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NemesisChiken
30th May 04, 2:46 PM
The Chiken Confederation is pleased to host a new Homeworld 2 Multi-player Stats Browser that can be found under the "Chiken Research" on the main portal page at:

http://chikens.net/forum/

or can be directly downloaded with:

http://chikens.net/forum/hw2/msb/HW2-MSB.zip

Below is the README.txt file found with the application:



HW2-MSB Version 1.0 README Copyright 2004

NemesisChiken's Homeworld 2 Multi-Player Stats File Browser

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Introduction
2. System Requirements
3. Package Files
4. Installation
5. Setup and Customization
6. Usage
7. Frequently Asked Questions


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1. INTRODUCTION
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

This small application was designed to allow Homeworld 2 players to
take advantage of the multi-player statistics files that are created
at the end of each game. These files are store in a special \Stats
directory under the Homeworld2\Bin\Profiles directory for each Player
Profile defined in Homeworld 2. They contain the final results of
each game that are displayed when a game concludes such as the player
scores, ships built, mining and production operations.

The Multi-Player Stats File Browser will read through the Stats files
and generate a combination of HTML and JavaScript code that can then
be browsed with a Web Browser.


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2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
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The general system requirements needed for running Homeworld 2 are
more than adaquete for using this application with the addition of
only a JavaScript capable Web Browser.


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3. PACKAGE FILES
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README.txt HW2-MSB installation and usage document
HW2-MSB.bat DOS Command File to generate and display stats
HW2-MSB.awk AWK Program to parse stat files and builds HTML
HW2-MSB Profile1.lnk Sample Windows Desktop link to launch HW2-MSB
COPYING.txt GNU General Public License, Version 2
gawk.exe GNU utility program to run HW2-MSB.awk program

The Homeworld 2 Multiplayer Stats Browser (HW2-MSB) is free software;
you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU
General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2 of the License, or any later version.

HW2-MSB is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with HW2-MSB; if not, write to the:

Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330
Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA


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4. Installation
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Normally delivered in a .ZIP package, the files for the Multi-Player
Stats File Browser should be extracted into a single directory such as
"C:\Program Files\HW2-MSD". Once un-packed, copy the Shortcut file
HW2-MSB Profile1.lnk to the desktop. This Shortcut is setup by default
to look for the first profile (ie. Profile1) in the normal installation
directory of Homeworld 2 "\Program Files\Sierra\Homeworld2", but can be
changed if a non-standard installation of the game was performed or if
another Player Profile set of Stats files should be processed.


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5. Setup and Customization
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Because of the flexibility in installing software and the variety of
setups individuals use, this application may require some modification
if non-standard installation of Homeworld2, Windows, or this program
was performed. The default Windows Desktop Icon and MW2-MSB.bat file
will most likely have to be adjusted to work properly.

Desktop Icon: Open the Properties Window of the link by right-clicking
on the Icon and selecting Properties. In the "Shortcut"
tab of the Properties, verify the "Target" and "Start In"
directory names match where the application was installed
(C:\Program Files\HW2-MSB by default). The "Run" option
should be set to "Normal Window" and then click on the
"OK" button to save any changes.

Also, the "Target" specifies which Profile directory to
process (ie. Profile1 by default). If another profile
should be reported on, change this value to the Profile
that should be used.

Command File: The DOS Command File has been generically setup to work
with the most common installations of Homeworld 2 and
Windows, but may need to be altered depending upon the
specific system setup. There are four (4) variables
that can be changed as needed by opening the HW2-MSB.bat
file in a text editor such as Notepad. The variables,
descriptions, and default values that can be changed
are:

Variable
Name Description
-------- -------------------------------------------
HWDRIVE Disk Drive Homeworld2 software is installed
Default: HWDRIVE=C:

HWDIR Directory Homeworld2 software is installed
Default: HWDIR=\Program Files\Sierra\Homeworld2

MSBDIR Directory Multi-Player Stat Browser installed
Default: MSBDIR=\Program Files\HW2-MSB

BROWSER Web Browser software to launch
Default: BROWSER=explorer.exe


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6. Usage
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Double-Clicking the Desktop HW2-MSB Shortcut Icon will start a normal
DOS Command Prompt window, run the AWK HTML generator application, and
finishes by launching the Browser to view the Web page results.

Across the top of the page are three (3) checkboxes and pull-down menus
that contain lists of all the Maps, Players, and Races that were found
in the Stats files. The checkboxes turn "ON" and "OFF" the particular
filtering and the menus can be used to indicate which particular Map,
Player, and/or Race to limit the results to. In parentheses next to
each menu list item is the number of records that were found for each
item.

Below the pull-down menus is the Statistics Summary Table that report
the statistics from the games. There are a pair of radio buttons to
the side of these statistics lines that govern whether cumulative totals
or game averages should be reported.

Following the Summary lines is a scrollable list of the individual game
player records that were used to calculate the statistics summary. The
list contains the Map Name, Date & Time of the game, Players that were
involved, what Race they were, what starting position on the map they
held, and the Time of Death if they were killed in the game. Selecting
a specific line item, a new windows will be displayed with all of the
player details for that game. The line items are highlighted in sets
of alternating colors to group players of a particular game together.
Players that were killed in the game are also shown with red text.

At the bottom of the page is a Status area and another pull-down menu
that changes the number of individual game player rows that are shown
but does not effect the calculations in the Summary Table.

Finally, there is a checkbox to filter out game records that did not
last for more than five (5) minutes (ie. abandoned games) from both
the Summary Table and the Detail List.


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7. Frequently Asked Questions
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Q: How can I change which Player Profile is used?
A: The Desktop Shortcut Icon has a parameter on the end of the "Target"
that by default is "Profile1". Change that to "Profile2" or whatever
Player Profile should be used.

Q: I double-click on the Desktop Icon but nothing is browsed.
A: More than likely there needs to be an adjustment made to the HW2-MSB
DOS Command File. Refer to Section 5 of this README for details on
what should be adjusted. The HW2-MSD.bat file has built in error
detection and should show what kind of problem is being encountered.

Q: How can I look at the results of all my Player Profiles together?
A: The HW2-MSB is designed to only scan one profile directory at a time.
The .stats files from other directories could be copied or moved to
a common directory under \Homeworld2\Bin\Profiles to consolidate the
results such as "Profile-All\stats" and changing the Desktop Shortcut
to point to the common "Profile-All" profile. Note that new game
.stats file would have to be copied there as well to be included.



Have fun with it...

May the BAWK be with YOU !!

NemesisChiken
5th Jun 04, 10:56 AM
Thanks everyone for the compliments and feedback. Those kind words make all the effort well worth it. Also, thanks to those of you who took the time to send back some constructive suggestions and ideas for improvements. As a result, I have incorporated many of these enhancements and now have available a Version 1.1 of the Multiplayer Stats Browser. Special profs to Forsaken for all his ideas and help on putting together the new graphing feature.

Version 1.1 of the NemesisChiken's Multiplayer Stats Browser is now available on the Chiken Website (http://chikens.net/forum/) main portal page or can be directly downloaded from:

http://chikens.net/forum/hw2/msb/HW2-MSB.zip

Enhancements that were submitted from various people include:

- Game Detail list is now sorted in reverse Date/Time order (instead of by Map Name) so the most recent game are shown first in the list.
- Grouping of specific individual games in the game Details list with alternating background colors to visually seperate one game from another.
- A "Bar Charts" button has been added to the main window that will display a new Game Graph window. The new window provides the ability to generate bar graphs of either totals or averages for each of the individual Statistics Table elements grouped by Map, Player, Timestamp, or Race sorted either alphabetically by grouping or high-to-low/low-to-high statistics value to easily find best/worst statistics.
- Additional error handling logic has been added to the DOS Command file to detect errors in processing.

Enjoy it !!

NewAgeOfPower
5th Jun 04, 6:45 PM
ooohhh nice

Mikali
10th Aug 05, 7:54 PM
The batch file doesn't work in Win9x.

Could you add a "vs. Player" filter, so that your stats appear vs. the other player's (a fraction maybe)?

Also, I modified the .awk script to add a stylesheet. If you want to check it out I could send it to you.

Pherdnut
17th Nov 05, 3:51 AM
Check the dates on the last posts. It's been months since I stopped in and possibly longer since Nemesis has. If you want to get a hold of Nemi, try chikens.net. I'm sure he's still proud of his stats browser, so I'm sure he'd be up for any feedback.

NemesisChiken
5th Jul 06, 10:25 PM
Mikail, sorry I haven't visited here in a while...


The batch file doesn't work in Win9x.
I have tested it on 98SE and probably 95 as I have one of those systems still, it should work for you. As it was wonderful for the Chikens to host versions of my HW2 tools, the latest version of the HW2 MSBrowser can be found at:

http://www.nemesischiken.org/software.html

or directly downloaded from here:

http://www.nemesischiken.org/hw2-msb/HW2-MSB.zip

If you still have a problem using the latest version, mailto:nemesischiken@hotmail.com eMail me some details and I'm sure we can figure out and fix whatever is stopping it from working in your environment.


Could you add a "vs. Player" filter, so that your stats appear vs. the other player's (a fraction maybe)?
Have you tried just opening a second window of the MSB? You should be able to do detailed side by side comparisons of 2 players that way. Or were you lookin at more of a summary?


Also, I modified the .awk script to add a stylesheet. If you want to check it out I could send it to you.Assuming you added a stylesheet to the latest version, then that would be great to have a style sheet for it. I have been coding HTML so long its hard to use CSS much. There are a couple of ideas I'm kicking around for this browser so a .css would be nice to have in place. You can send me what you got to the same eMail address indicated above.

I'm considering some sort of game archive where you could submit game results to a master library for an online version of this tool. 2 people submitting the same game would validate inclusion into the library and it wouldn't take many of the hardercore players who have 1000+ online games to build a pretty comprehensive collection.

Anybody have thoughts on that?