Hi & GDL questions

[Stan Shebs <shebs at shebs dot cnchost dot com>]

Hi, just wanted to let you know that I wasn't ignoring you.  For
some reason that passes all understanding, I'm not receiving the
mail you're sending to this list; when Hans responded, I thought
maybe he was publicly cc'ing a private message.  But today I was
looking at the mail archives on the Xconq page, and lo and behold,
you've sent in a half-dozen messages that I've never seen before!

Anyway, here's some answers to your questions:

1. Altitude is not implemented - some of the internal machinery is
there, but so far there hasn't been a game that needed it enough to
motivate finishing the work.  Given that Xconq's focus is 2D strategy,
it would take something where altitude was important, couldn't be
modelled in some other way, and wouldn't be better handled in a true
3D game (using the Crystal Space or Flight Gear engines, of course :-) ).
But it seems like such a game is possible, and so the already-implemented
bits live on (might be better to remove from docs though).

2. Officially, all interfaces to Xconq all have exactly the
same command set.  There are some discrepancies in the implementations
though; for instance, the Mac port lets you select more than one
unit at a time and apply the same command to all the units at
once.  Very nice for the "fire" command...  But the commands
themselves are the same, and over time I expect to eliminate any
remaining differences in behavior.

3. Typing in the top panes of the map window is known is to cause
weird problem in some of the snapshots.  They should all be fixed
now.

4. Your Western game has some interesting possibilities!  I would
suggest abstracting out the details of weapons somewhat, and focus
on an overhead view of larger groups of units; sort of a cross between
beirut (which is a wild ride, if you've never tried it) and panzer.
You can use the LOS machinery to let your guys hide behind buildings,
with different buildings providing different amounts of cover, and
instead of handling weapons and aiming, just have different kinds of
gunslingers, each with a "specialty" of shotgun, rifle, pistol, etc.
You won't be able to have one type drop a weapon and have another
pick it up and use it, but that seems too fine-grained and finicky
for anything but an FPS anyway.

You should have barrels of dynamite that you can shoot at and blow
up; if your gunslingers can carry and place them, things could get
pretty interesting!  Why assault the bank directly when you can
demolish it from a safe distance? :-)

Stan