fantastic idea for se5

[dogscoff]

As it is now, each planet has a graphic and description in that little window in the corner when you select the planet. This is fine, but I propose taking it a little further:

Assuming se5 uses a similar system, it would be cool if there was also a built in link to a local file- the file would be in a certain folder and named after the planet (ie "Olontra XII.txt")
If no appropriate file is present, the standard graphic and description would be displayed just as it does in se4. However if the player creates the file "olontra XII.txt" (through the use of a community-built companion program, for example=-) then the contents of the file would be displayed in that corner window instead.

The file in question could use a kind of cut-down html- just understanding the href, img, title, comment and P tags would probably be enough for our purposes. Any tags not recognised should simply be ignored.

With this system, each player could have custom pictures and descriptions for each planet if they wanted. The href function would allow the player to link to a different planet, so clicking on the link in-game would take the player to the other planet. Files with a title tag would use the contents of that tag for the planet's name on the game's map- allowing players to have their own names for planets without revealing them to the enemy- something that has long been requested.

Handy, huh?

Of course the real beauty of it is that the file is stored locally- so different players can have their own notes for each planet. In multiplayer, allies could zip up a wedge of these files and email them to each other as a means of sharing (mis)information. It would also be a handy way of handing over your knowledge about an empire to your PBW replacement.

Imagine the possibility for roleplaying ("this world was ravaged by the Xi-chung in 2407.2, sparked the revolt of 2408"- insert pic of devastated city), for making notes in game ("Sergetti homeworld. 12 CM wep plats and 50 fighters in defence"- insert screencap of combat screen) and also for easing micromanagement ("All warships from this world to be redirected to Byron XII -hyperlink- and colony ships to the eastern borders -hyperlink- methane breathing population to be shipped to Keats VI -hyperlink")
One final advantage of this system is that those players who keep detailed RP websites could copy-paste these files straight onto the web.

And of course players who don't want to use this fantastic feature don't have to bother- no extra micromanagment required- since the game's default descriptions and pics will be there if necessary.

It could even be extended to ships ("Built on Earth, acting captain Commander Lock after death of Captain Blaze-Stout"), stars ("due to goe nova on 2415.3"), fleets ("seasoned campaigners now defending southern borders, survived the battle of Lave with only 2 losses.") or pretty much any other uniquely-named object in the game.

If anyone wants to email this idea to MM (preferably a beta tester or someone with more weight than me, or better yet a whole hoard of eager petitioners) then please do so, because I won't get round to it.

[ May 11, 2004, 07:55: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

[Atrocities]

This is a novel idea.

[Aiken]

1 file per planet is not the best solution - 255 systems * ~10 planet would result in 2500 text files. Probably a compressed database with search capability would be better.

Also it would be difficult to manage this system in the late game, when you have hundreds of planets.

[dogscoff]

1 file per planet is not the best solution - 255 systems * ~10 planet would result in 2500 text files. Probably a compressed database with search capability would be better.

Also it would be difficult to manage this system in the late game, when you have hundreds of planets.

Only if you plan to actually make a file for every single planet. Remember these files would only be created for those planets the player is interested in- the other planets would use the default descriptions and text, which don't seem to cause any storage problems in the current Version of se.

A database would defeat the whole purpose of haveing an easily-edittable and handy format like the one suggested.

However, I agree taht space could become a problem. It would be fantastic if se could automatically detect and decompress zip files- Id' save hundreds of megs on my races folder alone, and it would suit this idea perfectly. That would be the solution I suggest.

[Stone Mill]

Seems like XML may be an applicable file format for indexing something of this nature.

I like the idea... but after all my glorious historical recording of Xiban II, one dopey escort with DUCs can still wipe it away with ease.

[Ed Kolis]

A most excellent idea! That way we could avoid mishaps like the Breen coming from a hot planet and such Also would be a great boon to roleplaying, as the Chozo would definitely be interested when they discover their ancestral home planet of Zebes... RP games in my experience tend to be short on combats, which is a shame, but this gives people something to fight over

Originally posted by dogscoff:
However, I agree taht space could become a problem. It would be fantastic if se could automatically detect and decompress zip files- Id' save hundreds of megs on my races folder alone, and it would suit this idea perfectly. That would be the solution I suggest.

MOO3 did this... except it used zip files renamed to *.mob so you had to rename them before you modified them
What I do to get around this problem is I like to compress my drive... Windows XP has a handy Disk Compression tool which basically zips everything on your drive automagically and transparently, so each of those 48KB ships (they do add up!) only takes up around 3KB!
I wouldn't recommend compressing your drive if you're lacking in the RAM department, though, because the way I understand it is, compression will actually speed up your HDD access on "data-sparse" files like bitmaps and text files because less actual HDD access is required; the data can be uncompressed in RAM. But if you're lacking enough RAM to do the uncompression, it has to use HDD space (virtual memory) and that defeats the whole purpose! (Except the part of saving HDD space on files you don't use often.)Of course that's just my guess as to how it all works

edit: I also like XML, but it does have 2 problems: for one thing, you need those cryptic xmlns and such tags at the beginning, and for another thing, it is very data-sparse, meaning there's not much actual data compared to the number of bytes used in opening and closing tags... no problem with a compressed drive, but if your drive is UNcompressed...

[ May 11, 2004, 17:16: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]