Sad to see that so many of the nice features in the system map get completely lost or messed up if system structure changes are made with script in an OnCreate.
I wanted to alter the stars according to a table generated at the beginning of the game so that the star types would be knowable from remote systems to place in the mapper. Results:
Star space glow doesn't get added if a star station is added with sysCreateStation.(And, only star scale stations can use spaceColor it seems. It also seems that star scale objects are excluded from sysFindObject searches. When I decided to try a process of elimination to simply place all the possible spaceGlow colors I needed, then remove the unused colors, I had to add scale=star to the station tag, then I couldn't find it with sysFindObject anymore.
Not to mention the fact that apparently only the first spaceColor value added was used.)I don't really miss the glow, but this is driving me nuts:
Star icon in map is placed on top layer, often obscuring planets that are close to it.I wanted to alter the planets or add one during an <OnCreate> event.
Planet orbit isn't added. (added a orbit object to keep the orbit, and the new planet shows up UNDER the orbit line!)I will let you imagine the difficulties I am facing in adding stations on demand.
What a pity, seems that the system tag uses a lot of specialized features that the game scripting can't even touch. Which is sad, because it would be great to create the system at the onCreate to match information that was generated at the beginning of the game.
Why? Because then we could 'know about these things in game' or, in other words, have the information available outside of the current system and prior to the system being created, and then use the information in missions or other places.
(Is it so hard to imagine that pilots one might meet in Eridani would be able to answer the question: "Is there an asteroid belt in Groombridge?" or "What type of star is the [name] system?" or perhaps you could drop into the local CW station and discover some factual information about the upcoming systems, such as would typically constitute rumors or trivial conversation: "On my last run to St. K's, miners in the [name] system had discovered many new sources of titanium on [planet name], I got a great discount on new armor from [station name]!" -and then have the game actually produce these features.)
Not that I can't do it, it is just going to be a great deal more difficult to make the map look like it should and to get the objects to do what they do in the specialized system tag format.
(The fact is, the map seems to be a rather finicky and sensitive appended feature. I have had all kinds of difficulties with map labels getting misplaced when changing the text value of a label, and general bugginess all around when changing system structures. Might be a good idea to take a good hard look at the map code and try to give it a little more intelligence)
Frustrations aside, it is entirely possible to re-structure a system to allow information about Star type, Number of planets, types of planets, environment, resources, and anything else to be available from anywhere else in the game. I will let you imagine the amount of uses and interesting effects that a cohesive game universe can achieve.
Does this alter the rogue-like portions of the game environment? Absolutely not! It just makes the randomness happen at a different time. And having the info be available would allow for a great deal more communication and unity between systems for missions and other features.
I am so close to getting the game to act like a unit that doesn't have any limitations between current and remote systems, yet fear the continual discover of more pitfalls such as missing graphic elements and no way to recreate them.
