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[Outcast Orange]

You must not have tried the latest version. The black stuff is the base-rock type, deepest underground.
(Though if you dig into the side of a mountain, it's not very deep.)

It is exposed in this instance, because the waterplate is acting as an umbrella
 and preventing the land from forming correctly.

It is all being dealt with in a very ultimate way, but there are down-sides to ultimateness sometimes.

[deadlycairn]

I'm ashamed to say the only version I've actually downloaded (I have a small usage cap) was your second release (or so, I'm not exactly sure) - back when it was 2d and black and white. I'm still amazed at how far you've come in this much time.

[Outcast Orange]

Now I will snatch up all the sparkles and glitter you all see around me and my development speeds.

The thing is, I already knew how to program, and had been messing around in a very similar language for years.
When I came over to C++, it was just a matter of figuring out how to do things I already had experience in.
Then I just piled on the features, until I caught up with my old self.

I would like to think I pick up things faster and easier than most,
 but if you ask alfie, I doubt he'd agree.

The thing is though, I never knew that much in the first place, just the syntax and such.
I am still very proud of my C++ learnings, since they have taken me a lot further along.

I'm going to keep working on this, full speed, with patches of fog and showers.

I couldn't possibly let such an amazing and open-ended project fall.
This thing is going to be a major part of my life for quite some time.

[SolarShado]

Just DL'd the latest version, haven't tinkered with it much yet. Keep it up

[Outcast Orange]

The next thing I add will be impressive, whatever it is.
Tomorrow is wide open for rethinking things.

[Outcast Orange]

Okay, things have been rethought.
The stuff I'm adding now, will completely change the mood of this game.
I have six major changes that need made, none of which I don't know how to do,
and then this thing will be ultimate.

Here they are:

- Improved persistent map generation
- Directional map generation and size limit handling
- Secret Project
- Undecided secret project (difficulty uncertain)
- Text and probably textures

The two secret projects are both mind blowing though.
Sorry, this stuff all needs to happen together, or it will sort of ruin the fun.
I'll update as much as I can as I work on this, and grind program until it's finished.

I'm probably going to start on the first project today, and have it finished tomorrow.
The next thing is really easy, but there are still some decisions to be made, so it could take a few hours.
Then the rest of this stuff is major, and will take me at least a day each.
Sorry to make you wait, but you can expect some ground-breaking changes.

Also, no water in sight. Eventually, don't worry.

[SolarShado]

Oh no! You mean you're entering the same sort of long release cycle as Tody? 

Changes sound cool, looking forward to them.

I assume "Improved persistent map generation" means saving and loading?

[Outcast Orange]

Nope. That will be a headache for another time.

I just want maps that can generate when you approach them from ground level,
instead of having to completely recreate a new area just to allow you to walk slightly further in one direction.

Don't worry about lag and stuff like that.
Alfie and I have thought up a killer new system of handling things.
It will be cool, interesting, and original-ish.

[Outcast Orange]

Okay, the previous list of projects will be henceforth referred to as the "exploration projects".

The thing is, the exploration projects rely on the use of technology I have not mastered yet.
I need some way to store my tile-class array to drive.
Otherwise, there is far too much information.

Anybody with memory access experience is encouraged to help me out.
Including but not limited to Timmeh.

Once I have a way of storing and accessing information,
I will be able to continue the exploration projects.

[Armok]

What kind of data does the tile class use? Strings? integers, an if so of what size ranges? floats? pointers?

[Outcast Orange]

Here are the details:

So far they only use four or five sets of booleans,
then a few integers.
The integers range no higher than 50 I would like to think.
NVM, I will add an new height integer that will keep track of a tiles height.
That will be no higher than 200.

I can have a more exact list, but the thing is, more will be added in the future.

I have to go see a play now, but I'll be back in a few hours.
Thanks for all the support guys.
It makes everything worth the headache.

[Armok]

Well, in that case it shuldn't be TO hard to make a member function that  quicly convers it to an array of chars, and that shuld be fairly fast to find a tutorial on how to write to disk. Not the fastest solution, but it shuld work preliminartely if it's not used TO much.
Also, if you are going to use a cache on the har drive like it looks like you will... DON'T FORGET TO CLEAN UP! Also, using more than  a single file generaly improves speed a lot if you do it intelegently. Remember to take into account that the program migth crash or maybe something else terminates the program improperly, and it shuld still not reuire the user to clean up manually. Also, it's probably a good thing to have all the chace in a specialy create folder, and if it's not to much work check the size of it sometimes to make sure it isn't growing uncontrolably.

[qwertyuiopas]

Isn't there a function(might be C) that writes the contents of a pointer to disk, given a size?

Yep: fwrite (also: fread)

Might need to use C-style file handling to use it, but it looks like what you might want.

Only issue is that the saves aren't always portable, since diffrent systems sometimes store integers diffrently. A simple warning that saves might not work on other platforms, and a single stored int at the start to test if the system reading is compatible with the system that did the writing...

[SolarShado]

I know in java there's built-in support for "serializing" an object, either for storing it or transmitting it across a network. I haven't actually used that library myself, but is seems fairly straighforward.

I'm surprised there isn't anything comparable for C/C++. I do know enough to know there's no built-in feature, but I would think there'd be a fairly common library...

On a related note, isn't there a trick with typedefs for making sure numbers are portable? And aren't shorts always 2 bytes long anyway?

[qwertyuiopas]

Yes, but what order does it store those bytes?

There is, I think I remember seeing, a function to convert between byte orderings.


And anything is a byte array after a single pointer cast...

(And a byte array is already serialized, though doing it that way won't give you time to convert between byte orders, though you could, if my vague recollection of C++ is correct, simply write a function that accepts a pointer to a byte array and fills it or fills from it. Not automatic serialization, and slower than simply reading it as a byte array(fread/fwrite practically do this), but you have more control...)