and ECV of the equipment and weapons. Since a change in the way ECV's is now being made, DO NOT fill out the ECV's of weapons or ammunition, targeting computers and batteries when filling out sheet 2.

You may want to go to page layout and change the paper to landscape and print out columns A-Q by highlighting them, hitting print, and clicking the "selection" box, and hitting okay. It's a lot easier to have the list to the side instead of flipping back and forth.

Sheet 2

This is the big one. You will notice in the upper part of this page that there are symbols like these: ">>>" "<<<" "\/\/\/\/\/" "/\/\/\/\/\" all over the place. These generally mean that the line the symbol is pointing to must be filled out. Many of these lines can be adjusted as you go through the text. Most commonly the weight of the unit will be shifted up and down while you construct stuff.

Many of the things on sheet 2 will automatically fill in on the sheet1. This is good because it gives you an idea of how your unit is going to perform.

A matter of weight and measurements.

Shellshock is built around weights rounded to the nearest hundredth of an American short ton, or twenty pounds, and in lengths of tenths of a foot. You will have to convert your ideas into these measurements. Many would say that everything should be done metric since many of the military descriptions are done this way. Well damnit, we are Americans and I guess you are going to be stuck with our pain in the but measuring system. If my president says go metric (And he better be republican), fine we'll convert, till then I'm going to be stubborn. Hell, an inch is just under 1/50th of a cubit, which is God's own measurement, so we may be difficult, but we are closer to what we really ought to be doing in the first place. And that's all I have to say about that.

Following is a list of the cells to fill out. If the purpose of the cell is obvious there will be no description.

When you first pop open the sheet you will warned that there are circular formulas. Just hit cancel and move on.

General Unit information:

A1. Unit name: Don't be trying to be all cool and name your unit "Killer" or Terror King, think of how a military force would name their tanks and such. Don't make up an outlandish name.

b2. Designer
b3. Date
b4. Era you are designing for. Only pick WWII, Modern of Future for now. The other eras can be made, but we have not play tested these eras enough the make sure that they are correct. You can build a unit in the other eras but be prepared to fix them in the future.
b5. Pick Affiliation (future)
b8. Unit type: There is a general description that we have typed up somewhere but it's buried in archives. Just remember that we used logic and physics in this game. A three story tall fighting robot may look impressive, be real maneuverable, but are also real prone to shock attacks.

Here is a short description of some of the more common units.

Tanks: generally the most balanced unit types: Kings of the battlefield.
Walkers: very maneuverable, less heavily armored than tanks. The more legs the more rugged. Dukes of the battlefield.
Helicopters: very fast, very maneuverable, very hard to hit, very fragile. Jesters of the battlefield
Wheeled vehicles: cheap, fast on roads, weak armor, good weapons, can't handle terrain so great.
Hovercraft (ground effect): fragile, fast, clumsy.
Bricks: Toughest of air units, which compared to a tank isn't saying much as all. Brats of the battlefield

b9 Unit weight : You wil constantly be changing this weight while tweaking a unit. You will notice all over the sheet boxes that show how many "Tons Remaining"

b12. speed: This is the max speed of the unit . 1 = 5 miles per hour.
b13. accel
b15. extra kriegs: How much extra power to you want to your unit to create at full speed.
b16. maneuv mod: Extra power into the engine can increase your maneuverability and defense values.
b17. extra rating : Some engines have extra parts of a kreig left over as full speed. You can top it off. A kreig is every full 100 engine rating points

b22. Engine type: General Descriptions.
ICE: (Internal Combustion Engine) tough, and heavy (needs fuel)
Med Altitude Turbine: light, fragile, gas guzzler (used in air units) (needs fuel)
Low Altitude Turbine: same as above but for ground units
Fuel cell: heavy, runs for 8 hours with now fuel, medium tough
Flywheel: medium weight, medium toughness (Centripital, highly efficient mechanical battery)
Fusion: Heavy, lasts for freaking ever.

b23. # engines: ground units use 1, air units can use two. 2 is more efficient use of weight.
b26. Hours of fuel needed
b34. armor points
b35. pen points.
g8. armor chart: Here is where you distribute the armor points. You will see to the above right a box that shows how many points yo have left to distribute. To the right you will also see what percentage of armor has been distributed around the unit.
g16. pen chart: Pretty much ditto for the penetration chart.

b38. pilot/gunner: number of
b39. pilots: number of
b40. gunners: number of
b41. commanders: number of
b42. nav/spotter: number of
b43. loader: number of
b48. gpv: from 0.5 to 5. The higher the number the more maneuverable, but more susecptable to shock.
b51. length <--/
b52. width <--/--|These two are circular. Pick one to change, leave the other alone
b54. Height
b56. clearence

Preset Items: These are items usually found on many of the units.

c70. APU: (Auxilary power unit) creates extra kreigs and type of APU
f71. apu fuel
f72. amphibious bulkheads: lets unit float
f73. unit sealing: lets unit sink and still work. If unit uses an engine that uses fuel, you can't do this.
f74. shock enhancement: Increase shock up to a max of 1/2 of original shock
f75. brake enhancement
f76. bat1: Just put down how many kreigs you want the battery to store.
f77. bat2: Just put down how many kreigs you want the battery to store.
f78. raised wheels: used on 6x6 and 8x8 units. Used so that road ratio will be the same as a 4x4 wheeled unit. Other units that don't have wheels at all can use this also (ie walkers, kind of a cheesy transformer)
f79. NBC (Nuclear, Biological safe Compartment) can be increased, but all modern and future units automatically have this.

d89-d184=weapons/equip: This is where you fill out the weapons and equipment. Group stuff together so it is easy to find things. But everything under ths same turret in the same area. When a filling out a modern and WWII unit, the ammunition for the weapon must be in the same area. So if the ammo is in the turret, you have to count the ammo weight when plugging in the weight of equipment in side the turret. For future units the ammunition can be kept inside the body, so a turret can be lighter.

When you fill out weapons make sure you fill out the weight of the weapon and its' volume. Do not fill in the ECV for weapons or ammunition.

To load a rocket pod or missile, the load onto hard points. You put down the hard point, and fill in the appropriate weight and volume.

Then if you like you can fill in the name of the rocket pod/missile. Instead of putting down the vlue of the rocket pod in the ECV column, you put down the ecv of the rocket pod in the SLECV column. This is where all ecv's of weapons you put on rocket pods go.

c190+ calculators: When you use these calculators, you need to manually type in or copy the information up at the top where you fill out equip/weaps They will not go in automatically.

Notable calculators that you will likely use often:

The turrets: add up all equipment and weaons in this and fill in the box to the left in the "F" column. The 15 in the G column is for how many degrees up and down the turret can travel.

The ammunition bins: The F column is the number of rounds, the G column is the eight of the rounds.

The Autoloader: The F col is for weight of ammo, and the G col is for # of bins. (Since you can place different types of ammo in the same bin, you need separate bins to use different types of ammo. Most cannons needs a loader (see weapons description) if the weight of the ammo weighs less than 0.1 tons, you can use a loader who can pick from up to 5 different bins, or an autoloader. If the ammo weighs more than 0.1 you have to use an autoloader. (or two loaders up to 0.2 tons, can have three loaders)

Crew calculators. The F col is the piloting skill, the G col the gunnery

Targeting Computers: The F col is how many body sections the targeting computer can control (ie, body, left arm, right arm, turret, would be 4.) The G col is how many +'s to the targeting the computer can enhance.

Sheet 1: Filling it out.

TIP/NOTE: The record sheet... This is without a doubt, unfortunately, the worst part about construction. It has been scientifically proven that human beings get bored of a project and loose interest when the project is approximately 75-85% done. Well now that the "construction" part is done, you are at that point. And unfortunately it is at the most tedious stage. But if you want to play with your unit this is what you have to do. I would recommend leaving for a short while, then coming back. I also HIGHLY recommend (read as: Do it or you'll be sorry!) that you do not begin creating another unit until you have finished the first one. By having another unit in the back of your head, you reset your biological lazy clock and are back to about a 30 or 50% which scientifically the most efficient time to work on a project. Lastly, if you have two, three, or more units that are built, just sitting there waiting to be filled out, it will feel like a freaking mountain of stuff, then suddenly it turns into work and stops being fun.

Fortunately much of the record sheet fills itself out. The dVT's, the movements, the armor, the internal percentage and part of the ECV's. It's the speed, manifest and the location chart the you have to do.

The speed section is easy enough. If you have a unit that has a max speed of 12, go down the speed column to the speed of 13, erase across all three rows to make this area blank. If this unit doesn't have a road ratio, just delete all three of these rows down to the end of the sheet.

If the unit does have a road ratio, (this can be seen in a box where the picture would be) go to the row directly beneath the row you just deleted. Highlight the three rows, hit delete to clear the three boxes, then merge the boxes (hit the merge button usually to the right of the justification boxes, looks like a box with a box inside it with the letter "a", or hit [format-cells-alignment-merge cells-ok]) in the next speed line type 13 and the rest of the boxes fill out. Then cut them off and delete to the bottom of the sheet.

In the manifest the description lines are all pull down menus. Pull them down and then you can modify the line as you see fit. Pull down and look at several units and see how we fill them out. Justin has made all the Rebel future unitsand the Abrams, Apache and Blackhawk for Modern. I have made just about every other unit that is out there. You can fallow either of our styles, or create you own. The important thing is that all the information you need to play needs to be there.

If you don't know about cutting and pasting you are going to learn real soon. You may have to move the "Weapons" area down or up for appropriate room on the record sheet. Cut and copy sections at a time. You can temporarily dump stuff to the right of the record sheet. Then "clear" [Edit-clear-All] the area that you want to paste into.

You can not just add rows and columns because this will off set the information on the rest of the sheet.

You will notice that when you fill out the crew that the pull down list begins after the crew section so when you open the pull down you have to go up.

When filling in weapons make sure you put in the d/s/p of all the weapons and fill in the columns.

When you fill out the d/s/p for ramming you will have to highlight it, click format-cells-number and select 2 decimal places. The ramming, kicking and punching damages are in a box on sheet 2 starting at cell G46.

Don't forget to add treads, wheels, rotors etc to the unit. Also don't forget to add sensors and targeting computers.

When done filling out the all the equipment in the manifest, you now have to letter all the equipment in the position "Pos." area. Each piece of equipment needs to have a letter.

Now it's time to fill out the volumes of the equipment in the internal location area.

I would recommend printing out the sheet at this point, really all you need is the manifest are. Go to sheet 2. Beside each of the letters write out what the volume of the piece of equipment is.

General rules for filling out the internal chart:

The volume of the engine is for the total engine volume. If you have picked the unit to have two engines, divide the engine volume by two (round up) and the volume of each engine is the result.

The volume of the chassis, is the volume of the treads, wheels, rotors etc. Tread, wheels and legs, split the volume in two just like the engine.

Add up how much volume you have in the unit. This way you know how many columns you will use. Sheet 2 cell I1 has the total, though sometimes it is slightly incorrect because of the volume of the NNC equipment which some modern units don't use.

There are 100 volumes in a unit.

One entire column must be filled before another column can be used.

There can be now gaps in the internal chart except at the bottom of the chart in only one column.

All crew must be at the very top of the unit. They do not have to be in the same column.

All equipment and weapons must only be in one column and must all be listed together.

The letters of the position can be arranged out of order (with the exception of the crew which must be at top) In general we do not do this for modern units, only for future units. In practice, with the exception of keeping weapons and their ammo in parallel columns, the randomness of the damage generally counters intense attempts at "optimizing" the positions of the equipment as they lay inside the unit.

Sheet 4: Calculating the ECV of the unit.

Where possible this sheet will fill out as much information as possible.

You must fill some cells. I will now list these. You can also find these cells by looking for these symbols "====>" "<====" "/\/\/\/\/\" and "\/\/\/\/\/"

D19-F24: These are the totals of the weapons that can be fired at one time sorted by category.

This will need some explanation. Take all Ballistic weapons and add up their total d/s/p's, do the same for the other weapon types. Do not include weapons that are hung on hardpoints.

Now the grenade launchers are different. Usually there are multiple grenade launchers on a unit. Since they can only fire in pairs, only count one pair fired off. But if you have multiple gunners that can fire the section that contains the grenades add a pair of grenade launchers along with them. But and here is a goofy one, of there is another Indirect weapon that can fire with a grenade launcher, and the combination of the grenade laucher and the weapon, are more powerful than just the pair of grenade launchers, choose the more powerful of the two. What we are trying to get at here is the maximum damage a unit can do in each of the types, in anyone round.

D37: Total tons of ammo. Add all the ammo bins together and put down the weight in tons rounded to the nearest 100th ton.

D40: Kreigs produced, only to be filled out if you weapon uses kreigs for it's weapons, or if the unit is equipped with a smith tube or another device that allows it to share the kreigs that it produces.

D49: The total ecv's of the targeting computers used in the unit.

D52: Tonnage of cargo

D55: Total range. Take the unit at max speed in miles per hour (max speed times 5, remember 1 in speed is equal to 5 miles per hour.), and multiply it times the hours of fuel, or if the engine is a flywheel, fusion, or fuel cell, multiply the max speed in miles per hour times 8.

The total unit ECV will show up at cell A1.