FEDERATION 2 DESIGNER'S NOTES
by Alan Lenton
12 December 2003
OK - I've finished a graphical location editor running under Windows.
Fortunately, I could rip a fair amount of stuff out of the Age location editor. I decided that the individual maps would be 64x64 locations, rather than the 32x32 in Age. We needed to keep it smaller for Age, because when the players cross a map boundary, the info for all the locations they have explored has to be sent down to them. That's not the case for Fed.
I also wrote a script that riped the old Sol locations out of fed1 and and turns them (more or less) into fed2 format. Fi will then take that over and sort out any problems, typos, etc. while I get on with server code. Fed2 planetary files are held in XML format, which is easy for both machines and people to read.
Since XML is a standard, it also means I can also use a standard parser library - in this case 'expat' - to load them in. Of course, it takes longer to load them at startup than if I used binary files, but I think the increased ease of use is worth it. This is what a location looks like in XML:
<location num='1479' flags='ba'>
<name>Lucky Seven Saloon</name>
<desc> The bar's decor was once neo-western - a fashion that went out 150 years ago - but decades of neglect and fights have erased all but the most enduring features of the original decoration. At several tables patrons are gambling, though it's not clear what the stakes are, or even the game. </desc>
<desc> A bank of holos across one wall is showing Elvis singing 'You ain't nothing but a GroundHog'. You wince at the volume and wonder whose idea it was to clone long dead singing stars. </desc>
<desc> A pallid youth with a cyberhacker haircut (shaved down the middle to take the receptor for a cranial jack) is jacked into a coin-op VR machine in the corner. He stares through you vacantly.</desc>
<exits s='1543' out='1543'/>
</location>
I must have been psychic, because a few months ago I wrote a new section of Earth for the players which I never got round to putting in to fed1. It's called Level 7, and it's the underground, run down, shabby area when the labourers who work unseen in the Starport live.
It also has the main temple for a cargo cult that is going to loom important in fed2, since fed2 has access to Age's sophisticated event technology, rather than using the extremely primitive events available to fed1 players.
