ATTENTION: TML, HIWG, and GDW:
In working on my subsector viewer, and thinking of ways I would
like to extend it, I've run headlong into a brickwall that has always
been there, but that I've successfully dodged in the past. The problem
is, there is NO standard flat ASCII file format for representing a
sector or subsector of extended systems (stars, all worlds, satellites).
The current standard Sector file format reports only the
traditional main world, stars, # of gas giants, # of belts, and position
in the sector. With that, one can lay out a nice little
sector/subsector map -- BUT, report no more detail on a system than the
main world UPP and data derived from that. I would like to be able to
display system/orbit data in a format similar to that shown for system
write-ups in "Flaming Eye" and "Knightfall".
I could make up my own extended file format, but then my program
would have to have even more customized data files than it does now.
And, source data files used by my program would not be usable with all
the other sector file manipulation programs out there, nor could your
programs work with my proprietary format... I dislike proprietary protocols.
Jo's Library program is the only one I have seen that deals with
extended systems, and I believe it generates them on the fly and stores
them in a proprietary binary file format. For my personal use, I shoved
the Domain of Deneb into a Paradox data base and add additional worlds
of significance in a system myself. BUT, what I am seeking (and
strongly suggesting we create) is a Standard (so all future sector
manipulation programs can use it as long as the programmer adheres to
the published format), ASCII (easy to mail, read, and manipulate), File
format that:
1) Shows all the worlds in a system,
2) preserves the relationships between primaries,
secondaries, planets and satellites,
3) somehow avoids unnecessary detail (we need to know that 5
worlds in the system have the standard S00000-0 rocks for satellites,
without actually entering S00000-0 in our file 5 times..)
4) Will be used by TML and GDW in future publications, posts to
GENIE archives, whatever. Think "STANDARD".
Loren, can you help us on #4?
Perhaps I can start the ball rolling with a suggestion of my
own. In my Paradox database, I key worlds by
Sector - Hex - Star# - Orbit [ - Satellite Orbit] - Name
example:
Spinward Marches 1705 1 3 - Efate
Spinward Marches 1610 1 4 55 Regina
Sort by Hex, Star, Orbit & Satellite Orbit and you have a fairly
good, quick listing of a system. This solution doesn't deal with
redundant description of "the same old rock", though. You could leave
them out, but then the "rock" satellites suddenly don't exist when you
need them ("Do fly-bys of every body in this orbit -- Indro couldn't
have gotten very far with a crippled M-Drive and no J-Drive!" or
"Tukera has placed a refueling station on that rock in Orbit 55 -- it's
near enough the 100-diameter limit that the time saved by not maneuvering in
and out of the gravity well to the starport more than pays for it...")
-- Cynthia