Player Unit Design

[Hans Ronne]

>Looking through the manual, there doesn t seem to be a player unit design
>capability, such as Alpha Centauri has.  I suppose you could pre-design
>all the possible unit types, but I suspect  the display for building units
>wouldn t handle the explosion of unit types possible (roughly 1800, if I
>got all the options correct).  That sort of addition to Xconq would
>require modifying both the kernel and the user interface, wouldn t it?

Yes. Though I don't think it would be impossible. There is no a priori
reason for not allowing players to tamper with the unit porperties in the
GDL tables during the game. You would have to provide a user interface for
doing this, though, and also some ground rules. It should not be possible
to design a better unit without paying for it in some way (e.g. more
construction needed). And you would also need to provide a separate set of
units for each side. But some games already have that, e.g. lord-rings.g.

>Also, the build routines would need changes, since build rates are
>determined by the available materials, rather than by construction points
>the way Xconq does things.  I suppose you could add
>material_to_construction_point routine and set the default contruction
>points to zero.

Classical xconq units (as in the standard game) use action points for
construction, but the acp-independent units are limited only by available
materials, just like you described.

>I ve been reading all 3 of the manuals, and some of the game code while
>trying to beef up the documentation.  This means more delays in
>documenting actions.c; but hopefully, better documentation.

That's fine. The documentation is xconq's weak spot right now, so your work
is appreciated.

Hans


Hans Ronne

hronne@pp.sbbs.se