Dynamic CS

[umbro]

The process that I am working with is:
1) Scenario designer designs the scenario files, when done (s)he drops the complete .SCN file onto a little app that creates a .DSC file for that scenario using the default values that the designer created.
2) The designer opens the .DSC in Excel (or notepad for that matter) and edits the contents as needed. (S)he then packages the scenario files .SCN .ORG .MAP and .DSC into a .ZIP file for distribution.
[Note: the .DSC file has a format that looks like -
Trees Ground ... Visibility Allied Arty Ammo ... Night ...
0 0 0 ... 20 80 ... 1 ...
1 0 0 ... 20 80 ... 1 ...
2 0 0 ... 20 80 ... 0 ...
3 0 0 ... 10 70 ... 0 ...
4 3 0 ... 6 60 ... 0 ...
5 3 3 ... 4 50 ... 0 ...
...
N ... ]
Thus the scenario starts at night, dawn breaks, snow starts to fall so the trees get snow on them and the visibility falls and finally the ground is snow covered. All the while the allied arty ammo level is falling as the rear areas are given the order to retreat.

The players get a package which comprises an installer that patches the west front.exe, east front.exe and rising sun.exe, the dcs.exe .DSC file processor that does the work, an uninstaller and a sample scenario.

The patch simply calls the DSC processor before calling wf.exe, etc. The DSC processor looks for a .DSC file with the same name as the .ORG file of the scenario being played. If there is one then the DSC processor simply calls the appropriate CS application as usual and the user experience remains as it was. If the processor finds an appropriate .DSC file then it interprets the data for this turn, updates the .BTL or .BTE file (those are the saved battle files, the former for play against the AI, the latter for an email opponent) and then invokes the CS application. In this case the player may notice a slight delay as the CS application launches. If this delay becomes noticeable I will throw up a dialog informing the player of what is going on.

This may be more noticeable in the case of arty ammo level. This is because I will have to check to see if I have processed the file already for this turn, and if not I will have to scan though the file to identify arty that have fired in the beginning of the turn and arty that are low on ammo in order to recalculate their ammo status.

Jonathan