Program Ideas?

[casonon]

:???:
Hello All
I have a idea for a program that I want to write and would like some advice and opinions. Let me explain what I would like to do. I would like to make a program that opens another programs files and reads a certain piece of information. Then I would like my program to take that piece of information and randomly generate a report by using certain variables that I enter in the program. I can go into further depth for anyone who would be willing to give advice or be able to help me if they want. This isn't for anything illegal, it is for a role playing game.

Thanks in advance

[casonon]

:lol:

PLEASE... someone help me. I don't know near enough to make the type of program that I want to. I want to make a program that selects MECHS for a game called BATTLETECH. I have a program called The Drawing Board that lets me create mech files and I want to open those files and read a certain piece of information from it (Tonnage). Then have the program randomly choose MECHS for me based of some information that I provide. Such as max Tonnage and Number of mechs aloud. This is to make the game more challening and fun by never knowing what you are going to get.

thanks
:rotfl:

[toonski84]

erm, what is this 'battletech' of which you speak? and do you know the format for this file you want to read?

[Hexadecimal Disaster]

Joe, never let the power of Google leaves you.

What is BattleTech?:
http://www.geocities.com/fedcom_regular/battletech.html

Official Fansite:
http://www.classicbattletech.com/

About that "The Drawing Board" thingo:
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/weirdozon...board.html

Now, the real problem lies on the data format. I'll try to check that.


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EDITED
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Ok. That program uses a file format called .DBM (stands for Drawing Board Mech). There's nothing special about it, it's saved in a very standard way (for a VB proggie):

Code:

Drawing Board Mech      
 Exterminator EXT-4D .\EXT-4D Exterminator.HST  A      @P@                    
        
                     
           ¨     Näñ Ć
      7@      @              (@      %@      @      @      @                                                                                                      Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿   

             ÿÿ    


             ÿÿ     

             ÿÿ     

              ÿÿ     

              ÿÿ    @ 

             ÿÿ     

       
     ÿÿ    P 

             ÿÿ    1 

      
     ÿÿ                   M  Shoulder        Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿Ã¿           -1ÿÿ Upper Arm Actuator
       ÿÿÿÿ           -1ÿÿ Lower Arm Actuator

...blah, blah, blah... something like that. There's a recognizable header section and then comes all the values for every part of the mech. The problem is, that game uses a incredibly ridiculous amount of parameters for every aspect of the robot, so it seems very difficult to grab the correct data needed.

[casonon]

Well...
Can you get the information from the file? If so how would I go about doing it? If not, I have another program that I use to create MECHS called Heavy Metal Plus. If needed, I can send someone a copy of one of the mech files. This program isn't free like The Drawing Board. So I don't know if you will be able to find anything.

Thanks

[na_th_an]

Why don't you look over the internet for the file format or simply ask to the programmers of the utility you are using? You just have to know the file format, open the file as BINARY and begin reading in the correct locations.

[Hexadecimal Disaster]

Nathan's right. The best thing he can do is to e-mail the authors of The Drawing Board. Check the "About..." screen.

On the other side, it's a bad idea to look for that file format over the internet. The extension is DBM... sounds familiar? :roll:

[toonski84]

ach!! i've failed the almighty google!!

... but i was trying to get to nate's point in the first place.