Space Empires V Editor 1.4 Released

Devnullicus · #1 November 20th, 2006, 04:28 AM

Version 1.4 is finally ready!

Added View Menu
Add Weapon Comparison Viewer
Moved Tech Tree Viewer to it's own window (accessed via View Menu)
Added Save-To-File button in Tech Tree Viewer (saves to XML format)
Added a data-visualization graph function to the Formula Wizard with 2d graphs for 1-var equations and "surface graphs" (actually 3d-spline graphs) for 2 var equations. I'm using a trial version of Super2d3dGraphLibrary from http://www.softwaresigloXXI.com as it allowed me to put a really nice set of graphs in to the tool without taking the time to write my own. If you want graphs without ads, you must purchase your own licensed version, but the trial version included here will work.
Added menu option to use graphing formula wizard or not (in case you want the old style (which can be a little speedier)).
Added Vehicle Unit Types editor
fixed a couple of minor problems when reading older data files (allows some backwards compatibility for the editor since the game seems to do so)
More descriptive messages when tech tree finds problems. Also caught some errors that were causing the editor to crash and now handle them more gracefully.
Fixed crash where the tech areas editor and tech tree viewer would crash when trying to load a tech tree that has errors. Now it will simply report the errors and continue rather than crashing (it still won't show the tech tree though since it's an invalid tech tree)
Editor no longer complains if more than 168 tech area images are used if the underlying image has been expanded to have room for them
If a file has read errors, the editors will now still allow editing of the items that it did read correctly. Beware though, saving after this will only write back to the file the parts that the editor understood and is thus NOT recommended.

There's probably a few other things as well that I've forgotten

This will probably be the last update for a bit as I need to concentrate on work for the next few weeks. If there are issues, I'll try to fix them quickly, so please let me know, but I don't expect to be adding more features for a bit.

Elsemeravin · #2 November 20th, 2006, 03:15 PM

Great !

Kana · #3 November 20th, 2006, 03:37 PM

Good work as usual...

You added a Vehicle Unit editor...Are you planning on adding a Vehicle Editor as well...?

Fyron · #4 November 20th, 2006, 03:40 PM

Devnullicus said:
If you want graphs without ads, you must purchase your own licensed version, but the trial version included here will work.

That's rather disconcerting...

Devnullicus · #5 November 20th, 2006, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Kana said:
Good work as usual...

You added a Vehicle Unit editor...Are you planning on adding a Vehicle Editor as well...?

VehicleSizes.txt editor will probably be in the next version. Not sure when that will be though - I suspect it will be at least a few weeks as I need to concentrate on work for a while.

Devnullicus · #6 November 20th, 2006, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Imperator Fyron said:
Devnullicus said:
If you want graphs without ads, you must purchase your own licensed version, but the trial version included here will work.

That's rather disconcerting...

Well, I had 2 choices:
1) use the trial version with ads and get things up and running within a day (which is about how long it took)
2) create my own graphs. Originally, I was going to do exactly that and I have a DirectX9 version that mostly works. But it wasn't quite working correctly and it would have taken more time than I wanted to spend to get a graph that was only mediocre anyway.

So, after dinking around for a bit with option 2, I decided to go with option 1 and get a very nice graphing system at the small cost of some ads in the graph itself.

If you're worried about spyware, etc, I can tell you that the installer doesn't do ANYTHING special for the library. All I do is put the dll into the editor's directory - there's no extra registry settings or .NET install stuff I do for the DLL.

As far as I can tell, and also after some long discussions with the graph library's author, there is nothing funky about the dll - no spyware, etc. It's just a normal DLL

Elsemeravin · #7 November 20th, 2006, 04:45 PM

Good you go back to work and come back with many new ideas

Thy_Reaper · #8 November 22nd, 2006, 10:59 PM

I like the editor so far, but it has decided that any changes to the Weapon Reload Rate MS Formula should get stored in the Seeker Speed Formula instead, which causes errors, etc.

Devnullicus · #9 November 23rd, 2006, 12:16 AM

Quote:

Thy_Reaper said:
I like the editor so far, but it has decided that any changes to the Weapon Reload Rate MS Formula should get stored in the Seeker Speed Formula instead, which causes errors, etc.

doh...that sounds kind of bad

I'll look into it tonight.

Fyron · #10 November 23rd, 2006, 12:29 AM

Devnullicus said:
If you're worried about spyware, etc, I can tell you that the installer doesn't do ANYTHING special for the library.

I'm just worried about the fact that a simple data file editor is now, in essence, adware... And we as the users have to purchase our own individual licenses of the graphing dll to get rid of the ads.