Could anyone use a design analyzer?

[Suicide Junkie]

You may notice the armor count, the defense bonuses, the regeneration rates, and so on.

[Ed Kolis]

OK, nagging people, I do have a status report:

I've written the code to load up the CompEnhancement.txt. However, it doesn't seem to be working right, as nothing is actually loading. On the plus side, it doesn't actually crash... most likely there's an error in my parsing code and it's thinking it's reached the end of the file like Se4 always does...

Todo list:
-Fix CompEnhancement.txt loader
-Write VehicleSize.txt loader
-Write Components.txt loader
-Write ship design interface
-Write report generator
-Write ship design loader/saver (You don't want to reenter all those enemy designs by hand each time you load your game do you??? )
-Not really needed either, but converting to/from XML would be fun

[Suicide Junkie]

Did you mention what language you are using?

If its any form of BASIC, grab my SE4 functions module:
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE4/Tools

Lots of great stuff there to simplify the reading and editing of the text file lines.

Get/set/add/multiple/exponent the nth value after the ":="
boolean fileExists(filename) too

[Atrocities]

Well you know, we could build a ship library containing every possible combination and do our own testing to see which combination is the best for which size.

Set up the designs, screen cap them, cut and paste along with a description and how they faired.

[Ed Kolis]

@Atrocities: Well my program wouldn't tell you which design is "best" - that depends on the situation! - but it would tell you all kinds of detailed statistics about the ship design

@SJ: I'm using C#, and yes, I have your code, but I'm a perfectionist and have to do everything object oriented so I'm doing it myself

[Kana]

A ship library would be kinda neat....I'm sure most combinations of ships have been tried...but it would be interesting if someone designed someting you hadn't considered...

Kana

[Ed Kolis]

Status report: Weapon mounts (at least the stock ones, haven't tested any with any optional fields in them ) are successfully being loaded from CompEnhancement.txt; next on the list will probably be loading the hull sizes and components - and after that, I can REALLY get started!

[Karibu]

Originally posted by Kana:
A ship library would be kinda neat....I'm sure most combinations of ships have been tried...but it would be interesting if someone designed someting you hadn't considered...

Kana

Actually, I don't think most (possible) combinations are tried, yet most sensible ones propably are tried. Most combinations are ineffective or just plain useless, ie. a ship loaded with only armor and necessary ship control and engines. Or ship with all defence troops or a ship with all Shield depleters and nothing more, etc.

Sure there are combinations I haven't thought at, but how to organize such library only to include effective and inventive models? And who would do it? Who would make the decision which model is inventive instead of stupid? Considering how many combinations you can make only make using 2 weapons and 5 different mounts, it is stunning one (also to take notice the firing order, ie. weapon order in the ship). There are also valid reasons not to use always the biggest available mount (cost ie. building time and damage/weapon tonnage)

[Suicide Junkie]

What would be good is to have a Human-readable format for importing/exporting ship designs
EG:

{name}
{size}
{m mountname}{component list} {x multiplier}

Ubernaught Attack Ship
Light Worldship
Bridge
Life Support {x 10}
Crew Quarters {x 10}
Plasma Projection Armor V {x 750}
Phased Shield Generator V {x 25}
{m Planetary Core Mount}Ripper Beam IV {x 5}

Something nice that you can move directly to and from message Boards and just toss into the program easily.

[Ed Kolis]

Good idea... I was going to do XML, but I could always make it even more human-readable

(but what if a Drushocka wanted to read the file? )

Problem is, for importing, you can have multiple mounts or components with the same name, even for the same hull type... so this would have to be an export format only, otherwise the program wouldn't know which one to use if there was a duplicate...