Modules for ABattlemap

@a44bigdog:

Well I guess I could mention that in the NOs North West Europe is den and in the hover it is nwe or that Borneo is brn in one place and bor in another

but I think those are small enough issues to let slide.  :-D

Blast, you did brake it (even though just a little  8-) ). And it’s minor, true, but fixed nonetheless (life would be much easier if I wasn’t a perfectionist in some ways ;) ).

@Stoney229:

also ukr is listed twice when hovering Germany’s NO… again no big deal

Check!

@Cmdr:

So the sea zones and the super submarine upgrade has been repaired?

Yes, just as the double Ukr and Bor/Brn or Den/Nwe.

@Cmdr:

What file controls that, Holkann?  I’ve kind of edited my map considerably and it’s a continual work in progress, same with my toolpieces.  I’m trying to make ABattlemap prettier so we can get the art addicts off TripleA and return them to the one true path of Battlemap!

Lol, I second that :D

Now, as for the file used to change names and values of territories: it is sektorinfo.txt/.sek. But to understand how it works, you need to understand the whole program. I’ll give an overview of all files and their function in an ABattlemap module, but it’s not easy, so be warned:

map.bmp:
is the visual image of the map that will be shown on the screen.

mapinfo.txt:
contains the name of the module (+ some extra info, but that I don’t understand)

start.aam:
contains the starting position of the units.

toolpieces.bmp:
the amount of rows decides the amount of nations playing. The amount of columns decides the amount of units in play. The first column is regarded as the “flag”, or the token which decides which country owns what territory. The size of a row or column may not be altered, but new columns and rows may be added.

bigpieces.bmp:
essentially the same as toolpieces, but with a bigger size of the rows and columns

toolpieces.txt:
lists the properties of each column/unit of toolpieces.bmp (or bigpieces.bmp). Those properties are: name, IPC-value, “navality” (= 1 if the column represents a naval unit, 0 if the column does not).

sektorinfo.bmp:
is a bmp-file representing the territories available on the map. Those territories are separated by black (RGB= 00 00 00) lines. To identify each different territory, the territories are filled with a different color, which’s RGB-value corresponds to its line numer in sektorinfo.txt.

sektorinfo.txt:
lists the territories line by line with their properties. A typical line is like this:
France (Fra)                            : 01060100 0000016a 00000113 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
=> the first attribute is the name of the territory.
=> the second attribute (after the semicolon) is a block of hexadecimal numbers (which are actually 4 separate numbers):
01 means this is a land territory, 06 means it is worth 6 IPC’s, 01 means it is originally owned by the country represented by the first row of toolpieces.bmp, and 00 is simply redundant.
=> the third and fourth attribute show the place (in pixels) where the IPC-value of this territory should appear (hexadecimal!).
=> the fifth attribute is again 4 separate numbers, specifying “oil” or “convoy” properties:
00 is redundant, 00 indicates no country looses IPC’s if taken, 00 indicates this isn’t a convoy route, 00 means this isn’t an oil territory.
=> the rest are redundant.

sektorinfo.map:
is the version of sektorinfo.bmp the ABattlemap program can read.

sektorinfo.sek:
is the version of sektorinfo.txt the ABattlemap program can read.

Now, how do you make the .map and .sek files?
Your ABattlemap folder contains 2 files who manage this: csek.exe and b242map.exe. To use these however, you’ll need to use the console (the black screen with white letters in windows). The easiest way to do this, is to creat a folder on your C disk. For instance: c:\aafiles . You drop there both those exe’s, and sektorinfo.txt and sektorinfo.bmp. Run the console, and navigate to c:\aafiles (the command “cd…” let’s you go 1 folder up, the command “cd something” lets you go to the folder “something” if available in the folder you’re currently visiting with the console). If you’re in the right folder, type “csek.exe sektorinfo.txt sektorinfo.sek”, hit return, and the sektorinfo.sek will appear in the folder. “b242map.exe sektorinfo.bmp sektorinfo.map” does the same trick for sektorinfo.map.

More info: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=11223.new#new
Also, there are some .txt files in your ABattlemap folder, those are handy too, but they are in German.

Allright, I hope this answered your question, but it probably is all quite confusing (it took me a while before I got it myself, just started out file by file, and got it all in the end). Any questions, shoot, but plz read this overview and the link I gave, so you’ve got something to “hang things up to” (as in: if you understand A, you’ll relate it to B and C without needing any help).

rar isn’t time limited: the only thing you get when the time limit has passed is a pop-up the time limit has passed: the program still works fine.

But I’ll put on a zip version too, only to show it is worse (as in: takes up more space) than rar :p

@Gnarl536:

I recommend 7-zip.

See www.7-zip.org

You can decompress rar-files with it. The compression in 7-zip-format (.7z) may even be better than in .rar: 
So HolKann’s files are compressed to 541.641 Bytes in .rar. The same files compressed in .7z only take 221.015 Bytes.

And: 7-zip is free and Open Source!

Hmm, interesting… Allright, WinRar is officially abolished in favor of 7-zip, tnx :)

@TimTheEnchanter:

Even so, I have a half-empty 500GB hard drive with an external 750GB hard drive.  I don’t care if it takes an extra 300 kbytes for the files.  The difference in download time is negligible.  Disk space is cheap.  Labor (i.e., my free time) isn’t!

And even if I did care, I have to download and install a new application that takes up several MB, in order to save 300kb?  Somehow this doesn’t quite fit my definition of “better”  :-D :-P :wink:

=> You’re looking at it the wrong way: you still have to unpack it at your hard drive, so it will always take up the full amount of space on your hard drive, no matter how good or bad it is compressed. Alright, for those of you not liking a little moralistic speech, skip to the next post:

The big advantage of compressing things (be it with winzip or whatever), lies in the nature of uploading/downloading/internet storage. Internet storage is not as cheap as a HD, and in Belgium we’ve got upload and download limits which limit our internet traffic. Besides that, every byte put on the net needs a server running 24/7 using up valuable energy.

Now, take the 200 kB, make it 200 MB, and figure out the time and energy saved by uploading 200 MB instead of 600 MB. If I could save 67% of my time uploading stuff, this easily makes up for downloading 10 MB for the 7-Zip program. En plus, I get to down/upload 67% more if everyone would use 7-Zip. So that’s why I’m advocating everyone to use it, even for small files, so people are used to the program when the need arises. I know for some people, it doesn’t matter how big their files are, but to other people (for instance with a telephone connection), it does. Besides, In these times of environmentalism and economic crisis, don’t waste energy/money needlessly by putting huge files on the net where small would also suffice. Why do you think this board limits its files to 256 kB?

See it like this: riding 1 km with a suv doesn’t require a lot more gasoline than riding 1 km with a small hybrid car. But drive 1000 km, and everyone agrees the small hybrid is cheaper. So promote the hybrid, not the suv.