FEDERATION 2 WORKBENCH

TESLA PLANET CHECKER - MANUAL

Tesla is a program for Windows and the Mac which checks your planet files and identifies errors that will cause problems in the game. It also gives warnings about things that may be mistakes. This version of the manual covers the Windows program.

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Installing Tesla

When you have downloaded the file teslawin.zip from the web site open the file. There are several different files in the zip - the program file, plus some files it needs in order to run. Save all of these files to your computer, in the same folder.

To run the program, double-click on Tesla.exe.

Loading your Planet Files

Select the 'File|Load' menu item, and find the folder in which you have saved the files for your system. Click on the folder and then click on the 'OK' button. Tesla will load in all the maps in the folder - normally that will mean one planet map and the system's space map, although Moguls and above may have more than one planet map.

The names of all the maps loaded are listed in the box on the left side of the screen.

Testing the Files

Select the 'Actions|Check System' menu item and Tesla will go through the files and check them for errors. The results of the test will be displayed in the results window.

If there are no errors, then Tesla will report on the details of the maps, including the number of locations, and the details of the link and exchange locations.

For each map, the report will conclude with "Test complete", in which case you know the map is safe to be submitted for linking to the game.

Errors and Warnings

Errors are problems that will stop the files from loading into the game, or will cause serious problems. If Tesla finds an error, it will display a message in red telling you what the error is. For each map, if it finds an error it will stop checking for any further problems.

If Tesla tells you there is an error in your files, you must fix it and re-test the files (see below).

There is a list of all the things Tesla considers to be an error at the end of this manual.

Warnings are things that might be mistakes, but that the game itself won't object to, such as one-way movement links, or a planet without an exchange. Warning messages are displayed in blue. A warning won't stop Tesla from checking for further problems.

Re-testing

When you have fixed an error using the map editor, and saved the file, you need to load it into Tesla again. Use 'File|Load' as before. This time, Tesla will remember the folder the planet files came from so you don't have to hunt for it again.

Run the check again, to see if Tesla finds any further errors. Remember that it stops after the first problem, so if you have made several mistakes, you will have to keep on fixing errors and re-testing until it reports that everything is OK.

In between tests, you can clear the text out of the report window using 'Actions|Clear Display'.

Message Files

Tesla does not currently load messages files or run any checks on them. That will come in a later version.

Tesla Errors

Filenames with upper case letters in them
Filenames with spaces in them
No map with a filename space.loc
Map titles that are in the wrong format
Map titles that contain characters that are not letters or numbers
Map titles that have capital letters in the wrong places
Launch and Orbit information missing or in wrong format for planet maps, or filled in for space maps
Launch and Orbit locations that don't exist
Locations on space map that do not have the Space property
No hyperspace link on space map, or more than one link
Locations on the space map that have any of the planet properties set
Locations on the planet map that have any of the space properties set
More than one exchange on a planet map
Movements that lead to non-existent locations
Locations with Sol-only properties on them (ie courier and pickup)
Locations with no-exit messages in the wrong format