Web play aids

[OneMadOgre]

Complete rebuild still moving forward. I had some challenges understanding how to do some of the modeling for entity first, but I'm past that now.

Wrapping up the random universe generator. Then on to the shipyard functionality.

[OneMadOgre]

So, while I should be working on my fleet construction, I really wanted to figure out what I was doing wrong with some of the MVC modelling. That part is worked out. This is the new adaptive web design. Map isn't properly resizing on media viewport resize yet.

But the random creation and placement of stars is working like I'd like.

starmap-final.png (132.47 KiB) Viewed 5604 times

[Charles Lewis]

Cool!

[OneMadOgre]

Still fighting my pointy hair, but made some good progress today. Shipyard is doing what I want it to, which is a little different than the current rules I think. I'm going to wait for those to settle before I come back and fork the code for the VBAM pure ruleset. Basically the shipyard is based on more of what I had from before I discovered you nice people.

Two screenshots in the meantime. One to show the starmap with the increased map size. The zoom and pan is fun. I wanted to try to get to a more Wing Commander-esque universe with many jump lanes. I kind of like how the random placement works with jumplanes as the long jumps that occasionally render make for some very interesting terrain.

starmap-final-controlled.png (149.34 KiB) Viewed 5579 times

Then the second of the system detail screenshots. I'll admit fully that my strength is not design. I'm happy to entertain ideas on how to improve this screen in particular. I'm not real happy with it, but I don't really know what I'd want to do to make it better.

system-detail.png (32.99 KiB) Viewed 5579 times

[Emiricol]

A list of facilities in system would be nice, on that second screen

[OneMadOgre]

Not the progress we all want, but I did play with this this afternoon. Couple of things...

I held off on the facilities for now, because I love the planet rules in the latest playtest from March, and I'm going to use those for figuring out facilities.

Two, I worked out how I want to handle binary+ systems, but I need to refactor the database to understand both systems and stars as a result. Thinking I also want to build out the planets to be around the center of gravity of the binary system.

Finally, someone once asked if I was going to open source the code. It's still not something I'm feeling great about yet, just because I'm using a lot of playtest rules to make the galaxy generation. That's not mine, so I don't really want to put it out for everyone under the sun. But I did setup a solution at visualstudio.com so if there are promises not to laugh at how pointy my hair is now when I code, I can add up to four other developers as contributors for free.

Huh. Wanted to do a screenshot, but the new background combined with the fact I only have Paint on this box instead of Photoshop means I can't. I'll get the screen up next week when I power up the work notebook.

Edit: Threw it up on Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1152 ... 4758116034

[OneMadOgre]

Database refactor mostly complete. Settlements are still based on star system as opposed to planet, but the planet generation, star generation, refactor system creation, refactor star detail pages are mostly complete. I still want to refactor the main star map so that you can see all of the stars as opposed to just the center star system point. Also will end up attempting to always bring the main map in on your capital system when you go to it as opposed to always starting in the top left corner of the map.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/m0qihc2u56s7hex/planets.png

Some notes:
* BIO creation is still mostly random.
* RAW creation and Carry creation are now closer to the March release notes. Some small tweaks still to make there as I did mostly a mathematical model of the generation table as opposed to following it strictly which makes some interesting values that I don't know that I've always controlled yet.
* Because settlements are still on star systems, the carry, raw, and bio on the detail map are system based as opposed to planet based. Since the settlements are still system based, putting a one census colony down in a large RAW system makes for some impressive numbers. I expect to fix that by putting settlements down to the planet level as well.

[Charles Lewis]

This is really looking cool. Assuming this plan holds, Tyrel is veeeeerrrrrrry close to releasing the final alpha version of 2E; tools like this will add a definite coolness factor.

[OneMadOgre]

Excellent. I'm looking forward to how the planets set up. Because the computer is really good at crunching numbers, I've liked setting up the galaxy with point to point jump lanes and planets.

[OneMadOgre]

Settlements on planets instead of on star systems is now refactored.

Current System Detail screen looks like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xegk7tvzrfsn8 ... sStars.png

[Charles Lewis]

Sweet!

[OneMadOgre]

No real update in functionality to talk about. But I did accelerate my learning on how to get the code out to a hosting provider so we can evaluate if the map tool could be useful for the playtest. I think it might still be a little early, but feedback is good.

Because Azure can limit my bandwidth and it's my first time (be gentle) with it, I didn't want to publish the URL. But here it is showing up on my iPad. Because I really want a mobile/tablet interface to work too.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vw1comeyapp9o ... 0%20PM.png

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w116jarbl9ykyor/image.png

[mwaschak]

Fantastic. I am anxious to try this as the main map tool for GS. It is going to be a dynamic setting so quick map changes will be helpful.

-Jay

[OneMadOgre]

Going to try to hook up to an identity portal this evening. I'll probably hook Facebook for now as it's fairly well know out there. Then I'll want to actually keep some of the edit functions from a normal user, and then I can let you all get to the URL and play with it as well.