Re:The Digital Battlefield

Michael Carter Llaneza wrote:
>In short, this seems to be screaming for Shockwave. Pity school just
>started and I won't have the time myself....

Shockwave would be ideal for an FT game, especially since the plug-in is
free, widely available, and supports more than just the PC.

>The only system I'm working in right now that could even remotely
>handle something like this is Mac only (for a few more months). And I
>can take time away from a "mission critical" project to play games, but
>not to clamber up yet another learning curve.
>
>As for vector formats, I'd prefer something that produced files that I
>can edit. There is a 2D variant of .dxf, but associating a bitmapped
>counter with a 2d .dxf object calls for serious scripting. EPS ? Nahhh.
>Pict ? You IBM and mainframe types don't have anything that can cope.
>
>Maybe generating a machine-readable list of ships, positions, and
>vectors would be best. That has already been done for pbem maps, albeit
>in Unix. But the file format exists, and I do have a copy somewhere.

If you plan to write a game engine to support this data, it would be
advisable to provide it with only the necessary data such as ship
positions,
stats, etc.  If you plan to use the DXF format, be forewarned that not
all
DXF viewers support the same format.  I have developed apps that use the
most basic form of 2D and 3D DXF and have found a few CAD packages that
croak when they try to load the data.  Also, you will need to decide
whether
you are using left-hand or right-hand geometry, etc.

Someday I would like to make a Web game for FT when time permits and
only
after completing my software tools I've been working on for FT. 
Currently,
I can only test apps for PC and Macs so these two systems would be the
platforms of choice.

Mike Miserendino