Lots of things about me (long)

[Ling]

Hi folks, me again!

Apologies in advance for the discord in this letter.  I have no skills in
expressing my thoughts what so ever (I need an asylum).  I also apologise
for what seems to be a 'this is my problem, can you solve it' approach in
this letter.  I will be attempting to contribute something meanful to
other topics at a later date.

Overview
~~~~~~~~
My game is not particularly mudlike in the traditional sense.  The
interesting combat bits of the game involves the player directing a squad
of troops around a km square world carrying out whatever tasks imposed
from Above.  Everyone has seen Aliens, the game will be similar to the bit
where Ripley is sat in that armoured command car with the commander
watching the marines run around the terraforming plant.  It's text & turn
based with each turn taking up 5 seconds of gametime and maybe half a
minute of real time. 

All figures chosen at this time have been plucked out of thin air.

I have several spots of bother but for now, I'm concentrating on the
gameworld which is akin to a very large brick wall.

Gameworld
~~~~~~~~~
Ideally, the mud should be able to handle several such km square game
worlds at once (not linked).  Descriptions are generated from the view
point of the players' squad.  Think of Hiredguns/Dungeon Master/Eye of the
Beholder.  This is probably the most important part of the game.  However,
because the player will not be stepping into the gameworld itself, I
reckon I can fudge things.  Having been informed that a grid of 200x200
consisting of 5x5m squares is a bit stupid, I have played around with the
idea of linking lots of containers together.  Unfortunately, I'm not too
sure how such containers can deal with irregular shapes such as a forest
(I refuse to have a world composed entirely of rectangular forests).
Inside buildings though, is another matter which I'm quite happy with.
I would like to extend the system to be able to handle a gameworld
consisting of the outside of a spaceship where the players have to board
it...

Note, the current nature of the game is going to be highly tactical, very
few vehicles will be involved (mainly because they are rather unfair on
the opposition).

So far, my containers look like a blob containing a lot of xy coords for
objects contained and its boundaries.  They're very rectangular as said
earlier.  I'd rather fudge things and reduce the maths instead of a
completely realistic 3D world coz the troops themselves need to have some
sort of decent AI which will eat processor time (reason it is turnbased as
well).

Any comments?

Back by no demand, Ling.

  |    Ling Lo, freshwater fish (cod variant)     Another 'Screemer!
_O_O_  EEE, Loughborough University, England	  Blue Amazon