
[Q] What is the mapfile format?

[A] Every line in the quadrant mapfiles contain a symbol in
column 1 which denotes the sort of data the line carries.

   !   Quadrant Name
   #   Comment
   $   Line (trade route, hyperspace conduit, whatever)
   *   Location (star system, deep space station, whatever)

Here is the current version of rag\map\500-499.499:

!Quadrant 8
#trade routes
$316999-000000-233-K
#worlds  1         2         3         4         5         6         7
#23456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789 123456789
#XXYYZZ System Name           gov attached.ext Comments
*296998-Proxima Centauri      nil proxcent.sys
*316999 Alpha Centauri        sol alphcent.sys Human Colony
*696916 Epsilon Indi          nil              (K5)

Looking first at locations, denoted by the "*" in the first column,
we see the XXYYZZ field. This refers to the coordinates of the
star systems. Since the file is named 500-499.499, it's base
coordinates (of the lower-left-bottom corner) are 0,-10,-10. Hence,
Alpha Centauri is at 0+3.1,-10+6.9,-10+9.9 = 3.1,-3.1,-0.1.

In the 8th column we generally see a blank space, but on Proxima
Centauri there is a dash "-". What this means, to Starmap, is
that the star name "Proxima Centauri" should not be displayed
on the map. The reason for doing this is that it interferes
with the display of "Alpha Centauri" which is arbitrarily the
more important of the two starsystems.

After that comes the starsystem name. After that comes the
government, or more accurately, the national affiliation.
A list of valid government types (which may be extended)
exists in the galaxy's data directory (rag\dat\gov.dat).

The next field is the attachment field and may contain the
filename of an attached file. Currently, Starmap recognizes
only four types of attached files:

           (.sys) star system map
           (.hex) world map
           (.mnu) menu file
           (.txt) text file

All of these attachments go into the galaxy's location directory
(in this case, rag\loc). Because only one file may be attached,
it is generally advisable to start with a star system map, then
attach worldmaps to the star system map once that has been
created, then attach menus to the world maps once they have
been created, and finally attach text files which contain your
actual campaign notes. In this way, you can have a veritable
library of information attached to each important star system
in your campaign. Note that your galaxy's location directory
may quickly fill up. If you feel this is likely, you may want
to create subdirectories early on, so as to keep your campaign
material as organized as possible. Each of the map files are
directly editable by word processor or text editor as are the
menu files, so you should not feel confined to access your
files solely via Starmap.

Next comes the comments field. The comments field is for just
that... comments. If you put something there, it will be
displayed on the map screen whenever the "cursor" is over the
location in question. If you need more than one line for
your comment, you can use the slash "/" to break up the comment
(for example, the comment for Alpha Centauri could have been
changed from "Human Colony" to "Really nice/human colony".

Comments also have an additional feature which must be mentioned.
If the comment is containd within parenthesis, then is it
assumed to be the stellar types of the stars in the hub of a star
system. Once a star system map has been created for such a star
system, however, this information is removed from the comments
field so that it may be used for actual comments rather than
stellar data.

Moving on to lines (which are indicated by the "$" character in
column 1), we see that this quadrant has the following line:
$316999-000000-233-K

What does this mean? Well, "316999" should be recognized as the
XXYYZZ of Alpha Centauri (indicating coordinates 3.1,-3.1,-0.1).
"000000" is also a XXYYZZ code, but it indicates a location in
another quadrant as shown by the "233" which is just another XYZ
except on the quadrant-scale. To explain how this works, we assume
that the current quadrant is "222". The quadrant directly "down"
on the Z-axis would be "221". The quadrant directly "up" would be
"223". An X/Y chart might be drawn to help you visual the other
two dimensions:

                                3

                         1      2      3

                                1
                         
Or to put it more precisely:

                    ^   132    232    332
            Y is    |
           rising   |   122    222    322
                    |
                    |   112    212    312

                        ----------------->
                           X is rising

From the "233" we can deduce that the "000000" belongs to the quadrant
directly above the currently quadrant (both in terms of Y & Z). Since
the current quadrants base coordinates are 0,-10,-10, the base coordinates
of this mystery quadrant are 0,0,0. Hence, the "000000" refers to coordinates
0,0,0, and we can see that the line to be drawn connects Alpha Centauri to
Sol, which is at the center of our coordinate system.

So what about the "K" at the end. Well, that's simply tells the program
to color the line light green. The follow chart is used to determine the
color of the line:

    A  Black    E  Red       I  Dark Grey     M  Light Red
    B  Blue     F  Magenta   J  Light Blue    N  Light Magenta
    C  Green    G  Brown     K  Light Green   O  Light Yellow
    D  Cyan     H  White     L  Light Cyan    P  Bright White

I realize this is convoluted as all heck, so my parting words on
this topic is just that the best way to figure out the data format
is to tinker around with it. You can use the "<" key from the star
map edit your current quadrant file. Personally, I use that key
a lot. I use it when I want to change the name of a star system, or
when I want to add a comment, or whenever I want to adjust its
position. It's even useful if I want to add a space station out in
the depths of nowhere. After a little tinkering, you should have a
good grasp of how the data format works, but if you have any questions,
feel free to send me email...  jimv@empirenet.com

