Files offline

So a quick story.  I bought a house in May of this year.  Since then we have had over 15 power outtages, totalling over 20 hours, and 2 of which were over 8 hours.  I'm about to go buy a freaking generator.

Anyway, so when the long outtages happen, I take my computer UPS, and go plug it into the fridge to give it 30 minutes of run time in the middle of the outtage, hoping to save some food.

Thing is, last time I did that, I plug the cables in the wrong plugs, and so the latest outage my computer went off, and my monitors stayed on.  Ugh.  The bad news is that for whatever reason, windows 2008 didn't like that, and my networking is all corrupted.  I haven't rebuilt in 2 or so years, so I am about due anyway.  

And since I'm rebuilding my primary workstation, I'm also going to plug in the 2k8 domain controller in my house, and get rid of my older compaq branded 2k3 server.  Thus, all the files I had on it won't be there for a while, probably a day or two, until I can get them back up.

Soooo, if you simply must have one of those files, and can't wait for it, shoot me an email and I'll try to get you a copy, but until then the files will be offline.  Sorry for any inconvience.

I have made zero progress anyway, just been busy with other things, and still kinda demoralized by the BT franchise.  Still on my plate though.

Stars...

Well based on demand, and the fact I invested a LOT of time into the planet list, I will keep the system coordinate list updated on this blog, and for now use it for the non-BT cartographer.  I'm still not interested in using the BTU for anything, TPTB's attitude have ensured that I will no longer support that IP, which is probably a good thing based on their paranoia and MSFT being stupid with the IP.


The cartographer work is progressing, but will NOT be in any way a "Battletech Cartographer".  In fact, there will be nothing "battletech" about it, though it'll support all the features I had, it'll become a stand alone product and I'll probably make it support Traveller, Traveller 2300, Babylon 5, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc, etc.


Things like the Comstar overlay will be an additional definable graphic, where you put in a bunch of X/Y coordinates for lines and it'll draw them, or just provide a bitmap and specify a transparent color.  The word "Jump" is globally replaced by "Move".  Systems will have various methods of generation, most of which are FAR more detailed than the BT rules (often based on GURPS Space 4e and some older Traveller products)..


I'll try to have functionality to make this kind of a cyberboard, but specifically for space maps, though that'll come later.  


The systems.txt file linked to previously is updated, the complete one is not, and BT cartographer, the last version I posted earlier, will be the last BT specific product I'll ever make.  The excel file I released earlier is now deprecated, as it is no longer up to date.


Some "Interstellar Cartographer" updates:
- Removed all BT specific stuff
- Added multithreading for loading systems, should help initial load times
- Added multithreading for calculating transit routes, should speed that up a lot as well, though since it only happens on the first load its no big deal.
- Updated all the menus to make them more logical, added a LOT of new options
- Played with WPF for rendering, and though it worked GREAT for 2500 systems, when it got much larger speed decreased a LOT, and WPF just can't handle the amount of objects I'm dealing with as well as GDI+.  DirectX is in the same boat, so I'm stuck with using GDI+.


Sorry I am updating this after I said I never would, guess ya'll can call me a liar now :(


Perhaps the flip-flop was just practice for my congressional run next year, though I cross my fingers and toes that I don't get elected, its a horrible job and its no surprise only idiots want to run for office.

I'm done

Thanks to the overly sensitive moderators on the classicbattletech.com forums, I'm calling it quits.  This wasn't a spontaneous thing, it has been a long time coming, with reason after reason being presented to me until I finally just decided to move on, and will now spend my excess hours on something else.

If anybody knows how to code and wants to continue anything I've written shoot me an email and I'll send you the code.

Here is my latest version of cartographer:

Last Cartographer 

Here is my working copy of all the planet data in excel:

Last Planets

Anything else your interested in I may have mentioned just shoot me an email.

I won't delete this blog, but it'll no longer be active.  I'll respond to emails or comments on here indefinately however.

Cartographer Update!

Just a minor update to let ya'll know I'm still alive.

I am having hell getting the hexes to work right.  My math skills suck, and I couldn't figure out a formula for getting all hexes within a specified range, and hard coded 0, 1, 2, and 3 hex radius.  This means you can create a hex grid of as little as 10 LY, or as much as 30 LY, but nothing else.  I also broke the square/offset square grids, well, deleted the code actually.  I'll re-add them once I get the hex stuff working, those 2 methods are far easier.

I do kind of have the hex stuff working though, here is a map, with 10 LY hexes, drawn dynamically (so changing ownership of a system changes that hex background color as well).  There are a few orphaned worlds around, and a few gaps where no system is within a jump.  The grey hexes are "contested", meaning 2 or more factions have a system within that hex.  I plan on making the hexes break down into smaller chunks until there is only 1 faction per hex, but its not real easy, and I'm tired :(

If anybody can help me out with a hex algorithm that'd be awesome.  Simple stuff, like take a battletech mapsheet, pick a hex, and give me a formula to determine all the hexes within a specified radius.  I don't think its that hard, but it was eluding me tonight.

I still have a *lot* of very minor bug fixes (like the app crashes when you cancel an inputbox, instead of cancelling the function, stupid easy to fix stuff) before I get this sucker launched, but it is chugging along.

A new screenshot showing the hex based influence mapping thingy:

 

Here is a big version, though it'll be slow off my crappy TW cable modem.  The dots on it are little black circles around the systems so I could see them while testing.  You'll be able to toggle them on/off in the release.  The black gaps are just that, areas where no system is within a jump.  However, there are uninhabited systems everywhere, 110000 of them, so you'll be able to find *some* path through there!

Oh, my algorithm for determining jump paths seems pretty decent, but its just looking for the nearest systems.  If anybody could help me out with a hex based A* that'd be great too.

I want to try to get printing to PDFs done really soon, I want to print this map out on a 44" plotter ;)

Cartographer!

Still working on it, the last couple days I haven't made much progress (but a LOT was made the few days before that) as I've been procrastinating on the hardest part of the code.

The hardest part IMO is getting a dynamic mapping system going.  You've seen some of my crappy versions in the past, here is a new version, with 7.5 LY squares, for 3075:

It isn't perfect, for a few reasons.  One, its only really working at all with squares, I haven't even touched the hex translation stuff yet, though honestly that shouldn't be *too* hard.  Its also not real fast, and never will be, though once you generate it I'll try to cache it so you only have to regenerate it if you modify system ownership.

But now a "bug" I see with my method.  Right now I'm taking a count of the number of systems within jump radius, and using that number to determine what faction "owns" the cell.  While it works fine in most situations, when it comes to those little arms that go off from one faction to another, it breaks completely.  This is because while there may be a system or two in say WOB Protectorate space, there isn't enough to be more than the WOB systems in range, so the world gets drawn with the wrong background.  While typing this I came up with the idea to automatically make any cell the same as any system within the cell.  There are a few exceptions with cells that have 2+ systems in them, but its looking better.  Here is a close up of the protectorate so you can see what I mean:

However, it may look better if I get my system to grid translation working correctly.  Its late, and I may be making stupid mistakes, but as you can see by some of the dots the dots/grids aren't lining up just right.

I *really* suck with geometry, even 2D stuff, this stuff is really easy math, and I need to go take me a class or two in it (even though I CLEP'ed it for my degree, I simply don't *know* it).

Now for the great news.  As soon as I finish this one little thing, this one "feature", I'll release a new version of cartographer for everybody.  The amount of new features and fixes are, well, long enough I think I'll just skip posting them ;)

A couple of screenshots:

OMG, what is that!

See all them little bitty dots?  Remember a reference to the 110,000 uninhabited systems out there?  muhahahaha

Looking for something?  Notice I changed the font *in program* :)

Oh yeah, thats a REAL nebula image backdrop!

What kind of mad options are those?!?!?!

Uhhhh, this aint just a mapping program anymore is it?

DISCLAIMER:  The features that are in red haven't been written yet, and may not be on this next release.  Most of them are relatively easy though, and once I get the influence mapping working correctly I'll starting knocking them out within a few days (days=days coding, not actual real world days).

Btw, I'm *really* starting to kick around the idea of creating a universe, *very* similar to BT but all names/factions will change (map roughly same scale, but different systems in difference places too).  By doing this I can freely create a full game system without worrying about canon and the lack thereof.  If anybody wants to help come up with unit names, faction names, and world names, I'd be grateful, even that simple stuff is beyond my creativity.  I can do all the rest of the code though ;)

Other interesting maps

Since I had the code written to test HPG stuff... some other interesting maps:


Red = the systems that we have atmosphere, gravity, temperature, etc for:

Red=3025 systems with forces present, looks like pirates love the outback:

Systems that were on a map at some point, that are no longer on the map in 3130, RWR/OA/CC got screwed!:

Factory production line size, from the Combat Operations chart, for 3052, the green dots are there, but hard to make out, this makes sense tho:

Got any more ideas?  All I need is a list of systems and a parameter...

More HPG stuff

Ok, going through the 300 or so system we have data for appears to add about 76 new systems with A class HPGs, for a total of 124.  The map still has enough gaps that a large portion of the inner sphere simply doesn't get news except by whoever is kind enough to bring them computer updates.

It just really appears the HPG network simply isn't very effective.  I wonder if jumpships help with that, say they have a core computer that has all the "news", whenever they jump into a new system the computer automatically updates with the planet based computers, and vice versa.  This could have massive hack potential, but would be one way to help keep everybody in the sphere abreast of the latest news.


Or perhaps there are enough systems we just don't have information for, the original 48 systems were when the HPG system was only in the Hegemony really, and ComStar has since built lots of new systems.


Still, it seems silly that ComStar hasn't built 2xA stations on every planet, as that would enable an interstellar near-real time communications system.