Re: (TFT) Online Melee

[Lloyd Weber <laweber3@yahoo.com>]

This is excellent information, thanks. I'm still laughing about the
trial-and-error way I plotted the hexes, but it came out almost right - its
one of those algorithms that I don't even know how it works, I just kept
tweaking it until it did. I added a simple way of drawing the megahex
superstructure, and determining megahex distances as well. Java's graphics 2D
package and Swing UI package are helping quite a bit. I guess I am counting on
running this as an applet, though I know it should be possible to code it in a
more lightweight format like JavaScript/HTML, using a tiling system for the
board.

I am going to look closely at the A* pathfinding algorithm, that looks
like it will work nicely with what I have since I can already find all
neighbor hexes and find the distance between any two hexes.

Thats cool that
you got in touch with Steve Jackson; I can understand his point of view. I bet
your Ogre game is pretty cool, thats a good game. I've thought about the
copywrite issue for a Melee/Wizard game as well, but since all current
information says that no known copywrite holder exists I guess I won't worry
about it too much. I am definetely not going to try to make money on it, or
allow it to be used by anyone else for that. My intention is just to allow
myself, my friends and possibly a small community of interested people to play
together over an internet connection. All of those people probably already
bought several of the related hardcopy games at one point in time. I am
wondering whether entering all the text of a microquest-type game, such as
Death Test I, etc, would be a copywright violation, and whether anyone would
care at this point.

My progress is pretty slow right now, I just don't have
that much time. I'm mostly working on the UI for creating games, creating
characters and selecting turn options. After that I'll get in to plotting
moves, determining when a figure has to stop due to engagement, rolling for
initiative and damage, etc.

----- Original Message ----
From: Christopher
Fuhrman <fuhrman8or@yahoo.com>
To: tft@brainiac.com
Sent: Sunday, October 8,
2006 9:50:31 AM
Subject: Re: (TFT) Online Melee

--- Steve Reinhardt
<stever08@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> So far I have not had to resort to
trigonometry for anything. 
> Hexes are
> identified by a pair of coordinates
and distances are measured by
> counting hexes rather than along a straight
line.  Line of fire is
> also
> handled by looking at intervening hexes based
on these coordinates.
>  I
> haven't planned on building the map.  I was just
going to overlay
> figures over an image of the map, tilted so the hex-grain
runs
> horizontally.

If you haven't already, check out these page of game
programming
information:
http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~amitp/gameprog.html#Hex

Isometric 'n'
Hexagonal Maps
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article747.asp
Coordinates in Hexagon based tile maps
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1800.asp

If you want to put
artificial intelligence into the movement (I used
this in my Java Ogre game
described below), one of the most popular
pathfinding algorithm is the A*
(A-Star) algorithm. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-star_search_algorithm
Also, Google just released its source-code search engine. The
following link
will find you all JavaScript files that have the word
hexagon in them:
http://www.google.com/codesearch?q=file%3Ajs+hexagon&btnG=Search+Code

I've
written a prototype for Melee in Java (could be run as an
Applet) that handles
movement on a hexgrid, facing, etc. The nice
thing about Java (not javascript)
is the rich programming API - when
you want to rotate a GIF 30 degrees or
whatever, you can do it
relatively easily. Data structures are a piece of cake
(Collection
API), etc. The "look" is nice using Swing GUI. However, the source
code quickly became ugly and I have lost interest a bit.
Theoretically, C#
(Microsoft's Java) and its API would do just as
well, although I've never
tried.

Over Christmas break a few years back, based on the prototype for
Melee, I finished a player-vs-computer version of Steve Jackson's
Ogre. But as
it contains the full rule-set of the Ogre game, scans of
the counters, etc. I
won't distribute it because of copyright. I did
pay for the game myself (more
than once, first in the 80s and again
in 2002). I actually contacted Steve
Jackson about this Java version,
but he pointed out that he is in the business
of selling paper-based
games and obviously didn't like the idea of a free
Java-based version
floating around on the internet. 

Java code is kinda like
the ROMs you run on a console game, and the
Java Virtual Machine (aka JRE that
you download and install) is like
an emulator of a console, and since the JRE
exists for MacOS,
Windows, Linux, etc., Java code can be easily copied/run on
any
platform. I proposed to SJ the idea of a game server, where people
would
have to log in (and pay to play), but I don't think there's any
money in that
these days (given the real-time 3D games like World of
Warcraft, Halflife,
whatever). I recall that Starfleet Battles had
some kind of online,
server-based system, but I have no idea how
profitable it is... Anyway, I
digress...

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