Optional Fields/Values - FTF

On Wednesday, May 28, 1997 7:35 PM, Joachim Heck - SunSoft
> [SMTP:jheck@East.Sun.COM] wrote:

joachim makes a good point and one I am pondering the way to handle optional
/house modifications - he gives a good example and the one I remember is
in a B5 game where the batteries could be switched into 'Intercept' mode.

Currently I am writing a big spread sheet for the FTF records and data fields
and my strategy is as joachim suggests to come up with a set of valid
descriptive values which form the core and then allow optional and additional
modifications, for example a system status can be one of :-

{destroyed, damaged, empty, inactive, active}

This should be exhaustive for the common states of an FT system (i.e. any icon
in a hull box) but is extensible to cover other states. A parser should ignore
states it doesn't understand.

Another way to do this is to have record fields that are optional for a weapon
this might be

TargetMode: {antiship, intercept, pointdefence}

The default is antiship if not explicitly stated.