A Ship Generator

[Zortiander]

Hey ladies and gents!

Here is a sneak-preview on how printing is functioning, and how it will look. To give you a forewarning though: I haven't got either the knowledge, nor the time to make decent graphics for the HTML page, so its just plain black & white. If any of you feel they could help out here: feel free.

The following is a preview for the
Simple Template
And here is one for the
Fille out simple template

As you can see, the program merely takes an HTML file as input, searches each line for the keywords (starting with #?) and then fills in the correspondent value, so you will be able to write your own templates as you wish.

For each variable there will be a number of things that can be inserted: the SU & Power Cost, of course, then for things like the warp drive, there will be full lists. As an example: the code will be
#?warp_drive?Type?min_s?av_s?max_s?Injector?Geom?R et?Emb, which will translate into a list containing the columns Warp Drive Type, Minimum Speed and so on. Thus it will remain extremely customizable.

Again a call for any of you who wish to write an HTML template. I will give you the full list of codes then (or just gimme a plain sheet, I'll fill in the codes).

If you want a better look, how such a page can look when finished, go here . Its the status page of my error tracking system and generated with the same principles that I'll use in the STSC.

[Sundowner]

HowDo Zorti'

Still playing with the Beta4, & still having fun, thanks again, so far so good,

Just a quick question though, the printing function you're working on, it will include everything on the ship generator i assume, will you be leaving a few blank spaces so if we print it out we can have a section for custom notes?

Cheers

Sundowner

[Zortiander]

Yeah, I could do that, of course. I was assuming actually that I would just give out a basic template and that ppl would start developing their own sheets.

But I'll keep that in mind. Do you have any specific parts where you would want those notes to be kept? I.e. do you want a free space near warp engines, near propulsion systems in general? Or do you want me to just add a free space at the end labeled "notes"?

And what about colour? Do you all have coloured printers (or can I assume that), so that I should make a nicy little background for the page? In that case, you'd have a B&W template and a coloured template, but would you be interested in it?

[Sundowner]

I'm not too sure about the spaces . A bit at the end for production notes, auxilliary vessel type, etc would be useful, but also a small section after each system would also be useful as you could use it to mark systems that are offline in combat or have extra power allocated.

B&W or colour, either is fine. I print at work anyway & we have all sorts of funky printers

Sundowner

[Zortiander]

@Cmdf. Maddox:
I was searching for pics that I could use as background for my HTML templates (e.g. an engine room as a technical drawing) and background images for the different STSC tabs. Here is a list of what I had in mind, all of it being technical drawings, if possible:

- the engine room, a warp nacelle, a warp core
- same for phasers, weapons bays, etc.
- transporters, tracktor beams

@Sundowner:
All right, sounds good, I'll make it. Any objections / suggestion about the fact that I am going to make two separate sections: one with the SU cost and one with the playing attributes? Do you think they should be together? I intended to separate them, so it would look more RPG like, and not so "manual-tech" like.

[Sundowner]

Seperate SU cost section sounds good, it's something the players will rarely need to refer to,

Thanks loads, i for one appreciate the generator, it's saving a load of time. Thanks again.

Looking fwd to beta5

Sundowner

[Zortiander]

Another upcomming feature of Beta 5: power consumption calculation will be customizable.

A little dev blog here on another upcomming feature of Beta 5, that you might find interesting.

The situation right now
The program makes some assumptions, which can, in some cases, be wrong, and thus the calculation of your ship's power settings is not correct. For instance, the warp drive is supposed to be online in Red Alert and Stealth. Users cannot change this behaviour at all, thus the power allocation table is not really usefull.

Problems arising with current situation
Ships with only one warp core engine and few additional power sources will never have a chance to get into the green range in Red Alert and / or stealth mode, as shield / cloaking power consumption makes it aumtomatically impossible to use the warp engine.
This problem does not exist on high powered ships with two or more warp cores, but very few ships have those, as I udnerstand it.

The new system
You have now an options dialog, prompting you for the setups you want to have for normal, red alert, stealth, reduced power and emergency power settings. You will be able to select your power sources (warp, impulse, auxiliary, emergency) and the systems that should run under these conditions (propulsion (warp, impulse, exotic), weapons (beam, missile), shields, sensors, recreation) etc...
When in MVAM mode, the program will assume that any of the critical systems (warp drives, nav deflectors) etc. that have to be bought separately for each part will be online. Thus if you check the warp engine and you have 3 warp engines allocated, each one will be turned online.
If you will have more than one power system, all of them will be deemed online if you check the corresponding setting. For instance, if you have to warp power cores and you check the warp power option, then both of the cores will be treated as if functioning.
MVAM will still be simply dividing costs and production by 3 for each ship, except for the shield generators, where each one is treated as if 2 sizes smaller.

Thats just my 2 cents for the next release. Printing will be in it, but not very tidy, I must admit I am not that fond of coding HTML, so I rather concentrate on getting the program itself to function better.

[Sundowner]

Thanks Zortiander,

Sat here waiting, harder to decide which wait is worse

Waiting for the Romulan SRM or waiting for the next beta version of the ship generator

Cheers

Sundowner

[Zortiander]

Some more updates:

- added some more verifications of oyur ship (all shields the same etc.)
- added probes
- added type selection for additional ship types (you need to delete old additional ship types though, first, or maybe it won't work- sorry)

If you want Beta 5 without printing its good to go this evening, if you want it with printing, you'll have to wait until next Tuesday (when I'll be back). Its your choice, choose wisely!

[Sundowner]

Originally posted by Zortiander
Some more updates:

- added some more verifications of oyur ship (all shields the same etc.)
- added probes
- added type selection for additional ship types (you need to delete old additional ship types though, first, or maybe it won't work- sorry)

If you want Beta 5 without printing its good to go this evening, if you want it with printing, you'll have to wait until next Tuesday (when I'll be back). Its your choice, choose wisely!

I shall await Beta 5's release on tuesday with paitence, even though it will probably cost me all my fingernails

Cheers Zortiander

Sundowner

[Zortiander]

Hey all!

If you still have fingernails left (Sundowner doesn't I bet), then I can say this: Beta 5 will come tomorrow at evening GMT times, about 19h00 GMT.

And again here is some stuff that I worked on:

<B>Code Cleanings</B>
I cleaned about 1000 lines of code out of the program. That does account for nearly 30% of relevant code (the rest is object declarations and more, I don't count that as its done automatically by Delphi), so on older machines the performance effect should show. Also, if any of you had flickering lists each time you changed something, then this should be fixed, too. It also means that I can track errors in SU & power calculations much more easily now, so if you see any errors, please report them!

<B>Appearance</B>
I changed the way that the labels for power comsumption and SU cost look: when the item is deselcted / there are no items in the list, then the label will be grayed out. If however the item is selected / there are items in the list, then the label will be black fpr SU cost and maroon for power consumption.

<B>Additional Power Labels</B>
In an effort to squeeze more information on the screen and to make the way I calculate power consumption more clear, I have added some more power consumption labels. You can see now i.e. the power needs of your LIfe Support, the sensors etc. . I am still missing that for the operational data, but I don't see how I could squeeze it in, sorry.

<B>Other things added in Beta 5</B>

• Added Probes, so you can have those little helpers with ya
• Auxiliary Vessels now have a specified type
• The custom power calculation
• Some additional ship veryfing / analysing

<B>Planned to be released tomorrow, too</B>

• A simple list of item's power consumption
• Some more help file content

<B>Features that won't make Beta 5</B>

• The printing- takes too much time, sorry
• Finishing the help file- needs to much time, sorry again

<B>Known conversation issues Beta 4 to Beta 5</B>
OK, this is a point that should not be here, but it is, unfortunately. So this is a warning to all of you having toyed with Beta 4:

<B>Delete ALL auxiliary vessels from your ships auxiliary vessel list before opening the file with Beta5.</B>

A nasty bug from Beta 4 makes it impossible for me to take the aux vessel's list from Beta 4 to 5 in any way. So if you try to open a Beta 4 file with aux vessels in Beta 5 you will get multiple conversion errors and the like and you will <B>not</B> be able to delete them in Beta 5.

Apart from that, all files are, as always, back and foreward compatible.

[Zortiander]

BETA 5

Ladies and gentleman, I proudly present to you: Beta 5! Its there, its juicy and its new. Please follow any of the following downloads to get it:

STSC Beta 5 (program only)
Beta 5 (with all sources)
Changes.txt

The sources are for Delphi Professional 7 and you will need the Jedi and Indy modules in order for it all to function. (Latest versions of both).

<B>Important Changes</B>
For once all the things that I mentioned in my previous posts. I also managed to include the power usings list. As stated before, <B>delete all auxiliary vessels with Beta 4 ere using Beta 5</B> or it <B>will not work at all</B> and you will not be able to delete the auxiliary vessels with Beta 5.

<B>An outlook to Beta 6</B>
I coded some more today (as you can imagine, now that exams are over), but the things didn't make it into Beta 5, because they are still experimental and not fully coded:

• Total overhaul of the help system
• Some changes to the printing system
• Additional personalisation of the power calcs
• Race dependant SU costs (i.e. bridge for Klingons = size*5)

As I am going on vacation on Friday, expect Beta 6 to come out until Friday, probably on Friday.

<B>Known issues</B>

• Printing is not finished, though the options exists
• Printing only takes "zortbasic.html" as template, nothing else
• Positions for auxiliary windows (analyser / power use list) are not saved (damn!)
• If your res is below 1600x1200 you don't see all windows, except if you relocate them (will be fixed soon)

<B>Last notes</B>
As always any feedback is greatly appreciated (and thanks Sundowner for that, <B>A LOT</B>).
I'd also still love some images as detailed two posts ago I think.
If anyone would be willing to do a printing template, I'd love it, too. Some ideas for it are in the current edition.

[Sundowner]

Hey Zortiander,

Just downloaded Beta5, fingernails can start growing again,

I'll have a play over next few days. Thanks loads

Sundowner

[Sundowner]

Heya Zortiander

I've been playing with beta five, looking good, thanks. If i may, i've a couple of queries.

When selecting phasers, i get an error – 'wrong conversion' – also when selecting any phaser option. Am i doing something wrong, or is this a glitch?

Also, when you change ship size (if your over SU's) your SIF selections vanish.



Thanks again

Sundowner

[Zortiander]

Yeah, got those two things. Sorry if you'll have to wait for the fix till after the week-end, but I'm rather busy right now.

The phase is easily fixed, the SIF will take more time. Basically its just a conversion error in the first case (he doesn't understant floating point there) and a commodity problem for the SIF dating from Beta 1 (the SU cost changes with ship size, and has to be recalculated), but I'll fix it.

Any other issues yet?