Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac 1993 September/clonecd/September 93.img/Archives/Games/Shareware Specials/Empire Master/EM Demo Docs/EM Demo Docs.rsrc/TEXT_149_aText.txt

Text File | 1992-09-04 | 12KB | 196 lines

The Type Editor

The type editor is complex.  It is organized into “panels” which are selected using radio buttons.  Tech sensitive parameters are shown as buttons which invoke another dialog.  The base, min, max values and formula for variation are defined in that dialog.

The seven  panels are:

Common          Names only.
General           HP, Speed, Attacks, Fuel Limits, Repair.
Category         Land, Air, Sea, Attack type, Missile type.
Transport       What can this unit carry or be carried by.
Adjustments   Attack adjustment, Vision adjustment.
Production      Time, supplies and technology needed.
Icons               Edit the icons representing this unit.

The “common” panel only has the features which all of the other panels share. It is only selected the first time you enter the type editor. Afterwards selecting the type editor will select whichever panel was last used.

Most numeric parameters have minimum and maximum values. If you enter a value outside of that range the editor will beep and set it to the closest legal value. If you persist the editor will eventually put up an alert indicating the legal range limits.

Editing Parameter Formulas

 











In several of these panels you must define the formula for a technology sensitive parameter.  In these cases there is a button in the panel which brings up the dialog above.

This shows how the dialog would look while defining how much 'Steel' a unit consumes during production.  In this case the value does not depend on any technology levels so only the base value is important.  In general, all of the checked technology levels are multiplied by the numerator, divided by the denominator and then combined using the selected combination function.

Finally, the results are restricted to be in the range from min to max.  In doing this computation, the technology level used is the current technology level, minus the minimum level needed to produce this type of unit.  Hence if the current level of science is 112 and a level of 100 is needed to produce this type of unit then the level 12 is used.  If the numerator is 1 and the denominator is 3 then a value of 4 is produced.  If science is the only technology level to affect this unit then the base value of 1 plus 3 would give a current value of 4 as the amount of steel needed.  However, this is more than the maximum of 1 (as shown above) so the final value would be 1.

When a new unit type is created its min and max values will be set to the legal range limit for the parameter.  The base value is set to some reasonable default value and no technology level adjustments are defined.

The General panel
 















The three names in this dialog are the ‘External Name’, ‘Internal Name’ and ‘Short Name’.  The external name is used by the rule editor to select a unit type and should be unique within the rule file.  The internal name is normally used while playing the game.  It should not be the same as any other name in the rule set.  The nickname is used while playing the game in situations where space is limited.  For example, it is used in the map display to label the current production for a city.

HP is the number of hit points the unit can have (maximum).  This affects how strong it is in combat.  Speed defines how many squares it can move in a turn.  SegMoves defines how many squares it can move in a segment. Fuel defines the unit's fuel limit.  If it is positive then the unit must refuel periodically.  If it is negative then the unit never needs to refuel.  It should not be zero.

City Capture indicates if the unit can capture an unfriendly city.  Normally only armies can do this.  Sleep unfueled is not commonly used.  If checked the unit will not need fuel when it is sleeping over land.  Otherwise it will use one unit of fuel every turn that it is sleeping, unless it is on a carrier or city.

First Segment defines the earliest segment that units of this type can move.  When the unit attacks and is not destroyed, it cannot move for ‘Combat delay’ segments afterwards.  Once the unit is seen by the enemy it remains visible for half as many turns as ‘VisibleFor’.  (In this example one and one-half turns.)

The City Defense parameter defines the strength of this unit when it is defending a city.  It is expressed as a percentage of normal strength.

The Repair Rate parameters control how many Hit Points are restored to a damaged unit per turn.  They may have values from 0 to 125.  Negative values should not be used.  The City Repair Rate applies to units in friendly cities, the Self Repair Rate applies to all other units.

The Write button will generate a useful text file describing this unit type.  It is helpful to print this file and mark it by hand before trying to make major changes to a unit type.  The Read button does nothing.  (Maybe someday it will read a type definition from a file.)


The Category panel

 














The category panel defines the unit's general category and related features. The Land, Air and Sea options define where it can travel.

A unit with a normal move can go anywhere provided it is always on the type of squares it is allowed, or on a transport. You can wake the unit and change its direction at any time. A missile can only be launched in a direction, and then you have no more control over it. An unguided missile must move directly into an enemy occupied square in order to attack. A guided missile will look at all adjacent squares for a target to attack as it moves. (This can be slightly confusing. The missile will attack a target “behind” the direction it is moving.)

The No City Launch option is only enabled for missile units. It prevents the unit from being launched unless it is currently being carried by some other unit. For example, torpedoes are produced in a city but cannot do anything until loaded onto a submarine.

The Attack is Self Destruct option is for use with Nukes and other self-destructing warheads. When selected the unit is always destroyed when it makes an attack. Creating nukes that don’t self destruct is legal although unrealistic. (Ultra-Phasors anyone?)

The counterattack options control the unit's behavior during an enemy move. When the counterattack option is enabled the unit will be able to attack in response to an enemy move if the enemy is attacking a unit in the same square, or moving into a square adjacent to it.

The “Effect of moving onto an enemy unit” defines what kind of attack a unit has. A normal attack is resolved by the combat tables and involves only two units, or a unit and a city. A ‘spy’ attack does not actually cause an attack. It allows a unit to move over enemy occupied squares without hindrance. This could be used to define a spy plane or reconnaissance satellite.

The remaining options define increasingly powerful nuclear explosions. Nuke 0 will destroy the attacker and all units and cities in the square with the defender. Notice that this happens after the defender has had a chance to counterattack. If the attacker is destroyed in a counterattack then the nuke will not explode. A nuke 1 destroys every unit and city in the defenders square and the squares adjacent. Nuke 5 destroys everything within 5 squares.  Nukes of any size can be defined by selecting the last radio button and typing in the radius.

The Transport Panel


 








The transport panel defines which units this unit type can carry, and which category it counts as for transport purposes.  You can define a transport to carry any number of categories of units.  You must define the unit as belonging to exactly one transport category.  (These are the subcategories defined in the universe editor.)

The weight of a unit is a tech sensitive parameter that should always be greater than or equal to zero.  (You could define helium I suppose).  When a transport tries to load a new unit it will add up the weight of all units currently on board, and add the weight of the new unit.  This must not exceed the Weight Limit for the transport

The Adjustments Panel

 














The adjustments panel defines visibility and normal combat results. The effective attack strength is based upon the attacker’s current hit points times attack bonus% times defense bonus%. The effective defense strength is the defender’s current hit points, times its city defense factor.

An enemy unit can be seen if you have a unit whose vision distance is at least equal to the enemies camouflage plus the map separation between the units.  For example, an air unit with a vision of 5 can see a naval unit with a camouflage of 2 if it is three squares away or closer.

The Production Panel

 














The production panel defines when a unit type can be produced and how much it will cost. The supplies (“Food”, “Steel”, “Oil” etc.) are used up when a city finishes producing a unit of this type. (The supplies must be available when the city starts production but are not actually consumed until it finishes.)  The minimum tech levels needed to produce a unit must be available before you start building one. In addition, the tech level adjustment formulas are based upon the difference between the current technology levels and the base levels for the unit type. Finally, the city must spend the specified number of turns producing a unit of this type.

You can set the first turn that a unit can be produced. A city will not be allowed to start producing a unit type before its first allowed turn. This provides a simple way to limit the early production of some unit types.

The Icon Editor
 












The Icons option lets you edit the icons for a unit type.  When you click on this option the “fat bits” style icon editor is brought forward.  The icon palette shows 64 different shapes.  The first two of these are the two different players icons for this unit type.  The rest are not used, and may be used as “scratch” space.

The icons in the Universe editor define how cities appear.  Cities are the first three icons in the upper row.

You select icons from the right panel and edit them in the left panel, pixel by pixel.  You may clear or invert all pixels in the current icon using those buttons.

The radio controls on the right select which size icon you want to edit. At first the size 16 will be selected.

You can copy icons from different sizes, or different units.  Clicking on the Scale From palette replaces the current icon with a scaled copy of the same icon from the selected size.  Holding down the Option key replaces all icons in the current size with scaled copies from the selected size.

To replace the current icon with that from a different unit, hold down the option key and select the other unit.

The four arrow keys on an extended keyboard will move an icon one pixel in each direction, up down, right or left.

Editing Icons from the Game itself.

The Edit Pictures command in the game’s Rules menu uses the same basic code but has some differences.   The icons for unit types can be changed, but the results will not be saved.  The reason there still is an icon editor in the game itself is that Markers, cursors and “land fringes” are stored there.  The marker icons are in the middle of the palette.  These are the icons used in the marker commands.   The animated wait cursor is not a standard resource. (See the documentation on cursors in Inside Macintosh.)  It is composed from the four icons and masks in the lower right of the icon palette.  The land fringes are used to implemented the “feathering” on the edges of islands.   The shapes shown in the four lower left icons (for sizes >= 10) and eight lower right icons are erased from sea squares next to known land squares.  This has the visually pleasing effect of softening up the corners of the islands.

The icon editor available in the game does not have the ability to change scales.  To edit icons of a different scale you must select a scale from the Map menu Options command.  Using the numbered Map menu commands will change the scale for the current map, but not the default map size.  The default map size is the size that the icon editor operates on.