If upon first look at the Map Transport Relationships section of Test of Time's (hereafter referred to as ToT) Rules.txt file it appears to make no logical scene whatsoever, you are not alone. Even the most experienced scenario designers that I have spoken to felt this way. Fortunately for all of us it is not nearly as complicated as it first appears. Let us breakdown the meaning of the numbers in the rules.txt lines and it will quickly become crystal clear.
An example from the sci-fi game
We will start with the Map Transport Relationships section from ToT's sci-fi game (rules.txt):
The first pair of numbers defines the map connection, map 0 to map 1, in this case.
The semi-colon defines a remark. Everything that follows the semi-colon has no effect on the processing of the rules.txt file.
The third number is the slot number for lines 0-15. This is just for reference. It is not required but it is a good idea.
The fourth number is the artwork number. Again, just for reference.
Gravitic Grid is the name of the transport site and Funestis and Orbit are the names of maps zero and one.
Understanding the Slots
The rules.txt contains sixteen slots for Map Transport Relationships, numbered zero to sixteen. No more then sixteen may be defined. There may be fewer then sixteen, but according to Microprose all sixteen slots must be filled. If you don't wish to use a given slot fill it with a null relationship such as:
The artwork is determined by the slot number: slot 0 uses the first transport site art, slot 1 uses the second, slot 2 uses the third, slot 3 reuses the first art, slot 4 reuses the second, and so on up to 15. The three pieces of artwork are located in the cities.bmp file, the three rightmost images on the bottom row. Below is the art from the sci-fi game:
Building Relationships from Scratch
Clear as Mud? Let's do an example. If I wanted only one transport site that could transport to any map in my scenario then I would need to define six transport relationships: 0,1; 0,2; 0,3; 1,2; 1,3; 2,3. These six cover all possible map combinations. Next, I would need to assign all six relationships to one piece of art. To do this I need to define the relationships in slots 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15. The others slots would need to contain filler relationships. This is how it would look:
Now let's add a map transport relationship that connects map 0 to map 3 using the second artwork.
Finally, lets add a third transport site that links maps 1, 2, and 3. Since all transport is two ways we will need only three map transport relationships (1, 2; 1,3; and 2,3) to accomplish our goal.
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