-= Map Wizard Homepage =-

Map Wizard Version 1.42 greets You!

What is it.

Map Wizard is a map generator, viewer and editor for Tim Wisseman's game VGA Planets (version 3.x). This is an utility for the GameMaster, not for the player! Player can only see the map and some map statistics of this game.
Everyone has seen games, where one race is reach of planets, and there are a lot of treasures on those planets. And another one is poor, has small territory and no chances to develop and win... Main idea of this utility - to help Gamemaster in detecting and preventing such situations. When Map Wizard works with map, it looks over the planets where starting positions would be (i.e. homeworlds).

Requirements

Windows 95,98,NT,2000,... Mouse and GameMaster's brain.

Why it looks so strange? :-)

Because this is my "Hello, World!" in Delphi and in visual programming at all. Later MW has been improved by different people, and everyone fixed some old bugs but added new :) Still it works (sometimes), and makes something useful (maybe). It is freeware meanwhile, but if You principally prefer to pay for the software or wish to support me for the future development of this product, I will be glad! :-)

What it does?

1. It can create new map.

For map generation, my own special anti-Babanov algorithm has been used. Main idea - to generate map "from the homeworlds", in contrast to place HWs on the created map. Map may be both ring-style, or classical square. You may put starting HW positions manually, as vell as automatically (in two circles). "Two circles" with zero homeworlds on one of the circles, looks as Tim's or Sterian's Master proposes.
You can set number of races == 0, and it will be a "usually used" map, non-attended to "HWs" concept (as Tim's default, for example).
There are some configurable parameters and planet density statistics.

NEW!!! Since ver. 1.41, you can use *.bmp or *.jpg picture as a pattern for creating new map: places filled by black color (#00#00#00) will stay empty, and other areas could be randomly filled by planets...

2. It can place HWs on any pre-created map.

The top of scientific approach in placing HWs, is Spreader made by Alexander Babanov. So, in respect, MW allows import of HW numbers from Spreader. But if You want, You can set homeworlds manually. Press a color square in the grid with race names (bottom-right corner of the screen), and after that - select convenient planet. Or put the number of homeworld into gridcell. When You set all the HWs and enjoy the Galaxy, You can save numbers of HWs into text file for moving into Pmaster.cfg.

3. Map editing.

You can select any planet by mouse and drop it anywhere. Also, for the compatibility with Planets.exe, Tim's magic x-checksum fitting is allowed.

4. Host data use.

If while loading the map the file pdata.hst is found in the same directory - it will also be used. Planet data will be seen after selecting the planet. Planets reachness will be used in statistics.

NEW!!! Since version 1.33, Map Wizard allows editing Planet contents (files Planet.nm and Pdata.hst) ! But be careful to change something after the game start!

Changing the places and contents of planets after the Master or PMaster (but before the Host running and sending the Map to the players!) might not cause any problems. I believe...

NEW!!! Since version 1.33, Map Wizard works with WormHoles and Ion Storms too.

5. View features.

Scale - after increasing, You can move the map by the right-clicking the mouse (WarCraft-style).

Square grid - linear, with step of 100 ly, better for square map.

Concentric circles - with radius +=100 ly - for ring or round map.

1-turn cover - planets with the distance <=84 ly, are linked by blue lines to see chains for hide moves. Green lines are for <=67 ly (warp 8). Red line is for <=52 ly (warp 7).

1-turn zones - circles with the 84 ly radius near the planets. It is useful in large scales only.

Ownership forecast - painting the planets CLOSEST to the HW. Default is 50 planets. If distance between HWs is small, a part of territory might be overlaped. Such planets are "frontier".

Habitat forecast - painting the territory, which includes closest [50] planets. For the GameMasters with the aesthetic taste.

HW areas - rings with the radius of 84, 165, 246 ly.

Planet resources - only if pdata.hst exists! Small lines are written near the planets with the "mineral coefficients" (see below) >15. Blue-up is Neutronium, Red-left is Tritanium, Yellow-right is Duranium, Gyan-down is Molibdenium.

Natives - also needs pdata.hst! Planets with natives are painted by small circles. Double-width for "Native coefficients" (see below) is more than 10. Color depends of natives type.

Most "florid" planets are the best.

Planet Coefficients.

For the each mineral,
Ê*100 = _on_surface_+min(_in_core_,(_dencity_*50))

It is closely proportional for the extraction of 200 factories during 25 turns.

For the natives,
RÊ*500 = _government_*_natives_*KR,
where KR=2 for avians and Insectoids, 0 - for Amorfus, 1 for all the other races.
For Amphibians,Siliconoids, Gipsoldals and Humanoids, K=K+2
And for Bovinoids: RÊ=RÊ+(_natives_/5000).

Climate: for c<16 or c>84, RK=RK*0.66
For each planet (even with no natives!) RK=RK+1 if climate is in (35-65), and -1/-2/-3 for c in (15/10/5- 85/90/95).

!!! Race features and abilities are not considered in the map analysis! Principially.

For planets into the habitat of any race:
RRk = kk*(Nk+Tk+Dk+Mk+rr*Rk)+bb
where kk- factor of distance to the HW (default is 1 for HW, 0.8 for 1-turn zone, 0.6 for 2 turns, 0.4 for 3 turns).
rr=factor of "native coefficient" [6], bb=bonus if planet is available to produce starbase by itself [10].

RRK will be used:
- in the planet review;
- while calculating "summary coefficients" ("Info" mode);
- while best planets are sorted (best [N] planets for each race will be shown as squares, if host data exists and Forecast is ON).

You can change Default coefficients in mw_koef.cfg, if it exists in game directory. Otherwise, default settings will work.

Notes:
- Coefficients are calculated for all the races equally! Race features are race features and can not have an influence on Justice of the map.
- HW can not affect the summary coefficients (I believe it is the similar for all the races!)
- "frontier" planets or planets more than in 3 turns (246 ly) of HW are ignored.

Stats.

All stats are calculated by the forecast owners based on the HW place! What owner of the planet is in the host data now? It is ignored. In the beginning, it should be an unowned planet et all.

Report columns:

HW - HomeWorld numbers.

NP - number of planets, which are closer to the selected HW then any other HW.

RP - Planets from the N (50?) habitat area, which are not "frontier". All the following "coefficients" will be calculated only for these planets.

1T - How many planets is in 1 turn (84 ly) of the HW.

2T - -#- in 2 turns (165 ly).

Nk, Tk, Dk, Mk, Rk - summary "mineral Coefficients" for RP planets. (taking into account distance to the HW).

Ak% - involved coefficient... Production of percentages of race "mineral coefficients" to average mineral coefficient.
Ak%=100%, if all race minerals are close to average in Galaxy.
But, Ak%=50% seems that ONE mineral is a half of average, or ALL the minerals are in 84% of average. If one race has one mineral in 50%, it needs 200% of another mineral to compensate it. If someone has even one of the mineral coefficients close to zero, Ak%=0 anyway. Because the race cannot build nothing in this case.

OPk% - more involved coefficient, multiplying Ak% by similar percentage "native coefficient/average native coefficient". OPk% close to 100% for all the races seems that any warps in mineral and native resources compensate one another. I don't want total equivalence! I want justice and compensation.

If OPk% for all the races is in [30...300] - it is well-balanced Galaxy. Such OPK% is rare after the random generation, even with balanced HW allocation! (p<0.05)

OPPk(N) - summary for the BEST [N] planets ("top 10").

"NEIGHBORS VICINITY" matrix.

Distances between HWs. If there are "frontier" planets for two races, their number is in ().

!!! IMPORTANT! You have to save Your hard work as:
- players map (Xyplan.dat)
- host map (Xyplan.hst)
- and HomeWorlds positions in file Master.hws.
Best [N] planets for each race will be in the separate line in master.hws.
Homeworld is the first in the line, of course.
Such file could be used in the "SuperInvasion" scoring, and You can type HW numbers into pmaster.cfg file to generate Universe.

"Batch mode"
1)
> mw.exe [<Path>] C[heck] [<MinKr>] [<MaxKr>]

MapWizard will load all files found in target directory xyplan.dat, pdata.xst, master.hws. Even if second parameter exists, Wizard will check the Galaxy, and close itself. If all the OPk% for all the races will be between <Min> and <Max>, file mw.chk will be created. No justice- no file mw.chk. So, such *.bat file is possible:

===
:1
pmaster c:\hh
mw.exe c:\hh Check 50 200
if exist c:\hh\mw.chk goto end
goto 1
:end
===

If You set min and max values too optimistically - it will be Perpetuum Mobile :)

2)

> mw.exe [<Path>] G[enerate] [IniFile]

- for complete map generation using ini-file (see file MWmap.ini)

"Justify mode"
NEW!!! Use "Justify" mode for automated "shuffle" poor and rich planets until all the "race koefficients" play up to the given scope. It makes "batch mode" needless.

Author: Eugene Goroh, Kiev, Ukraine, 2000.
Goroh@ucr.kiev.ua, 2:463/246.39@fidonet.org

Version 1.10 - code improved by Alex Bagrov, St-Peterburg, Russia
2:5030/1198@fidonet.org batmanwork@mail.ru

Version 1.20 - improved by Roman Zhukov, Yekaterinburg, Russia
jadeite@mailru.com

Version 1.30 - improved by Dmitriy Romanov, Kiev, Ukraine
4dr@mail.ru

Version 1.33 - improved by Roman Zhukov, Yekaterinburg, Russia
jadeite@mailru.com

Version 1.40 - improved by Dmitriy Romanov, Kiev, Ukraine
4dr@mail.ru

Versions 1.41,1.42 - again by Roman Zhukov, Yekaterinburg, Russia
jadeite@mailru.com

Spreader - product by Alexander Babanov, babanov@earthlink.net
www.home.earthlink.net/~babanov/vp

My thanks for all who generated ideas, and who tested MW.
GREAT thanks for all the GameMasters who works hard for us to play.

PS Apologise for terrible English :) As is :)

If You cannot understand something - I'll try to help You via e-mail: goroh@ucr.kiev.ua