Changing Gears

In order to get this project to go in the way I desire it to, I have to become more secure with programming in Visual Studio.  SO, to give myself more practice in this environment, im going to run a couple of game coding tutorials.  First, Breakout.  Afterwards, Space Invaders.  Since both of the tutorials use classes, this will give me the practice I need to do the elements of the interface the way I wish.  So, off I go.

BTW, Thanks for the MSDN account, Dell.

Ran into a bit of a rut...

Hey folks.  I know its been a bit since I last updated.  Here's whats been going on.

1. Not getting any help on the project page. I wanted to switch over to the next segment of the project, Generating the main body of the mecha, having that interface update on the fly, and error trap the entries to catch mistakes as they happen.  The flow of that section hit 2 roadblocks.
   
   A) I dont know how to make dynamic interfaces to coincide with a dynamic data structure.  The plan was to have all the data stored in an array behind-the-scenes, and display the pertinent elements of it in the UI.  I dont know how to control the visibility of the unneeded elements.  I assumed that they could simply be hidden, but I forsee that being a messy approach. (Im too much of a perfectionist to leave somthing that looks like crap.  Even though im a beginner.)
   
   B) Overtime availability at work is pulling my focus askew.  I decided to go back to the beta version of visual studio, but my time looking into this stuff at work has been undercut by the recent increase in work volume.  Cant keep my head on focus long enough to get anything done.  Also, having data on different computers is a real pain to sync up with visual studio.  Half my time is spent trying to get the suite to accept my new code without it including old code. (sigh)
   
2. Legal dealigns with being a next of kin can be a pain in the arse.  Enough said on that point.

So, I still intend on doing this project.  As soon as I am able to work out a solution, i will begin on the Mecha design module of the project. After this section, its putting these two modules together in the same wizard to see if I can get everything to play nice.  Oh, and I have to strip out all the unnecessary interface elements so its more professional looking, and not so Proof of concept.


More as its comes around

-- Xeno


P.S.  Almost forgot.  A friend from work, Kristin, gave me a word up to the managers about picking up a project of a employee that got promoted out of our section.  He wrote a ticketing program to speed up our entry times with filing out details and information.  BIG shoes to fill, but If I get the nod, it would be interesting to see the source of what he wrote.  At least I hope we have access to the source, there is no way I can write that program from scratch...

On to frame generation!

OK, I've gotten my tool to a useable format.  But I have decided not to release it openly.  The time to polish the interface for this product is wasted time when there is already a weapon design tool available to us that is sufficient for the task.  What I will now do is work on the Mekton Frame generation section of the program.  With the weapon designer finished, I can re-integrate this back when the frame generator is finished, and see IF i can tie the two together within one database.  So a user can call up weapons from a greater registry and see how it modifies their mecha's design.

In the end, you would make your frame.  When you are satisfied with its cost, you can add different weapons to its profile as well as assign them to locations for hit location purposes.  Also, any SMT's would be calculated as well. Well, that's the idea anyway.

Here's the query to the Mekton community I will make.  Has anyone designed a Database for this kind of purpose yet?  I wish to save data in mysql.  That way, it would be ready for integration into a website once the design of the program is done.  I can make the tables, but If there is already a workable design, i would love to make use of it and give credit where it is due, of course.  Please let me know if you can help in this capacity.

More to come later! :-)

Almost done... I think.

Took a break for a couple of days while I had false hopes of getting a tax return this year.  Ive pretty much finished writing the app as far as rule calculation goes.  Still have some logic errors to fix, but other than that,  the first leg is done.  NOW, I have to see about getting it to output the content into a usable format, at least in an excel or access database or something.

The application still has the output that far exceeds what the player actually needs.  This is for test purposes.  Ill remove them when I've finished troubleshooting the results.

I've included a link to the sourceforge project page for those who wish to see how I'm doing.

http://mzbwg.sourceforge.net/

Its very rough.  Ill clean it up when its working the way it is suppose to.

More progress!! Stupid Mekton Tricks running.... Somewhat

Here it is, the app so far.  All the boxes on the left are functional and adding correctly.  Hard part is getting the SMT's to add up correctly.  all these stacked IF-THEN statements aren't working as they should.  But a steady pace is better than no progress at all.  Still looking for anyone that can assist me working this stuff out.  The sooner I get some help, the better everyone in the Mekton Community will benefit.

Some progress.. Weapons table done

Got the Beam Weapon Cost table coded into one of the modules over the past 2 days.  NOW, I need to figure out how to get it working properly.  Im trying to have the labels on the app update as you change the selections.  So far, all it dose is keep the default setting.  Time to do some research.

2 weeks into coding. Still motivated.

Well, my journey into the world of programming has commenced again.  Got the hello world out of the way, and remembered that I know all the beginner's theroy on how to code, but was always defeated by the languages themselves.  So I fell back to pseudocoding for a bit.  Since I figured the best way to self motivate for this was to have an app in mind, I have developed one.  I did a Visio diagram and everything.  But due to the forseen issues I would have in C++, I figured I would fall back onto some more familiar territory to make sure my process for the program works first, then try the harder language.  So VB it is.

Download a working version of Visual Basic 2010, but it would not install, So im using VB Express 2008.  I hope some of you better coders dont frown at me.  But as it sits right now, this is the only path I forsee to getting to where I wish to be.

I would appreciate any guidance that anyone has in this.  Without taking classes or anything, this will be a bit harder.  But every journey starts with the first step.

--  Xeno

P.S.  Heres the Flowchart for what I wanna have done.  For those of you familar with the Mekton Zeta Role Player, im working on a tool for that.  But for now, its just Beam Weapon construction.  The end goal is a complete Mekton Generator.