Re: [Rails-devel] wiki

[Erik V. <eri...@xs...>]

> I am already editing a little bit the wiki, but I can only do it from the
> perspective of a Rail user.

Good work so far!

>  I am already considering to try to make a users /
> tech division, maybe we could load up some nice graphic to show the
targets
> of the section. btw I have no idea of the wiki needs of the developers .

I see there already is a brief introduction to new game development in the
wiki. This could be the start of a more extensive tutorial, describing what
can be achieved via the XML config files. That, together with creating any
new tiles that might be required, would IMO always be phase 1 in adding a
new game to Rails. The end result of that phase would be a playable subset
of the game. One of my recent messages to Adam Badura already contains some
additional info. 

Phase 2 would be the Java programming work (in many cases accompanied by
some further XML work). Sometimes that will be easy, but quite often some
in-depth decisions need be taken.  And trust me: adding new private special
abilities almost always is a nightmare. IMHO, such work can generally better
be entrusted to experienced Rails developers.

As an example, I've already concluded that my suggestion to Adam about the
18GA OSR free 2-train is too simple and will not work that way.  And there
is another looming problem with trains: the two-way train certificates as
exist in e.g. 18VA and 18Scan.  My current thinking is that we need to
separate buyable trains from actual trains throughout. The former could be
named TrainCertificates. For example: an 18Scan 4/3+3-train certificate
would then be linked to two actual trains.  At buying time, the player must
decide which train is actually bought, and that train is acquired by the
company; the other one is lost.  Similarly in 18GA, a extra 2-train
certificate would not normally be buyable, but be linked to the OCR private.
Once this idea has been programmed, all usual cases would still be
configurable in the XML.  For 18GA, extra Java programming will then be
required only to accomplish the automatic transfer of the train, either to
the company or to the scrapheap, at the time that the private is bought by a
company (even that could be made configurable, but I'm reluctant to add code
to the generic code base that's applicable to one game only).

Erik.