Battletech

Battletech

• Goal

– To recreate the table top game environment in Java

– Practice and develop my skill set with both Java and NetBeans

• Why

– This is a game I have always enjoyed

– To see put my knowledge to the test

Data

• All components in the battlemech were built as separate objects.

• Game rules are coded into the objects where necessary.

• Game engine actions are based on the current game phase.

• Game play is with two six-sided dice, and this is represented with a random generator.

Data

• Record keeping is accomplished within the instantiated objects.

• This abstracts the game record sheet into a different form, minimizing the level of player overhead for details such as, heat level, movement and firing modifiers.

• Access is through get and set methods.

Accomplishments

• As of today, I have a rough GUI that will display data about a given battlemech.

• I have implemented a canvas that draws the hex game board, and one battlemech.

• The parts that build up a battlemech have all been built, and have appropriate accessor methods.

• At this point I consider this an Alpha implementation of the program.

Current System Design

Game Window

Mouse Events

Player'sBattlemech

MechBody

MechComponent

s

Dice RollGenerator

Game PhaseEngine

UIUpdate

Challenges

• In getting to this point, I had determined that I wanted to implement all the pieces and parts of the game as objects.

• This allowed me to define a few generic objects that I could extend into the remaining parts.

• By building generic parts, I could define the methods for all the parts, and hopefully minimize the type checking later.

Part Definition

• Part object extends into

– Engine, Gyro, Cockpit, Arm and Leg Actuators, Heat Sinks, and Weapons

• Weapons object extends into

– Lasers (Large, Medium, Small)

– Missiles (Long Range and Short Range)

– Ballistics (Autocannons and Machine guns)

Battlemech

• The MechBody object itself is made up of more objects. I have an inner structure object that maintains overall access to all the parts objects.

• The MechBody is also where we maintain armor and heat levels.

• In essence I am recreating the physical record as a collection of objects.

UI Prototyping

Conclusions

• I feel like I am going the right direction to represent the game as a computer program.

• I neglected to keep track of my time, so I can't give an accurate count of the hours spent.

• For the program to be useable, I need to make progress on the game engine. Up to this point I have been more focused on the battlemech itself, setting up the objects and their methods.

• I had some personal challenges that ate up time that I needed to dedicate to this project.

Conclusions

• I have found that my knowledge with the GUI construction is very limited, and this has been an excellent project to push that knowledge forward.

• This is a project that I plan on working with for quite a while, and now I have a reasonable start on it.