Re: Re:The Digital Battlefield

[ Re-sending this, because it seems to have bouced the first time]

> >>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.

> How about settleing on a format, then getting enough programers around
> to
> write the "game" for the different platforms....Unix, windows 95/3.1,
Dos, > 
> > ect.

> First work out what the program must do, break this into subsections,
and
> then write each subsection for each machine.

> Just an idea...

Ok, here's the format I used for ftmap (developed for Mark's most recent
B5 
game)

Firstly, there're some lines describing the map in this order

1) Title
2) Background gif filename or "-" to use a black background
3) course trails flag ( 1 == draw them, 0 == don't draw them )
4) min x co-ord (in game units)
5) min y co-ord (")
6) max x co-ord (")
7) max y co-ord (")
8) number of pixels per game unit

Then there are a series of sections defining the available ship classes

1) The class name
2) The file name of the gif used for the class (pointing in direction 1)
3) Scale factor for displaying the gif 
4) Legend flag ( 1==list class in legend, 0==don't list class in legend)

This is repeated for each class, with a line containing a single *
indicating
that there are no more classes.

After the * line there are a series of sections describing each ship:

1) Ship Name
2) Ship Class name (must exactly match a class name from above)
3) x co-ord
4) y co-ord
5) ship heading (1->12)
6) ship facing (1->12)
7) ship speed
8) the ammount the heading has changed by ( +12 -> -12 )

This is repeated for each ship, with a line containing a single *
indicating
that there are no more ships.

Notes:
- Although I say "ships" in the above, it works just as well for
fighters.
- For normal FT, ships will have the same values of heading and 
  facing. Fighters can have diferent values, and the "real" thrust rules
  would allow ships to also have different values.
- This format could be extended to include things like the ammount of
damage
  taken by each ship.
- You could use this to display Narn energy mines, as ships with speed
zero
  and a .gif of an explosion - although you'ld have to rely on the
plotting 
program
  drawing things in the order specified in the file, so that they
wouldn't 
obsure
  any of the ships.

Is this the sort of thing you were thinking of ?

Alun.