Galaxy Client, Macintosh

Version 0.8.5 beta

Last Modified: August 8, 1999

Andrew M. Salamon
salamon@cox.net
http://members.cox.net/salamon

Please do not distribute this software. Although Galaxy Client will be freeware, this is a beta version and I prefer that people not use it without my knowledge. If you know someone who would like to beta test, please ask them to e-mail me

This software has had very limited testing. It runs on a PowerMac 6100/60 running systems 7.3, 7.5, 7.6, and so far 8.0. It has been used only with Blind Galaxy versions 2.42 - 2.47. I've made some modifications so GCM should handle GalaxyNG to some extent. I've read in most of the sample reports available on the GalaxyNG web site with no crashes, and most of the data read in correctly.

If you contact me with a bug please try to be as specific as possible and include as much system information as possible.
I would also appreciate some idea of what new features you would like to see and which you think are most important.

Recent Changes:

Fixed a problem reading in the name of a Blind Galaxy game. Also fixed the annoying white flash when you click on a new system.
Better support for Galaxy NG's lack of consistent System numbers. When reading in new system data, I search first by number (if available), then by name, and if the system still isn't found I will search by x, y coordinates. Even this may not be completely sufficient since I have found at least one example of a system's coordinates changing.
I also added a different color for 'unknown' systems, hopefully giving at least some support for tracking other races locations. More on this in the next version, I hope.
I added a new menu 'System Size By' to the Map menu. This will let you change what kind of information is used to decide how large each system is displayed on the map. See below for more details.

Known Bugs:

GCM crashed once while I was opening/saving/closing files. I haven't been able to reproduce this one.
Zooming in or out while scrolled doesn't work quite right. Whatever is centered should stay centered but doesn't.
Finding a system that is already on screen, while zoomed in, may not properly redraw the highlight for the new system. Double clicking in the window's title bar (if Windowshade is installed on your system) then restoring the window by double clicking again should redraw the window properly.
Main window may or may not properly resize itself for monitors other than 14".
In the Finder you can't drag text files to the Galaxy Client icon and have it launch.
The Find System floating window does not go away when the last of the Galaxy window's are closed. Nothing bad seems to happen if you try to do a find with no Galaxy window open, but...
Opening a turn report without having a Galaxy window open does nothing.

Features planned but not yet implemented:

Ship design window.
Saving the map as a PICT file.
Preferences. Including giving the user the ability to set most colors.
Game Options. The ability to read and set game options.
Battle listing window.
History. Currently if you want to maintain historical data you need to make a backup copy of the Galaxy file for each turn.
Generating a report with user specified info.
Battle simulator.
Better Color managment. Allow user to choose colors for themselves and each enemy race.
If a report is read in when no galaxy window is open then I should search appropriate directories for a galaxy file with the same name as the game in the report.

A note about printing:

I have made no effort to enable printing and I will probably never get to it. One of the main reasons I started working on this program was because I was disgusted by how much paper I needed to use for a computer game. When I get a report generator done I will allow the report to be saved to disk then you could print it out with some other software, but that is likely as far as I will go.

Instructions:

Open unmodified turn reports in order. When you read in the first turn you will be presented with a dialog box asking what type of Galaxy game you are playing. Currently Blind Galaxy is almost fully supported and Galaxy NG is mostly supported . When you do a save you will be writing out all current data. If you will want to look at previous turns be sure to make a backup before saving the latest turn.
Click on a system for more info. Same for a group of ships. The Races... menu option will display a list of all know races and clicking on one will display all known ship types.
The Map menu has Zoom In, Zoom out options (to a max of 4x). There is also a Find System... which will allow you to find a particular system by name or number.

The Map

Your systems are in Red. Systems known to be owned by another race (now or in the past) will be in the other races' color. Other systems at which you have a ship, or a ship on the way will have a red circle around them. Unexplored systems will be light blue. Unknown systems (Galaxy NG only) will be in dark grey. Explored systems you do not have a ship at are grey. Systems you have a ship at but are not currently colonized are white. Explored systems will be displayed larger or smaller based on their game size. However, the 'System Size By' submenu choices will let you change the value that is used for calculating system sizes. By population, industry and resources all work similarly to size. Full population and full industry will display systems in two sizes, the larger size is used for systems that are NOT yet at full population/industry, the smaller size for systems that are full (including unknown and size zero).
The currently selected system will be highlighted with a light grey X. Systems at which you saw a battle this turn will have crosshairs drawn behind it with the colors of each arm indicating a race participating in the battle.

Orders Menu

Save Orders As. Output all current orders to a text file.
Unload Group. Unloads currently selected ship. 'Quantity' will be bold in ship info display.
Break. Break a specified number of ships off the current group. Not displayed.
Send. Not currently supported. It's opposite 'Cancel Send' does work.
Upgrade Group. Upgrade current group, full upgrade only.
Cancel All Orders. Cancel All ship, system and race orders.

In addition there are three pop-up menus:

One is available on the system display pane if you own the current system. This menu is for setting the production for this system for the next turn.
The second is on the detail listing for a group of ships, if that group can carry cargo. This menu allows you to load cargo on the group.
The third is on the Races window for setting the status for a particular race, or all races if you change the setting on your own race.

Ships can be sent by dragging from the current system to the desired destination. If the option key is held down then only one ship from the current group will be sent. Otherwise all remaining ships will be sent. Combinations of the two are displayed next to the ship in the list of ships for the current system: (#X/#Y) where the first number is individual ships being sent and the second number represents the remainder (sent without the option key down). If you try to send more ships than are available in that group you will receive a beep and the order will be ignored. If a mistake is made, cancel the send order (Orders Menu) and resend.

Reading fleet data is supported. They are displayed properly and can be ordered to a new system in the same way as a group of ships. The option key has no effect on fleets.