(2) On the Mars Navigator tool: Clicking and dragging to the *right* in the main map causes the map to move *left*. This seems counterintuitive to me. In such applications, clicking and dragging the mouse is usually handled by analogy to a physical map: If I put my hand down on a map and push to the right, the map moves right. That is, features on the right edge of the map disappear from view and new features on the left edge of the map come into view. I believe these controls should be switched around in the next version.
(3) Continuing on the Mars Navigator tool: It would obviously be exceedingly desirable to shorten the response loop on the main map. Currently, it takes ~1-2 seconds to redraw the game map from the MGS datamap. I love having accurate maps, but this is troublesome. Could the response time be improved by breaking up that huge map into smaller data sets, say 30 degrees by 30 degrees?
(4) Still on the map data sets: The topographical map download gave my PKZIP program heartburn. Could you check that file?
(5) Yet another map data set comment: I had to leave my computer chewing overnight running the java Installer to decompress the maps from the package download. People will revolt if it takes 4 hours to install the program. Again, breaking up the map might help.
(6) ObComment: We need a reporter-line (maybe at the bottom of the screen) to throw up comments that are currently dumped to the DOS window.
On the direction this project is going:
(7) Will satellites play any role in this simulation, or will a satellite infrastructure be assumed (already thrown up and maintained by Earth)?
(8) I don't know how far you want to this simulation to go in the Civ/AC direction. You have "Lab" and "Research" departments marked in the settlements -- will there be a tech tree? Random tech improvements? Quantum-leap new capabilites (launching rockets; new type of habitat zone [i.e. fusion plant]; terraformation capabilities)?
More to possibly come....
Your friendly neighborhood nitpicker
Allen
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
2) Ummm. I think we have a missunderstanding with this one. Only clicking is supported on the Mars Navigator map, not dragging. The current map generation time is too slow for that to work practically. The map is designed to recenter on the spot you click. You can also use the navigation arrows below the globe to rotate it to the position you want and the press "Center Map" to center the map on that position.
3) I agree that the main map on the Mars Navigator takes a little too long to generate (it generates a map that appears undistorted regardless of what longitude and latitude it is centered on). That is as fast as I've been able to get it so far and it required some rather large (aprox. 7.5Mb.) data files as a trade off. We have some new developers working on the project now and one of them has done some interesting work with the map generator. Hopefully we'll be able to speed it up in the future.
The globe on the other hand seems to be working very fast now due to some improvements Greg made on it. That will be in the 2.7 release.
4) This is the second complaint I've had on the topo data file. I think the zip is corrupted. I'll rezip both data files tonight and upload them again. Hopefully that will fix the problem. Sorry.
5) I've always been uncomfortable with the Installer application solution. This was a trade off so that people wouldn't have to download the huge data files. I converted them to bitmaps and lossy compressed them into jpeg files around 1Mb in size. The installer loads them one at a time into memory and converts them back into the data files. The resulting maps have some artifacts from the compression and don't look as good as the original data files. The installer application uses a ton of memory and can run quite slow on some computers if it doesn't have a lot available to it. I'll probably still use the installer on release 2.7, but I'm going to try to find a better solution in the future.
6) I'll have to think about this. We've been using the command line (DOS window) to display debugging logs during development, and it will display errors when the application fails. Outside of errors, it shouldn't display any comments in the release versions, though. I'd appreciate it if you'd explain what you're thinking about this a little more.
7) I was trying to produce a unit structure that would allow these things to easily be added to the hiearchy (sp?). For example:
Unit > Vehicle > SpaceVehicle > Satellite > ...
I wasn't planning on adding satellites soon, but I'll bring it up with the other developers to see if anyone wants to work on that. They might be useful as a part of an overall communications infrastructure.
8) I was thinking something along that line. The labs are mainly placeholders for later development. We haven't developed roles/jobs for people yet. We could have a scientist role in which scientist would do research in labs and in the field, possibly making breakthroughs. We haven't really explored this topic yet. One step at a time. :-)
(5) The version 2.7 Installer compiled the Mars maps perfectly and quickly. Of course, increasing clock speed fivefold, memory fourfold, and HD space tenfold *could* have something to do with that...
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
We were getting a lot of people submitting problems with the installer application, plus the data maps generated were a bit pixelated from the lossy compression.
We decided for version 2.71 to remove the installer and just include the original raw map data files with the download. The trade off is that the download is much larger now (11Mb compared to 2.6Mb). I'm hoping that this will ultimately make it easier for people to install and run the program.
(2) On the Mars Navigator tool: Clicking and dragging to the *right* in the main map causes the map to move *left*. This seems counterintuitive to me. In such applications, clicking and dragging the mouse is usually handled by analogy to a physical map: If I put my hand down on a map and push to the right, the map moves right. That is, features on the right edge of the map disappear from view and new features on the left edge of the map come into view. I believe these controls should be switched around in the next version.
(3) Continuing on the Mars Navigator tool: It would obviously be exceedingly desirable to shorten the response loop on the main map. Currently, it takes ~1-2 seconds to redraw the game map from the MGS datamap. I love having accurate maps, but this is troublesome. Could the response time be improved by breaking up that huge map into smaller data sets, say 30 degrees by 30 degrees?
(4) Still on the map data sets: The topographical map download gave my PKZIP program heartburn. Could you check that file?
(5) Yet another map data set comment: I had to leave my computer chewing overnight running the java Installer to decompress the maps from the package download. People will revolt if it takes 4 hours to install the program. Again, breaking up the map might help.
(6) ObComment: We need a reporter-line (maybe at the bottom of the screen) to throw up comments that are currently dumped to the DOS window.
On the direction this project is going:
(7) Will satellites play any role in this simulation, or will a satellite infrastructure be assumed (already thrown up and maintained by Earth)?
(8) I don't know how far you want to this simulation to go in the Civ/AC direction. You have "Lab" and "Research" departments marked in the settlements -- will there be a tech tree? Random tech improvements? Quantum-leap new capabilites (launching rockets; new type of habitat zone [i.e. fusion plant]; terraformation capabilities)?
More to possibly come....
Your friendly neighborhood nitpicker
Allen
Thanks for your comments, Allen.
2) Ummm. I think we have a missunderstanding with this one. Only clicking is supported on the Mars Navigator map, not dragging. The current map generation time is too slow for that to work practically. The map is designed to recenter on the spot you click. You can also use the navigation arrows below the globe to rotate it to the position you want and the press "Center Map" to center the map on that position.
3) I agree that the main map on the Mars Navigator takes a little too long to generate (it generates a map that appears undistorted regardless of what longitude and latitude it is centered on). That is as fast as I've been able to get it so far and it required some rather large (aprox. 7.5Mb.) data files as a trade off. We have some new developers working on the project now and one of them has done some interesting work with the map generator. Hopefully we'll be able to speed it up in the future.
The globe on the other hand seems to be working very fast now due to some improvements Greg made on it. That will be in the 2.7 release.
4) This is the second complaint I've had on the topo data file. I think the zip is corrupted. I'll rezip both data files tonight and upload them again. Hopefully that will fix the problem. Sorry.
5) I've always been uncomfortable with the Installer application solution. This was a trade off so that people wouldn't have to download the huge data files. I converted them to bitmaps and lossy compressed them into jpeg files around 1Mb in size. The installer loads them one at a time into memory and converts them back into the data files. The resulting maps have some artifacts from the compression and don't look as good as the original data files. The installer application uses a ton of memory and can run quite slow on some computers if it doesn't have a lot available to it. I'll probably still use the installer on release 2.7, but I'm going to try to find a better solution in the future.
6) I'll have to think about this. We've been using the command line (DOS window) to display debugging logs during development, and it will display errors when the application fails. Outside of errors, it shouldn't display any comments in the release versions, though. I'd appreciate it if you'd explain what you're thinking about this a little more.
7) I was trying to produce a unit structure that would allow these things to easily be added to the hiearchy (sp?). For example:
Unit > Vehicle > SpaceVehicle > Satellite > ...
I wasn't planning on adding satellites soon, but I'll bring it up with the other developers to see if anyone wants to work on that. They might be useful as a part of an overall communications infrastructure.
8) I was thinking something along that line. The labs are mainly placeholders for later development. We haven't developed roles/jobs for people yet. We could have a scientist role in which scientist would do research in labs and in the field, possibly making breakthroughs. We haven't really explored this topic yet. One step at a time. :-)
If you're interested in being a developer for this project or being a part of the development discussion, feel free to join the developer mailing list at:
http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/mars-sim-developers
You have a lot of excellent ideas.
Scott Davis
Project Administrator
Mars Simulation Project
scud1@users.sourceforge.net
(5) The version 2.7 Installer compiled the Mars maps perfectly and quickly. Of course, increasing clock speed fivefold, memory fourfold, and HD space tenfold *could* have something to do with that...
We were getting a lot of people submitting problems with the installer application, plus the data maps generated were a bit pixelated from the lossy compression.
We decided for version 2.71 to remove the installer and just include the original raw map data files with the download. The trade off is that the download is much larger now (11Mb compared to 2.6Mb). I'm hoping that this will ultimately make it easier for people to install and run the program.
Scott Davis
Project Adminstrator
Mars Simulation Project
http://mars-sim.sourceforge.net
scud1@users.sourceforge.net