Maverick
[ Posts : 1331 ]
 | [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 20:42]
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Oh so for a new suggestion:
Can we have one or two new galaxies? I think that would be awesome and i know K will agree.
These can come last though on the "things to do" list.
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Yeah some new galaxies would be great, but they should be really interesting ones, with many natural wormholes and black holes, since players can't make their own.
How are galaxies made? Because maybe we could think of some ideas for them...each galaxy can have vantage points etc, and controling these will give you a good control over the galaxy.
For eacmple, a galaxy that is separated into sections by black holes, so that wormholes are the only way across would be good, meaning that if you can control the WH entrance then you can block travel between sides etc.
Another could have plenty of WH, so travel is made easy. But some WH could lead close into BH, so be traps and you would have to be careful about using them 
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Galaxies in DQ:H were taken from DQ:E. If you would like to have new galaxy(s) then you could prepare one even at your home and send be a CSV(comma separated values) file that I'll import into database.
Format is very simple: X, Y, STYPE, SSIZE, SNAME
Each row is a star.
X - x coordinate (must be > 0)
Y - y coordinate (must be > 0)
STYPE - Star type (must be one of: O, B, A, F, G, K, M)
SSIZE - Star size (must be between 1-5)
SNAME - Star Name (Maximum 100 chars)
So if you have one in mind go ahead and create it 
Wormholes and blackholes are not implemented yet. You'll be able to prepare them in a similar way.
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Emperor L
[ Posts : 1237 ]
 | [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 20:46]
Ok, I will make one
Whats the maximum and minimum size for a galaxy? Maybe 400 to 800 like in DQ:E?
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Maverick
[ Posts : 1331 ]
| [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 20:53]
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Ok, I will make one
Whats the maximum and minimum size for a galaxy? Maybe 400 to 800 like in DQ:E?
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Actually there is no size limit, but for a common sense 400 to about 1200 would be Ok. Stars should be about 1500.
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Disrupter
[ Posts : 458 ]
 | [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 21:14]
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Ok, I will make one
Whats the maximum and minimum size for a galaxy? Maybe 400 to 800 like in DQ:E?
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Actually there is no size limit, but for a common sense 400 to about 1200 would be Ok. Stars should be about 1500.
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Ok, i get what you mean by the size but is the max. size 1500 or is the 1200-1500 area border or something?
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Disrupter
[ Posts : 458 ]
| [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 21:29]
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For example, a galaxy that is separated into sections by black holes. As fleets can't stop in space, only a few paths between 2 special placed stars can be safe ways through. So whoever controls these stars has the advantage My thoughts on this is like 2 galaxys colliding, and the edges of each are surrounded by BH. So you have like 2 rings of BH that have collided, and split the galaxy into 2. Their could be maybe 2 or 3 ways through, but no more. Meaning you have to try and find one of these stars, send your fleets to the star, then to the next etc. I think this would be a really good and dangerous galaxy and give some strategy to how players colonise planets by location, and not just resources etc...
Their could also be a few lone stars, that can only be reached by going to one star, then the next then the next. This would make them safe places, as if you control the first star, enemys cant get to the next without passing your first star and fleet first
This message was edited by Emperor L
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This might be able to help you plan it out
http://www.daviddarling.info/images/interacting_spiral_galaxies.jpg
I think i might make one thats 500 x 1000 if thats ok.
This message was edited by Disrupter
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Disrupter
[ Posts : 458 ]
| [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 22:42]
Maverick, how did you design these galaxies?
Was there something online or is it just random?
I cant think of how to do it unless i use a ton of graph paper...
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Emperor L
[ Posts : 1237 ]
| [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 22:54]
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Maverick, how did you design these galaxies?
Was there something online or is it just random?
I cant think of how to do it unless i use a ton of graph paper...
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Well, I wrote a little javascript and HTML thing, that generates a huge 2 dimensional array and crashes my computer
So...yeah, same here...I could try in excel and code something to output something, but I dont quite know how yet...
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Disrupter
[ Posts : 458 ]
| [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 22:56]
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Maverick, how did you design these galaxies?
Was there something online or is it just random?
I cant think of how to do it unless i use a ton of graph paper...
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Well, I wrote a little javascript and HTML thing, that generates a huge 2 dimensional array and crashes my computer
So...yeah, same here...I could try in excel and code something to output something, but I dont quite know how yet...
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Make something that generates a huge grid that you can adjust yourself. Like a simple little maximum X minimum X and maximum Y minimum Y kind of thing.
Then youd be able to type in that or at least mark it up so you can see where you want stars etc. to go.
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Emperor L
[ Posts : 1237 ]
| [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 23:04]
Yeah, thats what I did, I generated an HTML table 400X400 in size that I could enter class and size into text boxes...then store all this to a 2d array, and get it to generate the code...it works, on small areas...on anything more than about 200x200 it runs really slow...
I guess it can be done, just need to leave it to run for a while...working on the code output now
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Disrupter
[ Posts : 458 ]
| [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 23:07]
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Yeah, thats what I did, I generated an HTML table 400X400 in size that I could enter class and size into text boxes...then store all this to a 2d array, and get it to generate the code...it works, on small areas...on anything more than about 200x200 it runs really slow...
I guess it can be done, just need to leave it to run for a while...working on the code output now
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So did you generate stars and such or just the grid.
And you should put it on our Wiki so i can try it
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Emperor L
[ Posts : 1237 ]
| [Post Date: 01-Jul-2008 23:13]
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Yeah, thats what I did, I generated an HTML table 400X400 in size that I could enter class and size into text boxes...then store all this to a 2d array, and get it to generate the code...it works, on small areas...on anything more than about 200x200 it runs really slow...
I guess it can be done, just need to leave it to run for a while...working on the code output now
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So did you generate stars and such or just the grid.
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Not yet, still working on it
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And you should put it on our Wiki so i can try it
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Ok, I will when its done...will be a little while yet, if it works...it runs really slow though, so expect to wait for a while while it loads the page...havent even got the code output part working yet.
Anyway, I am making it a huge grid of check boxes, so you can just check the places you want stars. It will then generate a name, and randomly pick the class and size...so its more realistic in that way...
I will post when I have something working better
This message was edited by Emperor L
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Emperor L
[ Posts : 1237 ]
| [Post Date: 02-Jul-2008 00:49]
Ok, it sort of works. So far its all the same class and size, need to add randomness in , but so far its good
I plan to remove the arrays, and just store to the page as HTML, should speed it up some...
Also, maybe I will put a reverse option in, that takes in the code and recreates the map with check boxes...but not right now
Anyway, I will do the randomness and remove the arrays now...
EDIT: Its still very slow, anything more than like 100x100 seems to take ages, I tried 400X400 and waited over 3 minutes, but nothing happend 
It is working, just exreemly slow...but it does have 160000 cells to calculate...its not that huge ammount, so I dont know what the problem is. Maybe its just because I am using javascript, its not exactly the fastest language I guess...maybe I could try java...
Or, as I am generating huge tables, most of it is not on screen...so, if I add the arrays back, then only draw whats needed on screen, then that should help...may have a slight delay between sections, but it should be better than it is...
Anyway, I will try that tomorrow...getting tired now
This message was edited by Emperor L
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Maverick
[ Posts : 1331 ]
| [Post Date: 02-Jul-2008 12:40]
For DQ:E we have an editor. It's a win32 application that works directly with DQ:E database and have tools for drawing the galaxy where each pixel is a star. Unfortunately we cannot use it for DQ:H, database structures are different. If you know C# for example you could download MS C# Express and start coding an application. You can use any other known language of course.
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Emperor L
[ Posts : 1237 ]
| [Post Date: 02-Jul-2008 13:57]
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For DQ:E we have an editor. It's a win32 application that works directly with DQ:E database and have tools for drawing the galaxy where each pixel is a star. Unfortunately we cannot use it for DQ:H, database structures are different. If you know C# for example you could download MS C# Express and start coding an application. You can use any other known language of course.
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I know lots of web based languages, and java...
Of all javascript is my best, so I am using that with HTML to make it run in a browser...
So far its getting their, I have a little console window like thing on the page that displays how things are running such as when things are complete etc, not sure if I will keep it, but it helps while finding problems with the code...
Anyway its basicaly a 30X30 grid (can be chenged) made of check boxes that displays a section of the galaxy at a time. You have buttons to move left, right, up and down and this moves 20 grid spaces in that direction. So their is some overlap to see how things join etc.
Anyway, the plan is to have 4 different modes. Star, BH, WH and also overview. Each will fill all empty spaces, and its own object in the galaxy with check boxes, and draw the other object types. So basicaly stars replace space and stars with check boxes, BH replace space and BH etc. Overview shows all objects.
Then all you need to do is check where you want these to be placed, and uncheck to remove. I am not sure about BH yet, but for stars it will randomly pick a size and class. And also it generates names in format S0000 where 0000 will be the star number.
Finaly when your ready you can have it output the data in the format you said before...this part works already with small galaxies (less than 100x100) but this new method should allow huge galaxies by only drawing bit at a time.
Anyway, still got some more to do yet, but its getting their
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Emperor L
[ Posts : 1237 ]
| [Post Date: 02-Jul-2008 16:08]
The star placement part more or less works now, just a few little bugs to fix, but otherwise it seems ok...
So, all thats needed is some options to change the size of the galaxy (without having to edit the code) and maybe a star counter, so that you can see how many are placed...
Also, maybe I will try and add some automatic star placement generators, like background noise (scatters stars randomly to a set density)
Maybe also an option that spreads stars out from a specified location, so dense at the center and gets more spread out further out, and maybe an automatic remove option that removes all stars in a set area, like for the eye you could remove all stars at the center...could also be used for removing stars too close to a BH
Any other ideas? I dont know if I can do all these, but I will try
Anyway, its still takes a while, but is MUCH faster than before. It takes like 3-4 seconds to generate a 400x400 galaxy, so not too bad...you have to wait that long every time you move sideways, but maybe I can speed that up a bit by changing the loops to be more efficient...not sure...
I have just managed to make it much faster again, by not storing 0's in empty places, but just leaving these places empty in the array, not exactly sure why that makes it faster...but it has...can now generate 800x800 galaxies in about 1 second, and 1 second to move, so thats fine
This message was edited by Emperor L
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