Astraeus Player's Guide
Display and Debug
PLAYER MESSAGES
Player Message System
Astraeus has a built-in system for displaying information to help you keep track of your team's state and display important stats.
Some common uses are:
Showing your team's current strategy (attack, defend, skirmish, etc)
Showing what types of speed, weapons, or defenses your opponent is using
Showing how close together your fleet or the opponent's fleet is
Comparing your current breakdown of unit types to desired unit types
Syntax
You can use the method addMessage() to include a message on your list to display that frame.
UNIT MESSAGES
Unit Debug Messages
Similar to player messages, Astraeus has a debug system to output information on units. By default, debug messages will appear above a unit's healthbar in a gray color for a short duration.
Sometimes it's still useful to use System.out.println(), but the problem with text logging is that it can be difficult to tell which specific unit of a given type the message came from. Sometimes you simply need to tie the output to a specific unit on the screen.
Syntax
You can use the method dbgMessage(String message) to output text above a unit's healthbar.
Consider this example:
if(getPercentEffectiveHealth() < .25f)
{
dbgMessage("Very Low Health");
moveToNearestHealer();
}
Note: This method is overloaded. It has additional versions that allow you to specify the message duration and color.
DRAWINGS
How do I use drawings?
Both the player and unit class have a draw(Graphics g) method that is called every frame.
You have access to the full power of the graphics commands you would find in any Slick project. The most common uses are for lines, circles, and rectangles - but there's no real limit!
Examples:
Attack Targeting
Fleet Center and Power
Movement / Rally Points
Area of Effect Aiming
Resource Gathering
Distress Signals
Team Amaranth uses drawings to show both attack and spread.
TOGGLE INFO
Hotkey
Press the "Q" key to disable drawings, messages, and debug output for the left player
Press the "E" key to disable drawings, messages, and debug output for the right player
Settings
You can change the default settings in the Settings file to change the default state.