Tech tree viewer in the works...
 

...by me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

shamanblues asked if there is something like this made here, it looks like there wasn't , and there isn't someone already working on it.

The idea is too make a program which allows you to view the tech tree like in Civ.

Here's what i had in mind,

You got your basic window, inside there is one main view, in which the tree is shown, each tech is shown as a button, clicking on it will bring up a new window with information about the tech.
The new window will tell you all new components, facilities, and spy ops gained upon completion of this tech.

At the moment i'm not sure if one button should represent an entire tech area, or only one lvl in a tech area.

ideas/thought?
feature requests?
oh, about features, i will not make this an editor, just a viewer...at least for now.

And all of this will be written in Java.

Re: Tech tree viewer in the works...
 

I like the ideas http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Re: Tech tree viewer in the works...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I vote for one button = 1 tech level.

This is going to be a vey complex tree, isn't it?

Re: Tech tree viewer in the works...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">you're right, 1 button = 1 lvl is best. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">a little...the algorithm to place all the buttons is probably the hardest part, but i already made it for a civ3 techviewer...and if i hadn't lost the source to that, it would be a lot easier http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[ May 22, 2002, 16:12: Message edited by: LemmyM ]

Re: Tech tree viewer in the works...
 

i was also thinking about a search function by name, there is a textfield, and you must choose to search for a component, spy op, facility, or tech area, and then the main view would center in the corresponding tech button

Re: Tech tree viewer in the works...
 

I don't know if this helps.
I was able using Word to take the Tech Tree created by, um, was it you? and reduce it to a Tab Delimeted file.. From there I was able to port it to MicroSponge Access. A few preliminary efforts indicated I could do pretty defined searches on just a flat file.
I could send you the results or the seriess of macros I used to do the "parsing".
I realize not everyone has MicroSponge Access but ...
I'm not a programmer but if this helps, please let me know.
I will have guest for the next 6 days.. I may still be able to send it or upload it.

Re: Tech tree viewer in the works...
 

It wasn't me who created that file.
I'm writing my own parser in Java and store the data in Java classes, figuring out how to connect with acces in Java (if possible) would take too much time.

Re: Tech tree viewer in the works...
 

The JDBC/ODBC bridge connects Java to Access fairly quickly. But the better design is to do as you are planning, parse the SEIV files themselves for the data you need that way your techtree will be able to pickup patch changes and probably even mod changes easily.

Re: Tech tree viewer in the works...
 

I was thinking of doing something like this too. One difference is that I am planning to use SVG as the output format. This would allow you to just point at a tech-level node and see in a floating window exactly what became available at that point.

Sound like a good idea?

Re: Tech tree viewer in the works...
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">yep, that's right, i'm writing a seperate Loader class, so that any patch changes will be easily updated.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">hmm, don't know much about SVG, other that it's based on xml?