File	Date	Author	Commit
LICENSE.txt	2011-11-16	Jesus Montes	[e3bb3e] Added license file and sample battle file
README.txt	2011-11-17	Jesus Montes	[a31f17] README updated
commander.png	2011-11-15	jmontes0	[6b46d2] Inintial commit
damage.png	2011-11-15	jmontes0	[6b46d2] Inintial commit
fcassistant.glade	2011-11-17	Jesus Montes	[4a2a3f] Ship table improvements (sort by columns)
fcassistant.py	2011-11-17	Jesus Montes	[4a2a3f] Ship table improvements (sort by columns)
fclib.py	2011-11-17	Jesus Montes	[4a2a3f] Ship table improvements (sort by columns)
fire_table_large_vessels.txt	2011-11-15	jmontes0	[6b46d2] Inintial commit
fire_table_small_vessels.txt	2011-11-15	jmontes0	[6b46d2] Inintial commit
inspect.png	2011-11-15	jmontes0	[99e284] Changed inspect icon
sample_battle.txt	2011-11-16	Jesus Montes	[e3bb3e] Added license file and sample battle file
shot.png	2011-11-15	jmontes0	[6b46d2] Inintial commit
turn.png	2011-11-15	jmontes0	[6b46d2] Inintial commit

Read Me

##############################################################################
# 
#  Flying Colors Assitant
#  by Jesus Montes
#  http://sourceforge.net/projects/fcassistant/
#
#  This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
#  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
#  the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
#  (at your option) any later version.
#
#  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#  GNU General Public License for more details.
#
#  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#  along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
#  
#############################################################################

Overview
========

'Flying Colors Assistant' is an auxilary tool for the naval tabletop wargame
 'Flying Colors: Fleet Actions in The Age of Sail', created by Mike Nagel
and published by GMT Games, LLC.

With 'Flying Colors Assistant', players can easily keep track of the status
of their ships (condition, damage, etc.) and automatically perform them most
frequent complex game calculations, such as firing cannons or applying
damage. The program checks the game tables, computes dire roll modifiers,
etc., helping the player to focus less on game rules and more on game
tactics.

The Flying Colors Assistant it is not a replacement to the board game. It is
just an auxiliary tool to help players run their games faster. 

You can find more info about the game in the
[publisher's website](http://www.gmtgames.com/c-24-flying-colors.aspx) 
and [BGG page](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8730/flying-colors).

Features
========

'Flying Colors Assistant' helps you with yotu 'Flying Colors' games in many
ways. Here is a detailed list of the program most important current and
future features.


What does 'Flying Colors Assistant' do?
--------------------------------------

 * Game general parameters: The program records battle name, year and
   audacities of all sides.
 * Ship stats: Like using pencil-and-paper stats sheets, the program allows
   you to track relative, rate, damage and status (damaged, dismasted, on
   fire, etc.) of each ship.
 * Commanders: The program can register every commander present in the
   battle, its characteristics, status (good, wounded or killed) and the
   ships he is in.
 * Game calculations: The program makes all the firing and damage
   calculations for you. This includes determining relative rate, fire-power,
   rake attempts, hit roll modifiers, damage modifiers, possible fires and
   commander casualties. It also makes the die rolls for you, so you only
   have to click on the "calculate shot" or "apply damage" buttons and see
   the results.
 * Detailed rule-related explanations: All the game calculations carried out
   automatically by the program are explained with detail on screen, in terms
   of game rules. This is useful in case you want to check out, for instance,
   why your ship has just caught fire or your admiral has been killed.

What does it not do (yet)?
--------------------------

So far, the development of 'Flying Colors Assistant' has been focused on the
most important combat-related aspects of the game (firing and taking damage).
Therefore many aspects of the rules are not yet included. More precisely:

 * Movement rules: The program does not keep track of the ships positions
   neither the wind direction or strength. You still have to determine their
   movement points manually.
 * Melee combat.
 * Ships collisions, fouling and grappling.
 * Ship Status Check: Rules for ship fires resolution, drifting, striking,
   etc. are not yet included. However the program incorporate tools so you
   can update the ship stats according to the effects of this events.
 * Victory determination.
 * Optional rules: No optional rules have been implemented yet. This includes
   chasers, running aground, towing, shore batteries, etc.

Installation Guide
==================

The program is written in Python an it uses very few external libraries,
therefore it should be very easy to run in most common operating systems. It
has been successfully tested in GNU/Linux (Ubuntu 11.10), Windows 7 and
MacOS X 10.7 (Lion).

Requirements and dependencies
-----------------------------

The program does not come with an automated installer (yet). For the time
being dependencies have to be installed manually before running the
application. Luckily, there are only two external dependencies, and they are
very easy to install in most systems:

 * Python interpreter
 * PyGTK graphic library

Most Linux distributions already include a python interpreter. If you do not
have python already installed (yo can check this simply by running the
*python* command on a command-line terminal) check your package manager. On
Windows you can download a Python installer from the
[Python official site](http://python.org).

The latest release of python 2.7 is recommended, although the program may
run in older versions.
IMPORTANT: 'Flying Colors Assistant' will NOT run on Python 3.

The PyGTK graphic library is also included in most Linux distributions, so
installing from the corresponding package manager should not be a problem.
For other systems, it can be dowloaded from the
[PyGTK official site](http://www.pygtk.org). You can also get it directly
from the GNOME software repository at
<http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binaries/>.

The recomended version of PyGTK is 2.24.

On MacOS X, both Python 2.7 and PyGTK are included in
[MacPorts](http://www.macports.org/).

Running the program
-------------------

Once Python and PyGTK are correctly installed, the applicantion can be
executed simply by running the *fcassistant.py* python program included in
the *fcassitant* directory. On Windows this can be done by double-clicking
on the file. On UNIX/Linux this can be done also through a command line
terminal.