Tech tree viewer in the works...

[Ransack]

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?

[Lemmy]

Originally posted by Hank:
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.

yep, that's right, i'm writing a seperate Loader class, so that any patch changes will be easily updated.

Originally posted by Ransack:
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?

hmm, don't know much about SVG, other that it's based on xml?

[Skulky]

I'm kinda confused, woudl this tech viewer be for only the "vanilla" mod or for any tech tree? Cool either way though, i have trouble planning my sneaky research schemes when im not at a computer with my game open.

[Lemmy]

This will be for any mod, all you have to do is specify the mod directory, and it will create graphical tech tree out of it.

[raynor]

Here is a link to a very, very, very simple tech cost program for weapons I wrote Last year sometime:
Download techview 0.13

You tell it where to find the components.txt file, and it tries to read that file and the techarea.txt in the same directory. Except for being pretty unforgiving of errors in those files, it will display the info for the default files or modded files.

The program displays a list of weapons on the left and the cost to research each weapon in the family on the right. You can choose low, medium or high tech cost.

I always hoped to someday expand this program to show tech costs for all the components but RL got in the way (that and RTCW).

[ May 28, 2002, 03:08: Message edited by: raynor ]

[Andrés]

Excellent program raynor.
I'm trying to find what's the error in my modded files to make it run with them. Any suggestion. What common mistake can be overseen by the game but not by this program?

Showing total tech cost of all tech areas should be more like removing a filter not like adding a new feature.

[raynor]

Excellent program raynor.
I'm trying to find what's the error in my modded files to make it run with them. Any suggestion. What common mistake can be overseen by the game but not by this program?

Thanks. Mainly, the program is particular about blank lines. The game accepts blank lines inside components and techareas and multiple blank lines between components and techareas. But this simple code doesn't have error checking to check for that. It assumes no blank lines inside components/techareas and just a single blank line between components/techareas.

Showing total tech cost of all tech areas should be more like removing a filter not like adding a new feature.

I agree. If I include every component in one big list, then it should be fairly simple. I may have gotten bogged down trying to get a little fancier by adding a tabbed interface to show a tab for each component class such as weapons, engines, etc. We shall see.