Commotion - Map Editor - Beta

[RubenKraken]

0.3 Release

• Fixed Rifts not rendering to same scale as planets.
• (hopefully) Fixed issue where opening a file would cause a crash due to a missing .net 3.5 assembly
• Added support for adding coordinates to rifts. (Right click on rift to add coordinates)
• Added support to load in rift data from file

[Kumlekar]

0.3 Release

• Fixed Rifts not rendering to same scale as planets.
• (hopefully) Fixed issue where opening a file would cause a crash due to a missing .net 3.5 assembly
• Added support for adding coordinates to rifts. (Right click on rift to add coordinates)
• Added support to load in rift data from file

Excellent,  I'm going to start using this for maps.  The most pressing issues now seems to be an inability to zoom out, and and inability to remove coordinate sets from a rift. 

[RubenKraken]

Yes, yes....you would think with the ability to add you would naturally get the ability to remove. Will fix in the next release. Kind of a pain but if you really need to remove a set you can save the map out to a file, open it in a text editor, remove the set, and then reload it in. Slightly annoying, but at least you are not stuck with a worthless set.

Also, Chris, if you happen to swing by... It seems that you can't download the editor unless you are registered. Not sure if that is how you want it, but I did catch that you allowed maps to be downloaded so not sure if zip files need to be explicitly added or what.

[Kumlekar]

The downloading is probably a forum base premission, instead of global.

There are multiple work-arounds for the rift problem, its just a slight inconvience.  My next map will be created entirely using commotion, so lets see how it turns out! It only uses two coordinate rifts so its not too bad. \ Navigating planets is much easier with this than with text, but this is going to take awhile because the map I'm making is symetrical around three axis's, so calculating where to place planets requires some trig.

[Kumlekar]

Sorry for the double post, but I have a request.  Is it possible to save the planet names that you enter when creating a planet as a comment in the text file?  This would allow them to be loaded with the file when loading a map.  An example:

[rift]
; ID: path2200
x1=558
y1=1099

x2=558
y2=1567

This would name the rift "ID: path2200" inside of commotion.
Another example:

[planet]
;Center
name=World Domination
x=0
y=0
baseproduction=10
factoryproduction=3
nativesproduction=3
startpriority=-1

The planet would appear as "Center" in the sidebar when the map was loaded, while still retaining "World Domination" as the ingame name.  This feature would allow for easy navigation around the map instead of having to remeber which planet is "entity 1" and which is "entity 42".

Thanks! The program is awesome!

[RubenKraken]

Good point, I considered this but since I am not in control of the file format decided against it. I could use the comments section but if possible I'd rather keep comments as comments and have a field specifically for this use.

Chris, if I added a field such as entityname will this be a problem?

I also added the ability to rename entities in the enhancements list as I am sure it will come up sooner or later.

[Kumlekar]

All the program would have to do is look up the first comments after the line that says [planet] or [rift].  It would use whatever that line is as the entity name, and would set to a default name is one was not found before the next instance of the [planet] or [rift] within the text file. 

Would it be possible to get a copy of your source code for this? 

[Chris]

You can add all the fields and sections you like, the game will just ignore data it doesn't recognise.

I recommend using a standard prefix though, e.g. "editor" (so you might use "editorentityname" or "editorname" in this case), just to avoid the possibility of a naming clash in case I make the game support more fields/sections later.

I've added the ability for guests to download attachments from any forum (previously this was only allowed in the Map Repository forum).

[RubenKraken]

Chris:
I'll prefix any fields with editor_<fieldname> to remove any possibility of clashing.

Kumlekar:
Yes, that was an option but from a design perspective and writing my own parser I really didn't want to use comments for anything but as a comment. Luckily it won't be an issue now.

[Chris]

Sounds good.

[Kumlekar]

YAY!

[Kumlekar]

Um, another request.  Could planets with positive start value be highlighted a different color from the rest of the planets?

[RubenKraken]

Added to the list. I have a couple more of the enhancements nearly finished. Hoping to wrap them up sometime this weekend and releasing an update.

[RubenKraken]

0.4 Release

• Added ability to remove Rift coordinates
• Made the planet size dynamic by its baseproduction value
• Changed it so if a planet's startpriority is greater than 0 it will be blue
• Changed planet graphics to use the game sprites
• Entity name is stored in a field named editor_entityname so it can be retrieved on load
• The selected rift's line will be colored red to help see which you are working with

[Kumlekar]

This is excellent!  I can't find anything to complain about outside of the lack of a drag and drop feature, and the inability to copy and paste planets with the same stats (both of which are hardly required, but would make some of this math easier).