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Home » Stars! Clones, Extensions, Modding » Stars! Nova - Open Discussion and Help » Stars! Nova 0.4.1 Developmental Release
Re: Stars! Nova 0.4.1 Developmental Release Sun, 16 January 2011 07:15 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
craebild is currently offline craebild

 
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Registered: December 2003
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
m.a@stars wrote on Sun, 16 January 2011 10:25

Celebrinbor1 wrote on Sat, 15 January 2011 04:46

3. possibly including a drawing layer that can be shared between players. This will make defining borders, communicating war plans, etc, easier.

Alternatively, allow for all relevant game data to be exported in a common enough format so other software, such as already existing drawing apps, can readily use it. Deal

That would be a good idea, but which format ?

BMP would be a poor choice, both because it is a bitmap and because of the file size.

SVG would require relatively recent drawing software.

PNG is also a bitmap, but that is a compressed format, so file size would not be a problem.

What else is there ? A lot of formats are proprietary, and the developers of Nova cannot pay license fees as Nova is supposed to be freeware.

I would lean towards SVG. I don't remember whether Microsoft's or Adobe's various drawing software can read it, but GIMP and Inkscape can, and they are cross-platform freeware programs, so that wouldn't force players to pull out their pocketbook in order to use the format Thumbsup 2

Recommending the use of GIMP or Inkscape as the drawing program for such map creation would also allow the proprietary format of the drawing program to be used for exchanging the maps, though that would have the disadvantage of forcing the players to install and learn a new drawing program, if they aren't using that program as a drawing program already.

Both GIMP and Inkscape can export as PNG, though, and PNG files can be viewed in any relatively recent web browser, so players who are not inclined to install a drawing program in order to create such maps would still be able to view them. PNG is a bitmap format, though, so there would have to be a compromise between resolution and file size.

SVG is beginning to be supported in current versions of web browsers, though, and that is a vector based format, so that could be a possible option for exporting such maps in the future. A vector based format would also have the advantage of allowing one file to show both the positions of fleets across an extended border conflict and the exact positions of enemy fleets located 1-2 ly from a planet in order to suppress minefields. It might also allow notes to be scaled according to zoom level, but I am not conversant enough with the PNG format to be certain whether SVG supports that.

Med venlig hilsen / Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Christian Ræbild / Christian Raebild

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