I've always wanted to see an online game like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which use a hex based map system for battles.

Leftley wrote:

I recently started work on a good 'ol fashioned hex-based strategy game, and I've been toying around with the idea of putting together a library for various hex-based functions. However, I have two very conflicting concerns about such an effort: Firstly, it occurs to me that someone's likely already working on something along these lines, and secondly, it occurs to me that there probably aren't an awful lot of people who would really be interested in a hex map system. I don't care so much about the latter concern, but still, any thoughts?

I recelenty started on a newer version of Tradewars that uses hex-based movement. I need to finish it a bit more b4 i can upload it tho.

sunzoner wrote:

What is hex-based games?

Hex maps have a grid based on hexagons instead of squares. It looks like a honeycomb. Hexes have 6 adjacent squares instead of 8 and are often used in games because they don't distort distances as much as a square grids. (If you move diagonally on a square grid, you move 1.4 times the distance that you move without going diagonal.)

Lummox JR wrote:

I'm curious... how do you intend to get around the fact that hex tiles are a little longer than square? Do you accept a certain level of distortion in the tiles, or what? What's the dimension you're going for for the hex tiles, and how are overlaps handled?

Lummox JR

To keep things as clean as possible, I'm using 128x128 hexes--since half of the tiles composing each hex are border tiles shared with other hexes, you can still fit a decent (though cramped) amount on screen, although I do wish you could set world.view to be higher than 10 (apologies to anyone running in 640x480!) The proportions aren't quite right--had to stretch the hexes a bit vertically, so they're about 15% taller than they're supposed to be (just guessing on the exact amount). Still, things fit together so cleanly that I think it's a decent approach in general.

My hexes fit into 96x96. It is composed of four different types of tiles - border tiles, left edges, right edges, and spaces. I had some graphics on my webpage a while ago but I deleted them. If really necessary, I could demonstrate...

Hmm. What're the proportions on those?

You're stupid.

yes I'm stupid.

Wow, what a fast reply!

...Kidding. =)


JonSnow13 wrote:

can someone explain to me in detail what hex editing even is? lol

Hex editing is short for "hexadecimal editing". That means running a computer program that will allow you to actually edit each particular byte of a file. For ease of use, a hex editor usually displays, as its name implies, the bytes in hexadecimal format, rather than the 1's and 0's of binary.

By manipulating bytes as appropriate, one can cause various effects in files on your hard drive, ranging from totally screwing it up, to screwing it up totally.

I'll try to explain.

Say that you are playing a game. Umm, Civilization. The game date is 1990, and you have 30 turns until the end of the game. Your cash is at $143, and you are being forced to sell of your city improvements to cover your expenses. To make things worse, the nasty Vikings are attacking. You cannot win.

With a Hex editor you could. It is a special editor which can open any save file, displaying The Data inside. It does this in hexidecimal.

Decimal Hexidecimal
0 0
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
.. ..
9 9
10 A
11 B
.. ..
15 F
16 10
17 11
18 12
and so on.

So you open your save file (jonsnow13.sav) and calculate the Hexidecimal of 143; which is 8F. Find the 8F in the file and change it to FFFF which, as any fool can plainly see, is 65535. save the file; close; and load your game. Bingo. Riches.

So you can see, hex editing is almost always used for massive cheating.

If you are interested, I can teach you how to convert decimal to hexidecimal in your head (and binary also). Most of those Programs have a converter though. Its a good trick to claim to be able to read binary. It is not any harder than multiplying two numbers in your head.

Spuzzum wrote:

If you are interested, I can teach you how to convert decimal to hexidecimal in your head (and binary also). Most of those Programs have a converter though. Its a good trick to claim to be able to read binary. It is not any harder than multiplying two numbers in your head.

I can convert base 2 to base 10 like it was second-nature (vice-versa is a little more difficult to me, but not much), but I instantly balk at base 16 to base 10 and base 16 to base 2. Any chance I could get some pointers (by email or another thread)? =)

Good. Then you have most of it. Just go Base 16 to Base 2 to base 10. I'll do 16 - 2 as an example(since you already know 2 - 10).

3F = 63

separate the '3' and the 'F'

Three is 11 (one-one in Bin). make it a full nybble. 0011.
F is 1111 or fifteen. one full nybble. 1111.

so 3F would be 0011 1111 in binary.

The other way works just as well.

47 = 2F

47 divide by sixteen is 32 remainder 15.

32 is 0010 0000 in bin plus another fifteen which is 1111.

so it would be 0010 1111 or 47!

Class, this lesson is OVER. Now go and play. NICELY.

Did that make sense Spuzzum?

Spuzzum wrote:

Did that make sense Spuzzum?

For the most part. Now I'm wrapping my mind around it. =)

Will that keep it warm? =?