Direct-from-technology.txt tech tree viewer Options

[weregamer]

I have written a little .NET windows app that lets you view your tech tree directly out of the technology.txt and technologyorigin.txt files. With some betatesting and suggestions from Shadowarrior, it's ready to use.

Although I submitted it to StrategyCore almost 24 hours ago, it still isn't showing up on that site. For the immediate future until it appears there, I will be hosting it at ftp://ftp.amurgsval.org/weregamer/UFOALTechDisplay11.zip.

The current version number is 1.1.1. The only difference between 1.1 and 1.1.1 is that the latter will work correctly when on a Windows machine configured with a locale where floating-point numbers look differently than in US English (for example, Finnish and many other European countries where they use commas as decimal points instead of periods). Thanks to woflborg for reporting this problem.

The zip file includes the executable, a readme with the changelog and optional command line arguments, and copies of the stock Technology.txt and technologyorigin.txt files for those who just want to explore the stock tech tree. It does not include the .NET framework 2.0 installer, which you can get from Microsoft if you need it.

[ShadoWarrior]

Thanks for implementing the app's ability to remember a separate origin file location.

This is a GREAT little app that I use on a daily basis in the work I'm doing on the Total Rebalance mod. It's made my life much MUCH easier. It's a must-have tool, even if you're not a modder. Kudos!

[woflborg]

I have written a little .NET windows app that lets you view your tech tree directly out of the technology.txt and technologyorigin.txt files. With some betatesting and suggestions from Shadowarrior, it's ready to use.

Although I submitted it to StrategyCore almost 24 hours ago, it still isn't showing up on that site. For the immediate future until it appears there, I will be hosting it at ftp://ftp.amurgsval.org/weregamer/UFOALTechDisplay11.zip.

The zip file includes the executable, a readme with the changelog and optional command line arguments, and copies of the stock Technology.txt and technologyorigin.txt files for those who just want to explore the stock tech tree. It does not include the .NET framework 2.0 installer, which you can get from Microsoft if you need it.

Looking very nice.

Sorry if im going offtopic here and out of the scope of your program, but have you thought about adding items and addon buildings and such, so people could see their prerequisites and statistics too ?

[weregamer]

I have thought a little about expanding the scope to more of the text files, but I can't promise anything. I'm writing this thing during lulls at work (like while waiting for compiles) and don't know how much time I'll have to work on it in the future.

Looking to tell which non-tech items are buildings seems like a natural next thing to do. So does using the localization files to show the localized names for things in addition to their internal ones, since sometimes there is a big divergence in the English version at least.

Covering the other trees as you suggest and as some of the folks on the web have done would be a new direction but equally obvious. OTOH that's a big thing to bite off at once.

For that matter, if somebody else wants a copy of the source code to work from - it's not as clean as something I'd do professionally would be but it does have some structure and some comments - I'd gladly share as long as you credit me for it. It is (of course) a C# project using VS.NET 2005.

Oh, and as a quick aside: I did this thing writing one-off classes to parse the exact formats of the two individual files. If you are planning to parse more than a couple files, the right approach would be to do exactly what the ALTAR folks obviously did and write a generic parser for the homegrown declarative language they are using. I think you could even use the CLR reflection facilities to create actual variables with the names from the files, but failing that you could construct a freeform hierarchy with links of type "object" that are instantiated based on the text found.

[ShadoWarrior]

Buildings are in their own file: {gamedata.vfs}\configs\strategic\buildings\building.txt

[Slaughter]

Sorry about that weregamer! Keep forgetting to check the approve queue, and was busy with...relieving myself yesterday

Added to StrategyCore.co.uk (latest version)