Advice on where to start and steps to take

[Ahkmed]

I have not worked with database in a long time and am going to be using quite a few tutorials to relearn. However, I am unsure and unable to find a good example of what order to do things in. Here is a breakdown of what I am trying to accomplish, maybe someone else has done this and I missed it.

I am trying to create a ship creation sheet that is similar to most people would call a character sheet. I attempted to do it in Google sheets but was unable to make a dropdown selection populate a cell with another dropdown box. But the basic process would be to select a ship for the first option. that would enable other options related to that specific ship including; weapons, fixed components, and internal components. Of course all of these options come in different sizes and grades/quality. As I try to explain this, I am getting confused as to how to explain it.

Pick ship->
weapon options->size->specific weapon
fixed components->size->grade
internal components->specific component->size->grade

All of these have statistics for power, damage, effects, etc. that will need to be pulled to populate a form that would be nice if it could be printed or saved for future reference or changes.

Here is link to a folder with my google sheet information in it and a copy of what I am aiming for as a final project. Again, I am looking for a working roadmap for this project, so I can do the steps in the proper order to give me the best chance of success.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

[UnklDonald418]

There are numerous good books on database design but I can't say I have a favorite to recommend. Use whatever is easily available to you.

If you want to implement your database in Base with the built in HSQL back end then a bit of advice.
If you choose to use the Embedded HSQL be sure to adhere to a strict backup regimen. Embedded databases have everything (tables, queries, forms, reports plus a copy of a 16 year old HSQL database engine) all packed into a single Zip archive ( .odb file) which makes it susceptible to data corruption, so a strict archival backup is essential. If you are planning on implementing it on a laptop computer I recommend not using an Embedded database. Corrupt .odb files often result from the user closing the laptop before the data has been saved to the storage media.
That problem can be minimized by using a split (JDBC) database where the tables and a more recent database engine are stored outside the odb file.
viewtopic.php?t=61183
The biggest issue with this split option is that the table design GUI is compromised, so table design and maintenance is best done using SQL commands. This tutorial demonstrates how that is done.
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ima ... torial.pdf
It includes a short discussion of data normalization.