World Builder

[Wildeblood]

Greetings, forumites!

Here is a system information editor. Please don't rename every planet "Loserworld", and claim they're inhabited by "One Million!" "Jody Vance Clones". That would be puerile, and has probably already been done.

OXZ is 129 KB, and the limit to upload here is 128 KB. Anyway, it's on the wiki now.

[Redspear]

At last! The planet of the love starved nymphettes begging to reproduce with Earth men, the stuff of B-movie legend, is here.
Praise be, praise be...

Seriously though, sounds good and I expect I'll be giving it a try.

[Wildeblood]

I've just uploaded version 1.1, and I'm quite happy with how this is progressing. It's now keeping a log of changes made, and the intention is for version 1.2 to have an "undo" function. That's the only outstanding item on the wanted features list. Now it really just needs polishing: many more detailed help messages, limiting the annoying sound sample to only play once, pretty screen backgrounds, etc.

https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/File: ... uilder.oxz

[Cholmondely]

Thy eminence!

You've categorised this one as an "Ambience" OXP.

My understanding is that Ambience OXPs merely adumbrate eye-candy and do not affect gameplay. But altering System Governments, Economy types and TL all do affect gameplay. Might this one be better characterised as a "Mechanics" OXP?

Yours nit-picker-ishingly...



Warning: I've nit-picked all over the wiki page for this one, too. The nit-carapaces are building up!

[Wildeblood]

You've categorised this one as an "Ambience" OXP.

A speculative hypothesis for your consideration: I have a known-to-be-good manifest.plist file, wherein there are no misplaced semi-colons to thwart the user-experience of Apple products enjoyers, which I copy & paste, changing only the manifest-id and title fields.

My understanding is that Ambience OXPs merely adumbrate eye-candy and do not affect gameplay. But altering System Governments, Economy types and TL all do affect gameplay. Might this one be better characterised as a "Mechanics" OXP?

Both, but really - leaving aside the alphabetical advantage - I'd lean more to ambience. Focusing on the eleven that appear on the F7 screen, you've identified three properties one could alter and affect game-play, but the forty or so other sysinfo/planetinfo properties one can edit are mostly about making a system look just so.

Warning: I've nit-picked all over the wiki page for this one, too.

Thank you.

[Wildeblood]

I've just uploaded version 1.2, which now features "colourful background images".

https://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/File: ... uilder.oxz

(There is also a rudimentary undo function hidden in there somewhere. One would need to edit the script to remove some /* comment delimiters */ .)

It still features the annoying sound sample.

[Cholmondely]

Focusing on the eleven that appear on the F7 screen, you've identified three properties one could alter and affect game-play, but the forty or so other sysinfo/planetinfo properties one can edit are mostly about making a system look just so.

Not with all those OXPs we have out there!

Population affects placement of Kiota stations.
Species determines which corny jokes you are subjected to in Redspear's Alien systems, which lasers are available in his New Lasers, and also influences the New Cargoes and the Smugglers OXPs
Productivity affects quantities for sale in SW Economy
Radius (with TL and economy) determines whether a world is a mining world in SW Economy
Description partially determined which New Cargoes are sold or bought at that system

And some of these also affect the demand in Redspear's Demand Based Economy, which I have yet to get my head around.

Admittedly, in some cases the vanilla game or Famous Planets information influenced the hard-coded determinations inside the OXP. But, still!

[Redspear]

determines which corny jokes you are subjected to in Redspear's Alien systems

Oy!

And some of these also affect the demand in Redspear's Demand Based Economy, which I have yet to get my head around.

Very minor influence and more on supply IIRC although I've got new ideas for that.

[Cholmondely]

I've just uploaded version 1.2, which now features "colourful background images".
...
It still features the annoying sound sample.

The man is a nutter.

The man is an utter nutter.

[Cholmondely]

Thy Ominence,

might there be point in just reminding the utiliser of your programmable perfecter of planets what the current statistic actually is before he/she starts playing merry havoc with it all?

[Wildeblood]

Might there be point in just reminding the utiliser of your programmable perfecter of planets what the current statistic actually is before he/she starts playing merry havoc with it all?

It's a glaring oversight, isn't it? Go to a read-only property, e.g. galaxyID and it's there, but for all the properties you can change, nah. It's top of the list of things to do for the next revision.

And the sound sample will only play on the starting menu, not the other menus.

[Wildeblood]

Might there be point in just reminding the utiliser of your programmable perfecter of planets what the current statistic actually is before he/she starts playing merry havoc with it all?

Version 1.2.3 - functionally complete. (Not version 1.3 yet, because it's still scruffy on the inside, and wants tidying up.) Changes from version 1.2:-

1. Second input screen shows the current value of the property one is proposing to change.
2. Result screen shows before and after values of changed property.
3. Result screen offers choice to edit another property, rather than always exiting to the system data screen.
4. Sound sample only plays on the starting menu, not the other menus.