I'm not sure if anyone else has done this but, would anyone find a use for a budget tracker? Something that would tally up the number of each object used in a planned map, and spit out the budget needed to put those objects on a map. Then you could tell whether you have the materials necessary to make the map you have planned. If enough people would use it, I would get to work on making one.
It would certainly be nice to use alongside the new Sandbox Sketchup set up that's come out. The OLN is going to be an annoying factor in this, you might be safely within budget on your design only to find out that the OLN stops you in your tracks when Forging. Hopefully we'll be able to find out over time exactly how the OLN works and racks up, so we can at least treat it the same as a budget, albeit an invisible one. But yeah, I'd say it could be pretty useful if you've got the time. Having it update in real time would be cool if possible, as opposed to having to choose all the items then let it work out the budget, it would be cool if you just picked more and more items and the budget kept itself updated, would make it a lot more useable alongside a Sketchup project.
Well how it would probably be structured is, say, you place a double block on the map. You hop to the program, and find the double block section and just press a button to up the number by one. It would keep a running tally of the number of objects you've put on the "map" and the budget. If either one reaches the limit it would tell you so. I don't know if there would be a way to actually integrate it with you spawning the object in sketchup and if there is sadly I'm too much of a c++ nub. Either way I don't think taking an extra 3 seconds to press a button on the program would be too much of a hassle.
Yeah, sounds great. Do you know what the item limit actually is though? I didn't think anyone outside of Bungie really knew the actual OLN number for Sandbox. If you could work this in then it would be seriously cool, would save a lot of time and hassle on top of the Budget thing in the first place. Yeah, I thought that would be cool too but it sounded like something way too complicated to be worth it, if it's even possible in practical terms. True, it's hardly a big hassle. I just think it would make more sense to have it auto update whenever you place an object, since you're never really going to want the ability to place multiple objects before updating the budget, it might as well do it like that and make its use a little easier.
I believe in a weekly update Bungie said the object limit was... 640 or something? Assuming you use all objects from the default setup. Otherwise you knock off 100 or so objects.
That would increase the usefulness of this a lot, since OLN isn't visible even in Forge, it could help to see a few moves ahead, see if you could finish the bit your working on in one way, or whether you should rethink it now. Not to mention still being useful alongside the Sketchup side of things. Good point about the Default objects though. Would you say that it's worth assuming they didn't delete the default objects since most people seem to know about this problem? That would make it most useful for serious Forgers, but would also mean that you'd have to somehow code it so it started with all the default objects already spawned and accounted for in the Budget, since they are technically on the map in OLN canvases, thus already taking up budget. I know it sounds long winded, and the fact that you're making this at all is pretty damn helpful of you, but do you reckon there would be a way to make it an option in a menu somewhere? Like you could switch it to OLN canvas mode, with all the default objects already on the map and accounted for in the budget.
So, if you have it turned on , each object that is on the default variant will be tallied up and counted to the budget? like it puts on 3 double blocks, 4 ramps, 20 spawn points, etc etc? If that's the case, if someone could give me a list of all the objects and the amounts used in the default sandbox variant, it would help immensely. I don't have the maps yet, or a working xbox for that matter.
Microsoft Excel FTW! Shock made one for Foundry for personal use, then I took it and made a detailed one for all the items, including item number. Was gonna do it for Sandbox pre-release but I no longer have MSOffice...it sucks :C but yeah, its useful dude.
If anyone else would want to use a Budget tracker, please post. I need to have an idea of whether it's worth putting all the effort into making this.
Well for one I'd be doing this with C++ and I'm certainly no expert so it would take a lot longer than 20 minutes. If you can program it faster and better than I can, go for it.