Greetings,

I am pleased to announce that my new brainchild has been just delivered and is ready for testing.
The program which you can download from autohost ftp server (ftp://library.southern.edu/starsreportsprocessor.zip) is a subject of further development and I need your help on testing it
No question asked yet, but here comes FAQ to Stars! Reports Processor (S!RP) v. 0.9 beta:


What the program can be used for:

- Visualizing fleets reports (F##, no FLE please!) from allies along with your own fleet report,
- Checking possibility of fleet movement (own and foreign) at selected warp speed,
- Drawing possible fleet routes (past and future),
- Showing ranges of scanners of particular fleet or planet (also calculates ranges),
- Calculating distance between fleets and planets,

What the program does not:

- Pretend to be another Notebook clone - it is mainly for fleet visualization and reports it feeds on are fleet report(s) and universe definition (MAP files). No planetary report (Pxx , either PLE) is needed for updating, but limitation are obvious: planetary scanners range are drawn in neutral (white) color as the program cannot simply distinguish to whom they belong,
- Pretend to be another StarsCalc - OK you can find some calculations (e.g. compound scanners range) which are in StarCalc - I was just tempted to check if I get same results . But unlike in StarsCalc (v 3.0.6) you can find Tachyon Detector clocking reduction calculation.
- Pretend to be nice-looking - I do not care about esthetic aspects too much I admit.

Planned development and enhancements:

Next version should be fitted with:
- Possibility to get fleet particulars (like in fleet report i.e. number of bombers utilities, warships, etc) by clicking fleet symbol on the map
- Race fleet statistics: like overall number of bombers, scouts, etc per race
- Recently used MAP files list,
- Own and ally fleets routes drawing (now only foreign fleet routes are drawn);
- A sort of help file,
- Possibly, optional adding an own planetary report (Pxx) to provide color scanner range circles, all-race-scanners-on function, etc.
- Maybe graphic icons instead of dull 'Off' and 'On' buttons - if somebody is willing voluntarily to create such icons and they are nice, can count on his/her name put in credits,
- Any new interesting ideas which are always welcome


Known limitations:

- Program may have a problem to properly process fleets which names contain '#' and '*' symbols.
- Try to avoid naming ship designs or fleets containing these symbols. Of course, Stars! uses "#" for auto-naming fleet to distinguish its ID, but this is natural. Program will have no problem with names like "Scout #20" or even "#Scout# #20", but may give improper respond when fleet is renamed for "#Scout#??".
- '*" symbol should be avoid to use at the end of design or fleet name (like "Freighter - take pop*") - S!RP uses "*" to mark fleets retrieved from ally's reports and put it exactly at the end of fleet name,
- S!RP presumes that first report is own report while next reports comes from allies. No harm will be done if reports are loaded in different order or if only ally's report or reports are loaded, but in such cases you may get confused by terminology used in the program and in some cases same fleets may be entered more then once. S!RP provides a sort of automation (autoloading) to enforce a "proper" order of reports loading,
- Program may give confusing results if there are fleets of the very same name, try to avoid it (in Stars!)- use number for example: "Scout go W 1", Scout go W 2",
- FLE files are not accepted, if your Stars! creates FLE reports you can add the following line to stars.ini in Windows folder, under [MISC] section:
NewReports=1
hmm... I am tempted to add a procedure to S!RP for automating this process... maybe in v.2.0
- Min. recommended resolution is 1024x768, the program itself will work normally in lower resolutions, but worki

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Xdude wrote:

Quote:

If a .fle report (.f1) file from multiple turns is used, can the program track movement of fleets if known?

Well, your question brought a smile on my face. The original concept for this program was to provide a historical view on fleet movements. After some time the idea drifted towards visualization of ally's reports rather then keeping fleet tracks, and that concept was completely abandon (forgotten). The assumption now is that all reports come from the same turn/year, however it will be still possible (in next version) to add on past fleet reports, as an option (new menu item: "Add past fleet reports"). And it will be possible (optionally) to draw fleet routes based on past report or reports (dot line joining fleets of same id for example). To keep it as simple as possible only own past fleet reports will be allowed. I am (re)adding this idea to planned enhancements list.

BTW,
To beta-testers (a few showed up )
- the bug of accepting .FLE files (only .fle files were rejected) has been detected - the problem will be solve in next release - please do not report it again.

Regards
Feliks

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[Updated on: Wed, 09 July 2003 08:59]

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Sgd. Bulldog wrote:

Quote:

One thing I can't make work is the 'Other fleet Route'. No matter which race I select, it pops up an errormessage that it's not my own (when trying to turn that feature on).

Could you please send me ( nospam_FPR@BARBER.PL_nospam ) the fleet file you used for it? I will check what is wrong. Anyway this procedure will be replaced in next version by "Fleet Routes" (it will include own and all ally's fleets) so there will be no need to select Own Race for that purpose, but I am just currious what might go wrong with your case.

Quote:

As far as ones own scanners are concerned, it is hardly relevant as that function is allready in the game. But nice anyway.

You do not have to change to Stars! screen to check ranges. How about Tachyon Detector calculation? - there is no that feature in Stars! (OK, it has limited application).
Besides you can always use 'Hide own fleet' in Add Fleet (if own race is set properly).

Quote:

What's the use of the 'angle' calculation?

Actually, none, but it gives a sort of technical impression. Maybe it can give some orientation between mutual localization of 2 fleets or planets - that's it. Hmm..., if you think of it , you can use it to detect possibility for exploitation of N-S and E-W minefields immunity bug..

Regards,
Feliks

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[Updated on: Wed, 09 July 2003 14:32]

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[Updated on: Wed, 09 July 2003 15:32]

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version 0.9.1b:

When in the map-view:
when I click on other fleet route; status off (so I try to get it going...) I get the error:

"wrong own race set!. Fleet <race_name ship_design> contains illegal data.
<race> is set as own race and route drawing is terminated."

What do I do wrong? (what does this option do anywho?)
I tried to enter some other race as own race, but this message keeps popping up.

edit: nice idea this. I will follow it's progress!

[Updated on: Thu, 10 July 2003 08:23]

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Hi all,

New release (0.9.2 b) has been sent to Ron.

New features/fixes:

1) Germanium label corrected in Fleet Statistics.
2) "Terraforming" ship type removed from Fleet Statistics - Sorry, never played CA races
3) More key shortcuts added.
4) Fleet particulars by right-clicking on the map added (a subject of further changes later on - multifleet per race particulars option to be added)
5) Solved problem of Other Fleet Routes and 'Wrong Own Race' error message - thanks to Sinla for the report file.

I will be gone until late Sunday, so only at that time I'll be able to attend your e-mails/posts.

Regards,
Feliks

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[Updated on: Tue, 05 August 2003 03:05]

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Hi,

Quote:

1) Does the ship history function work yet?

1) Not yet, and I think it will be no earlier then in version 1.1. It will be extra menu item in File called "Add past fleet report".

Quote:

2) Could it be possible to include some way to design the layouts of ships and save to a file so players can share tactical ship data and such?

2) I do not really get what you mean by "layouts of ships". To share information with your ally (or friendly race) you need to send only your own fleet report file, the one which Stars! generates (you can manually remove some information, e.g. your own fleets from it). Your ally adds on the file he/she got from you to S!RP and can "see" exactly (or almost exactly - depending on the filter options used) what you can see. By right-clicking on fleet symbol he/she can get the same data as you have. If it is not what you meant, can you please explain a bit more?

Quote:

3) Is it possible to save the scanner settings to a file? So I don't have to reenter them next time I start the map up?

3) No, not yet either (I guess in 1.1 earliest). However I am heavily thinking on this possibility. I can also tell that there will be more possibilities to add multiple scanner range circles like:
-"Apply [scanner range] for all of selected design" - and for all e.g. "Nexus Smaugarian Peeping Tom" will be drawn same scanner ranges;
-"Apply all scanners for race X" and all scanner (pen and non-pen) fleets of a race will checked in fleet report file and drawn on the map.
Moreover at the moment I have already finished a procedure to join ranges of fleet of the same race into one range perimeter line (maybe in 0.9.5 b ?).

There will be (1.1) also possibility to add other objects (which could be saved to a file) like minefields (including its radius), wormholes, MT, etc. (however saving these info has sense only if you work with same year fleet report - in next turn their position (WH, MT) or radius (minefields) will be different)

Damn it! - I think I quit writing this dumb help file and get to real work

Quote:

For the most part I think you've got the start of something really nifty going here! Good job!

Thanks!

Feliks

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Nexus One wrote on Thu, 07 August 2003 09:50

Another problem would be with fleets of more then one design type, let say 700 scouts, 15 BBs, and 5 SFXs. In fleet report it will be coded as one fleet of 700 scouts, 15 warships and 5 utilities with name like "Nexus Chaff + #123" and total mass of 17534kT and it would be impossible for the program to distinguish (by design mass) which exactly designs they are, nor even which type of warship (BB, CC, DN etc) scouts or utility ships (this is a limitation of Stars!-generated fleet report).

This really is a pitty, I was so looking forward to a program that could count how much ships of a specific design my enemy has instead of manually going through all his "+" fleets and counting them all myself.
Looking at what you say this will never be possible because of the limit in Stars! itself ...

mch

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Quote:

Looking at what you say this will never be possible because of the limit in Stars! itself ...

Never say never

I can think of a program which crawls through Stars! application and collects such data and combines into one report. There is a program (I forgot the name) which collects (directly from running Stars! application) all messages a player gets in the message pane and enables saving them into a file. In similar way I guess a program could collect fleet-related data.

But, it is not a goal in S!RP ( yet ).

Regards,
Feliks

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[Updated on: Thu, 07 August 2003 12:30]

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Nexus One wrote on Thu, 07 August 2003 14:36

I can think of a program which crawls through Stars! application and collects such data and combines into one report. There is a program (I forgot the name) which collects (directly from running Stars! application) all messages a player gets in the message pane and enables saving them into a file. In similar way I guess a program could collect fleet-related data.

Yeah, I know the program (Message Reader) but never found a good use for it, at least not in the way to help me plan strategy ... might be good to write a history of the game though, or collect the messages send by other players ...
I wouldn't know how to collect such data, I assumed it was in the fleet file dumps, but no it seems it's not ...

Quote:

But, it is not a goal in S!RP ( yet ).

Hurry!!!

mch

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[Updated on: Fri, 08 August 2003 03:14]

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