Programming

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This page is dedicated to the development of 3rd party applications for use with VGA Planets 4.

Contents

[edit] Overview

VGA Planets 4 is written in Power Basic by Tim Wisseman. Tim's site has some information on this topic here. He provides some sample code for Visual Basic 5.

When faced with the challenge of writing a tool for this software first you need to decide what programming language that you want to write it in. The simple approach would be to use the same language and version that Tim has to make sure that there are no incompatibilities or extra conversion steps that you will have to go through. You can program in other languages and hopefully you will find support for those here. Diplomat is written in Visual Basic 6. VGAP4Assistant is written in C.

[edit] V4Face2.dll

The V4Face2.dll gives you access to the ship (.spk) and race (.rce) files so that you can pull out their statistics and even their graphics.

[edit] CSV-Files

The Planets4 client allows to export the current data of a game as CSV Files.

[edit] VCR Files

You may want to have a look on the data format of VCR Files.

[edit] Ship Groups File

Private Type GroupType
   nm As String40
   Log As String40
   count As Long
   flag1 As Long 'Unused
   flag2(1 To 200) As Long 'Unused 
   Item(1 To 500) As Long 'Object ID; 1 To 5000 in Planets Client v66
   itemSerNum(1 To 500) As Long 'Object Serial number; 1 To 5000 in Planets Client v66
End Type

Private m_group(1 To 90) As GroupType

Public Sub SaveGroupData()
Dim sDir As String
Dim i As Long
Dim sA As String
Dim f1 As Long
   sDir = exepath & "groups\s" & Trim$(Str$(fileList.GameSlot)) & "x" & Trim$(Str$(WAR.pNum)) & "\"
   For i = 1 To 90
      sA = sDir & "group" & Trim$(Str$(i)) & ".grp"
      If m_booActive(i) Then
         f1 = FreeFile
         Open sA For Binary As #f1
            Put #f1, 1, m_group(i)
         Close #f1
      End If
   Next i
End Sub

[edit] Map File

1 to 96 Header info First 22 bytes = "VGA Planets 4 Map File"
97 To 100 File Version (ASCII NUM)
101 LONG Count of Number of Planets
105 LONG Pointer to start of (X,Y,STAR)
109 LONG Pointer to start of NAME LIST

   a$ = "VGA Planets 4 Map File"
   a$ = LEFT$(a$ + head$, 96) + "    "
   
   x1map = 150
   x1name = x1map + 50 + count * 6
  
   f2 = FREEFILE
   OPEN outfile FOR BINARY AS #f2
      PUT #f2, 1, a$
      a$ = "0001"
      PUT #f2, 97, a$
      PUT #f2, 101, count
      PUT #f2, 105, x1map
      PUT #f2, 109, x1name
      pt = x1map
      FOR i = 1 TO count
         PUT #f2, pt, xPlanet(i)
         pt = pt + 2
         PUT #f2, pt, yPlanet(i)
         pt = pt + 2
         PUT #f2, pt, starPlanet(i)
         pt = pt + 2
      NEXT i
      pt = x1name
      FOR i = 1 TO count
         x1 = (i - 1) * 40 + 1
         GET #f1, x1, nmPlanet
         PUT #f2, pt, nmPlanet
         pt = pt + 40
      NEXT i
   CLOSE #f2

[edit] Source Code

Many VGAP programmers have released their source code to the public. This code contains a wealth of information about how to interact with game files. The code can also be a big time saver for new projects, since effective libraries for manipulating game data have already been developed and can be reused.

The following projects have made their source code available to the public:

  • Diplomat
    • Web Site: http://www.furfur.demon.co.uk/geop/diplomat.htm
    • Source Code: Request from author
    • Language: Visual Basic 6
    • Reusable Code: ?
    • Author's Notes: Diplomat is a combat simulator. It writes a script based on the user's choices, then runs Tim's programs Master.exe to create a customised mini-game with all the ships etc in one spot, runs Host.exe to resolve battles, and VCR.exe to show you the results. Inspecting the code would give you examples of how to use Tim's DLL's to extract race and hull info from files; how to call external programs like Master.exe; and probably how NOT to write VB! It's only the second program I ever wrote in VB, to teach myself, and people kept suggesting features. As a result it grew organically and is poorly structured spaghetti! The source code comprises about 20 forms, 4 modules, 3 classes, or to put it another way, almost 2MB. The code has been inspected and improved by several others already, notably Declan O'Connor. Most contributors change one to three modules and send them back to me. I control the master copy to avoid diverging threads, but I have deposited backup copies with a couple of folk lest I disappear. The code is heavily commented with tips from Tim and my own thoughts, and this could provide insights into how Tim's own code works. Diplomat updates are rare these days as it does everything I need now, but I am currently tinkering with a couple of minor things that no longer match the latest game rules, like the ground assault simulator.
  • ScriptZ0r
  • VidiVici
  • VGAP4Grp
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