A Grid or ping would be nice

[Trick17]

a grid or ping would be nice for coordinating with allies.

[sapi]

Seconded

[shinygerbil]

Thirded, although you might want to elaborate more

I think it would be nice to to have "drawing pins" to "stick" in the map, just for personal reference..

[Trick17]

@grid:

a grid (like a chess board) would be nice that could be displayed with a button like the existing buttons in the right lower corner.
so i can tell my allies the position of my subs for example. ok a ping would do this as well, but i find the idea of a grid would match
better to this game.

[Trick17]

yesterday i had an idea that could solve the grid problem without changing any code. why not exchange the background
image with a grid map. for example the grid layer could be added to an existing mod like satcon. i think the grid should only be
visible in the ocean.

[shinygerbil]

That's such a simple yet excellent idea, it just might work



Tell me what you think!

Simply create a grid of black lines on a white background, copy it on top of the two files water.bmp and water_shaded.bmp (which can be found in the data/graphics folder inside main.dat,) making sure transparency is enabled. (Do not overwrite; just open the files and put the grid graphic on top of them.)

I can upload this as a mod if you'd like, but you'll probably want to get the size of the grid right

[Trick17]

nice! so its technical possible.

can you make the lines finer? and instead of making the lines black try to brighten the lines. is this possible?

great work!

[TheDevilsJoker]

it would be great if you could say 'Move your carriers to e6' rather than 'move your characters above south americas north coast, on the western side'

[Trick17]

exactly! like a chessboard.

[shinygerbil]

I'll get on it when I have a few seconds to spare

EDIT: I had a few seconds to spare. It should be easy to make the lines brighter by messing with the style, but this may have undesirable side-effects. Otherwise, there isn't any really acceptable way to do it.

How's this for a mock-up? I've scaled up the water.bmp file 400%, so it's a lot higher resolution, and so the lines are finer. There's a bit of an annoying wrap in the middle of the Pacific, which makes one "square" the wrong width (unfortunately just out of shot) but apart from that, it's a start

(the below screenshot is slightly compressed, so it's not quite perfect-looking)



And here you can try it.

Readme:

Code: Select all

shinygerbil's GridCon v0.1

another copy+paste readme from shinygerbil :)

To get this to work, you'll need to go to Options -> Graphics -> Show Water and set it to Normal (as opposed to disabled or shaded.)


Instructions:


If you're using zanzer7's ModLoader (which in my opinion is the only way to go) just put this in the Defcon directory (which is C:\Program Files\Defcon by default)

Otherwise, find the "data" folder (which should be in the folder mods\GridCon\ inside this RAR file) and put that in the Defcon directory instead.

Enjoy!

shinygerbil

Let me know what needs to be changed, and I'll see what I can do

[djjd]

This is looking very cool so far. That said, given DEFCON's map projection and the military adoption of UTM, might I suggest the grid be based on the UTM system?

http://www.dmap.co.uk/utmworld.htm

[Cerealkiller]

the grid is a nice idea, however a really cool thing would be to have kind of a strategic drawing tool like Civ 4 has.
For those who don't know: In Civ4 you can start to actually draw on the map in order to coordinate strikes with your allies. All allies can draw into the same plan. Don't ask me if this makes any sense in a turn based game, but I still like the idea and think Defcon could benefit from it.

[theworldsend]

i think it should be like another bution like orders etc that you can turn on and off Be nice if it were implimented right into the game with another style to change the color of the grid lines and the thickness i like grid systems i use autocad daily

[Spacemonkey]

Thats great gerbil, will come in very useful (does that make sense?)

However, other players will have to have it as well, otherwise you will get this:

"I'm moving my ships to D7"

"moving your ships to where? stfu noob!'

And because it's not a critical mod, you wont be able to force people to have it.

Unless you make it a critical mod.

[blackwhitehawk]

so we can play this with other people who do not have the layer right.