Re: Windows 95 & NT Ship Builder

At 12:36 PM 5/28/97 -0700, you wrote:
>>  No, but when he stated that he had already written it in a language
>>that most of the people here could use and that he was now porting it
>>to a less useful (for us as a group) form, it seemed like a step
>>back.  Luckily ship design protrams are pretty easy to write so there
>>are a bunch of them around.  Actually I get the feeling they're not
>>used as much as they might be.
>
>It has always been on my list to complete my JAVA version, the current
>version I have now is an Application, not an Applet.  The only reason
i'm
>creating a Windows version first is to test out my new development
>environment.  
>
>>@:)* A graphic output for the completed ship, in BMP or GIF (GIFs are
>>@:) more web friendly, but I could use the BMPs in my VB4.0 apps).
>>@:) This was originally Eric Fialkowski's suggestion, but it's
>>@:) important enough to bear repeating.
>>
>>  This would be cool but it is VERY HARD.  I'm not sure people are
>>really grasping the hardness factor involved here.  A ship design
>>program is a day's work but this thing would require significantly
>>more effort.	It's not impossible by any means, but it's tough.  Also
>>it might produce ships that only appeal to the tastes of particular
>>people, and not to others.
>>
>
>This is something else I would love to support, and have been thinking
on
>ways to produce the images.  More than likely, you would have to drag
and
>arrange the systems to fit your own needs.  It would be quite easy to
make
>a large number of general hull outlines available.  

Well, mind you, I'm only a dabbler, and I'm not at all familiar with
Delphi's RAD, nor do I know nearly as much Java as I should.  If it was
a
VB application, I would probably use a BMP version of Dr. Tachyon's Ship
Bits and the 3 basic ship templates from the game.  Then, I would have
the
program set areas for the equipment that pertained to a particular
template
and blit the images from Tach's ship bits onto the predefined areas.
Assuming that all the ship bits are the same size (say, 20 x20 pixels),
and
you know where you're grabbing them from and where you're putting them
to,
it shouldn't be TOO impossible.  For example, a 120 x 200 BMP of a
Cruiser
template probably has room for 5-9 mountings: number one would be X
50-70,
Y 20-40, number 2, X 30-50 Y 45-65, number 3, X 70-90 Y 45-65, and so
forth.	If these locations were all stored in an associated hull object,
 A
little additional logic could balance this out some, so that everything
looks more or less symetrical, as well as some safeguards to make sure
that
you don't exceed the max number of mountings for the selected hull type.
Finally, blit in the hull boxes and the thrust, and you're all set.  No,
it's not easy, but not necessarily anything so tough that it outweighs
the
advantages of having such a system.  

Y'know, I might even have to take a crack at this myself....

Take care,

Tre