Could anyone use a design analyzer?

[Ed Kolis]

Say, I had a thought... what if there were a program to analyze your ship designs - you select all the components you want before going to the Design window and entering your final design, and it gives you a report of all kinds of stuff, much more detailed than the design window does - chance for a shot to penetrate leaky armor, projected maintenance cost, combat speed, average/peak damage inflicted by weapons per turn, refueling range, and other such miscellanea. Or you can use it on known enemy designs (too bad you can't export them from the game as text files http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif ) since the game's view of enemy designs is even less detailed than the view of your own designs - you can't even see how many movement points there are!

So would anyone find this kind of program useful? If so I'll try to continue working on it... not at work though, I shouldn't even be posting on this forum now but I just can't focus on my work right now without thinking of SE4 or something!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

[Alneyan]

I would find an use to such a tool, especially if including the following data: hitpoints of the ship (can you tell I am too lazy to launch the simulator every time for every single ship in my armada?) and the value for 150% of its total cost. (Same reason here, but this time with retrofitting) So in short, I will use it if you make this program, as it would make checking known designs less of a problem.

[Tampa_Gamer]

If it works, might not be a bad idea to send it off to Aaron. It would be great if the AI used some sort of analyzer for its designs.

_TG

[Ed Kolis]

Glad to hear people are interested... now keep bugging me, otherwise it'll never get done! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Alneyan, what do you mean by "value for 150% of its total cost?"

[Baron Munchausen]

What would be really useful is a program that loads and analyzes AI-design creation files, letting you make global changes to all ships of a given class (all attack ships, all cargo ship, etc.) and save them to the file. This would dramatically ease the process of tweaking AIs.

[ May 21, 2004, 23:19: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Tally up the costs for all three resources, and add 50% more.

This is an important number since you can only retrofit the ship to designs which have a lower cost than that.

It would be really really neat if you could have it generate an SE4-style graphical result too...
Something like I did for these ships:
http://www.geocities.com/hohoho611ca/ships.html#ubernaught2

Manually counting component abilities and drawing those with MS paint was a chore, but it turned out so nice.

[ May 21, 2004, 23:40: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Iansidious]

Get too working MAGGOT!! You will work to death you have to! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Just a friendly NAG. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Fyron]

Manually counting component abilities and drawing those with MS paint was a chore, but it turned out so nice. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is why you use screen captures... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[narf poit chez BOOM]

*Nag* http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Phoenix-D]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana"> Manually counting component abilities and drawing those with MS paint was a chore, but it turned out so nice. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is why you use screen captures... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">He did. However if you'll notice there are several aspects of that image that SE4 just won't do. Hence the editing..

[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... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

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??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif )
-Not really needed either, but converting to/from XML would be fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

@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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif ) 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! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[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 <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

(but what if a Drushocka wanted to read the file? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif )

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...

[Ed Kolis]

Now, if I just knew how to send mouse clicks to another application so I can write a superior ship design interface where you can use spin-buttons to select the # of a component (like in MOO2)... and then send all the mouse clicks to SE4 to create the design in-game without having to click on "Plasma Projection Armor" 750 times and breaking my mouse (not to mention my finger!)

Hmm, I'm sitting here at work with nothing to do, THAT sounds like something I could do a little research in the MSDN library on... it might even have an application to something work-related someday! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[Parasite]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
... and then send all the mouse clicks to SE4... it might even have an application to something work-related someday! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">A friend uses a program called "Winrunner", by "Mercury interactive". It is not anywhere near cheap, but you could possibly write scripts to have Winrunner enter data (mouseclicks) into SEIV. It is a testing software, but can be used in a Datadriver mode for scripts.

This hint might lead to another better application for your use.


Also if you have a Stylesheet for your XML, it could very easily be readable to normal people.

[ May 25, 2004, 19:01: Message edited by: Parasite ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Good idea... I was going to do XML, but I could always make it even more human-readable http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

(but what if a Drushocka wanted to read the file? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif )

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... <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If they're the exact same name for the same size hull, its probably a very silly mod.
Just use the first matching mount...

As for druk, we don't want them learning our secrets anyways...

[ May 25, 2004, 19:17: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Ed Kolis]

Where did we ever get the name "druk" for Drushocka anyway? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

I will look into stylesheets... I don't know that much about XML to begin with, but I'll be here at work for another half hour with no assignment at the moment and some programming books and the whole WWW handy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Ed Kolis]

Status report: sorry I haven't been working on this much, but I have written code to load VehicleSize.txt into memory! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Next up: Components.txt...

[Ed Kolis]

Status report: I found some more free time to work on the program, so now it can read Components.txt! Next up is the ship design GUI, or maybe a class to hold a ship design... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

Where did we ever get the name "druk" for Drushocka anyway? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Drushocka
Dru....k.

[Combat Wombat]

Keep up the good work!