I was just wondering what method was best for representing the wilderness between towns and other significant areas semi-graphically (ASCII minimap), with different characters representing different terrain types (~ for water, ^ for mountain, and so on). Each "room" would have an x and y coordinate, but would not be instantiated like normal. Instead, each player would have a wilderness pointer within their struct that gets pointed to an instantiated room that is altered on the fly as they move around. That part I have figured out, at least. What I'm confused about is how to store/retrieve all the room information (including ASCII map). Any tips would be appreciated.
oh, ok. originally I had one file that was 2000x1000 and was 2megs in size but changed that to 100x100 segments and the files are read into memory as players enter that zone.
now I use the letters a-z and A-Z and 0-9. so I have 52 charcters for terrain types. so here is a little snip of the data file:
A Glass desert a savannah B Rough/broken b bog/swamp C coast - rocky c coast - sandy D desert - heath d dunes E High Desert e Thermal zone (like yellowstone) F forest heavy mixed f forest light mixed G Glacier g grass lands H hills h forest hills I ice Mountains i ice fields J Jungle Heavy j Jungly light K Gorge k Bamboo forest L lake l marsh M Mountains m Gigantica Deciduous Tree Forest N Gigantica Evergreen Tree Forest n Blight O Open ocean o shallow ocean P Peak p plains Q Top of bute or cliff top (plato) q Bute slope or cliff slope R Water Fall r river S Forest - deciduous trees s Forest - evergreen trees T Tundra - Mountains t Tundra - plains U Vally - Glacier made type u River Delta V Volcano v lava river W mixed woodland and grass fields w shallow coastal waters X Old lava beds x Slate heath Y Village size area y Town size area Z City Size area z Farm land
now for are mineral types we have a script that will read in the terrain value and then based on that give a number that it puts into a 100x100 file that overlays the map.db file. this is the same for woods and herbs and so on.