FT CAD (long!)

Hey gang,

There's been some talk recently about playing FT via Computer. Although I'm
not attempting to do that myself, I have been programming a FT cad utility. I
currently design ships with excel and MS Paint. The end results are nice but
the amount of disk space required to store the ships is a little high. There's
also a problem with finding the correct spreadsheet to go with a ship drawing.
I thought it would be handy to integrate the two so you could both design AND
draw your ship at the same time.

I do plan on releasing the program on the net BUT I want to be VERY careful
about copyrights so I'm only designing the ENGINE, if you will. All data
pertaining to system type, cost, mass and graphic appearance will have to be
entered by the user in a seperate text file.
I'll include example non-FT related systems in the text file so people
can figure out the correct format.

This will unfortunately require alot of work on the user's part to get the
program up and running but it's the only way I can think of providing a
program without hurting GZG's FT sales. Of course, there is a hidden benefit
to entering the data yourself. It should be very easy to add systems your
local group has developed or change some of the current systems to match your
house rules. You'll also have a hull editor so you can even customize the look
of your hulls.

The program will use scalable vector graphics. Nothing fancy but it'll get the
job done without the need for tons of diskspace. I'll probably include a
Bitmap dump(if you will) of a ship currently displayed so people can pull the
ship into their favorite paint program and print it out. I've wanted a program
like this for over a year now. I finally decided to get off my butt (or on it
actually) and code it.

I'm writing the program for MS dos, standard VGA graphics. It should be able
to run on very old IBMs and their clones so long as they have a VGA board in
them. Yes, it's clunky compared to the nice windows OS's out there but alot of
my friends have old computers and won't be able to buy Win 95 machines for
some time (spent all of their money on tons of minis... you know how it is). I
will probably include the source code with the release of the program.

No, it's not complete yet. I'm about half finished and then I have to get my
friends to try and break it (they're pretty good at doing that). When I'm
happy with it I'll put it on my web page and let you know about it.

Pete