Using:
The Homeworld Excel Mapper
I
heartily recommend Excel. Every file you edit to make a map
is a text file, also, every value in these text files is separated
by a comma. So this means that by using the comma delimited
properties when you open up a text file in excel you will be
able to edit the file you open as you would any sheet you open
with excel. Especially for making big sweeping changes which
could require ages of typing in number after number, excel can
accomplish this in moments.
With
that in mind I use the same worksheet to begin every map. By
the time I'm finished the worksheet is usually changed beyond
recognition, with little changes and tweaks made here and there
to do what I want to achieve. You can download the Excel Spreadsheet
here. It may take a while to fully get the hang of it, but I
recommend it, Excel is a doddle, ergo, making maps with
excel is, to quote TAKER: '...As easy as Apple-Pie'. Read more
on how to use Excel.
Dylov
[17/12/00]

The
Strands,
Rings and Distances Excel Utility (v1.3
HW)
Written by
Dylov and TAKER.
Download it
Here.
The Strands, Rings and Distances Excel Utility (the SRD-XL Utility)
consists of 5 Excel worksheets linked together. If you are familiar
with Excel these sheets will be of boundless and speedy help
when placing rings and strands of asteroids, player start positions
or just checking distances on your maps.
The
Homeworld SRD-XL Utility consists of seven worksheets;
Worksheets
1.
Strand
creator
(Used to generate continuous chains of cylinders)
2.
Tilting
Ring Maker
(Used
to generate Rings of continuous chains of cylinders)
3.
Player/Resource
Distances Editor
(A number of usful elements, primarily dealing
with player placement and local player resources)
Worksheets
ready to save as .csv files
4.
Resourcesphere
output Worksheet
(Prepared for Resourcesphere_#.missphere files)
5.
Ring
Resourcesphere output Worksheet
(Prepared for Resourcesphere_#.missphere files)
6.
LevelfilesFFA
output worksheet
(Prepared for Levelname#.Level files optimised
for Free For All setup)
7.
LevelfilesTEAM
output worksheet
(Prepared for Levelname#.Level files optimised
for Team setup)
The Spreadsheet
uses the same colour scheme throughout, if a box is in light-yellow,
you input values there, if a box is in darker yellow/orange,
you never type in there as output data will be displayed there.
Using
Excel to aid in your Map Making Efforts
Before you begin to use this spreadsheet you will need to have
at least some idea of what you want the finished map to look
like. I suggest using graph paper to show a top down view of
your map (a 2D view), where the centre of your map is the co-ordinates
x=0, y=0 or (0,0). The y-axis is the vertical axis, and the
x-axis is the horizontal axis bisecting at 90 degrees to the
y axis.
The
centre point is actually point x, y, z, (The co-ordinates 0,0,0,).
Positive x values to the right of co-ordinate 0,0,0, and positive
y co-ordinates above 0,0,0, on your 2D map. The positive z co-ordinates
are the 3D points above the plane of the map (Up/Down).

Worksheets
1.
Strand Creator (Dylov)
Used to generate the required co-ordinates for the 'Resourcesphere_1.missphere'
file for continuous chains of cylinders. This sheet will carry
out all the required calculations when placing the various cylinder
asteroid-clusters end to end and have them all facing the correct
way.
Draw
out your strand on your map, marking where the turns, and/or
ends of the individual cylinder asteroid-clusters are, so you
can work out the co-ordinates. Once you have done this its a
simple matter to just copy these co-ordinates into the relevant
positions on the sheet (in the x Coord, y Coord
and z Coord boxes shown in Light-Yellow).
The
Strand sheet will generate the co-ordinates of the cylinder,
the length of the cylinder, and the angles of rotation so that
a cylinder will be placed BETWEEN the two co-ordinates you have
entered, each cylinder beginning at the first co-ordinate entered
and ending at the second one and so on. The generated lines
will be passed on to the Resourcesphere sheet preformatted to
save as a '.csv' file.
Notes:
Any empty co-ordinate lines will be read as 0,0,0 and Excel
will still use this co-ordinate to generate a cylinder. For
example; say you enter a number of co-ordinates, but not enough
to fill the table (Which is set up to input 33 co-ordinates
(& generate 32 continuous cylinders). If you have an empty box
(for example, you only want a stand made up of 10 co-ordinates
(or 9 cylinders end to end), Excel will read any empty boxes
as co-ordinate 0,0,0 and will generate a cylinder between your
last inputted co-ordinate and 0,0,0, so pay attention to the
lines you copy into your Resourcesphere file.
There
are three separate tables where you can input co-ordinates,
these all perform exactly the same function, I just found I
wanted more space so I could manipulate a number of strands
at the same time without have to delete everything all the time,
the third one labelled resources is no different other than
it generates the data in the preformatted '.csv' sheet which
correct labelling of the '.dist' files to produce resource clusters.
You can easily change what cylinder consists of what in the
resourcesphere sheet, just don't change the lengths, co-ordinates
and angles of rotation. (See the Notes on The
Resourcesphere Worksheet below).
2.
Tilting Ring Maker (TAKER)
This easy-to-use sheet will generate a set of 24 cylinders of
the required length and rotation to form a ring around the required
co-ordinates. There are 5 sheets, all are identical, I always
found that I wanted to work with more than one ring at a time,
and five seemed the most optimal number, considering size of
the saved xls file, and actual volume space used on the worksheet.
The
Central Point of the ring is designated in the boxes
labelled Shift x, Shift y and Shift
z. input the co-ordinates here.
The
Radius will generate the size of the ring, (where 2r
is the diameter!), the radius is measured from the inputted
x, y, z co-ordinates which is 0,0,0,
by default.
The
Tilt of the ring (box labelled Tilt X (deg)),
will generate the 'y-rotation' value (Up/down where the
angle is measured (or pivots) about the x-axis). 89.93 degrees
will generate a vertical ring, excel gets a bit screwy when
you go fully to 90°. All the data generated is passed onto
the Ring Resourcesphere sheet (See the Notes on The
Ring Resourcesphere Worksheet
below).
3.
Distances (Dylov)
Quite complicated to look at but hopefully easy to use. Contains
several elements all using pretty much the same formulae.
This sheet primarily deals with the players only, everything
else here is outputted into two worksheets ready to be saved
as .csv files: the LevefileFFA and LevelfileTEAM
worksheets, although, having said that, there is a teeny wee
bit dealing with local player resources that outputs data to
the Resourcesphere worksheet. Again with this worksheet, you
can simply input your required data, and save the relevant LevefileFFA
or LevelfileTEAM worksheet as a .csv files, open this
.csv file in any text editor, then copy and paste the bits you
need directly into your relevant Level file and Mothership_#.missphere
files.
Resource
Clouds or other points of reference table
You can input your own co-ordinates for the positions of resource
spheres, cylinders, derelicts or other points of note and the
sheet will calculate the distances between them. This information
is displayed on the adjacent table, and the co-ordinates you
input will be passed on to the Player Start Co-ordinate Table
as well as the relevant section in the Resourcesphere sheet
(See the Notes on The Resourcesphere Worksheet
below).
Player
Start Co-ordinates; Optional Player Start Co-ordinates
You can input your own co-ordinates for the positions where
each player starts on the map and the sheet will calculate the
distances between each player. This information is displayed
on the adjacent table, and the co-ordinates you input will be
passed on to the Player Start Co-ordinate Table as well
as the relevant section in the Levelfile sheet (See The
Levelfile Sheets (FFA and TEAM) Worksheet
below).
Player
Start Co-ordinates; Player
Distribution Parameters
Player Start Positions are generated for maps, by using the
Global Position Settings to set the radius of
a ring of players, any shift in y rotation
(up/down) or shift in z rotation (left/right) of this
ring of players. You can use these settings to generate equal
distances about the co-ordinates 0,0,0, or modify these co-ordinates
in the Co-ordinates Shift Table. Each individual Player
number game type can be individually modified to produce the
best fit for your map.
Team
Game Distribution parameters
Team game set up will group players together in groups of 2,
3 or 4 depending on the amount of teams required, all players
will start in a ring about the co-ordinates 0,0,0, only grouped
closer together. Again, modify this location with the Co-ordinates
Shift Table if you want the centre of you ring of players
to be moved from the centre of the map. Each individual Team
player-number game type can be individually modified to produce
the best fit for your map.
The
Player Start Co-ordinates Table
This table has been optimised for use with the Excel 'Autofilter'
function. Select (or highlight) anywhere on the table, then
from the menu choose Data then Filter then AutoFilter.
Used the little arrows above the Type button and the
Number button and it will reduce the lists to show only
selected game type calculations.

Worksheets
ready to save as .csv files
4.
The Resourcesphere Worksheet
This is a ready formatted sheet that will take the co-ordinates
generated from the Strand Creator Worksheet. Also at
the very bottom of this page, is data outputted from the Distances
Worksheet; specifically from the Resource Clouds
or other points of reference table.
Do
not change any area you see in Yellow, i.e.; the x,
y and z co-ordinates, and the y and z
rotations, as these are all generated numbers and thus are
imported data. All the cells of imported date are coloured do
not touch any of these coloured boxes. Of course, change everything
else that is in the non-coloured boxes, especially Quantity
and Radius, you will know yourself what sort of values you want
here. Always remember case, and format when changing
anything.
Save
this sheet as a text file; Select File, Save As
and in the Save as type box select CSV (Comma
delimited (*.csv). Then, open this *.csv file with a text
editor (such as Textpad) and just copy the relevant lines directly
into your ResourceSphere_#.missphere file. Saving in .csv format
will save your data in text exactly as required by Homeworld,
its a simple matter of copying and pasting what you want into
your existing resourcesphere file, or saving the whole shebang,
it will work as long as its named in the Level file.
5.
The Ring Resourcesphere Worksheet
This
is a ready formatted sheet that will take the co-ordinates generated
from TAKERS Tilted Ring sheet. All five of the Ring Worksheets
output their generated Data here. (See above
for what to do when saving this sheet).
6
& 7. The Levelfile (FFA and TEAM)
Worksheets
These are pre-formatted sheets that will input the player start
co-ordinates from the Distances sheet. Do not change any area
you see in Yellow, i.e.; the x, y and z
Player Start Co-ordinates and the Rotation value
(facing). These yellow cells contain imported data from the
Distances sheet. Save this sheet as a .csv file and copy the
data into the relevant areas of your '.level' and '.missphere'
file.
You
can change anything else in the non coloured boxes, if you want
to add more ships, select the entire line and copy paste it
below, just make sure your new yellow boxes are pointing to
the correct cells to receive their imported data, this only
requires a modicum of Excel knowledge to do, and so is simple
to set up this file outputting several lines of ships for the
Mothership files, such as harvesters, research ships and so
on. (See above for what to do when saving
this sheet).
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[Tutorial
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