> So, and purely FYI, the plan is: > > 1) Get NetrekXP compiled as C++, because we're in the Future now (done). Any comments to improve compile.txt, or was it as easy to compile as I hope it is? > My intention is to have the tactical fill the whole window, with the > playerlist overlayed in the bottom left, a single unified message window > overlayed in the bottom right, and a (relatively small) galactic window > overlayed in the top right. As normal, the galactic area will be usable for > sending events. I intend to put as much known (i.e. not "infoborged") > information on the screen as possible by default, to reduce the requirement > to keep infoing planets and players. > I played around with changing tactical size, here's the thing. If you go try and increase the range, ie display beyond a 20000x20000 galactic units window, you will have incomplete information, as weapons info is not sent beyond that range. So there is essentially a fog of war for weapons, but not ships. It can make weapons seem to appear out of nowhere. Mactrek has this problem I believe. If you instead increase the scale, keeping 20000x20000 galactic units but use higher resolution bitmaps, it drastically alters game play. If you increase the scale by 2, you get better graphics sure, but you also make phasers twice as long, torps move twice as fast. Screws up all a player's built in skill at dogfighting. I tried it out briefly, I did not like the feel at all. > I feel that I may also want a full-screen galactic mode, as the galactic is > the most important window. I mean, apart from the message window, which as > we all know is the most important window. The most important apart from the > playerlist, obviously. > Full screen galactic could be useful for observers, but never for a player, it would be flying blind. > Right, that's me done expounding the Grand Plan. "Meh", "Implicit!", "OMG > INFOBORG HAXXORZ", or a world weary silence would all be appropriate at this > point. > Don't worry about infoborg too much, army count for all planets displayed on tactical and galactic without using info key is probably out though (it's been rejected by the majority of the community and the RSA keyholder (Carlos) as not acceptable). Other than that, we've put in lots of things that were once called borg, so never hurts to try! And of course, a graphics update wouldn't hurt. But torps and ships move in 2d, I can see maybe a quasi-3d client, but full blown 3d? Nah. As soon as you start changing the viewable angle beyond top down, you both mess up distance perception as well as lose tactical information on objects on the 2d plane your ship is in that are blocked from the viewpoint of the camera by the 3d bulky representation of your ship. Bill