Glossary

action

a specification which tells the Ares engine to do something, such as play a sound or create an object

admiral

see player

base object

explicitly refers to a normal Ares object, as opposed to an initial object; see object

beam weapon

one of the three devices a physical object can have; the device does not have to be a beam weapon or even be a weapon at all

briefing

the Ares engine precedes non-net and non-training scenarios with a briefing, or mission analysis; the briefing should describe what the level's goal is and what the player needs to do to reach that goal

briefing point

the Ares engine precedes non-net and non-training scenarios with a briefing, or mission analysis; a scenario's briefing is described by a set of briefing points, each of which refers to a TEXT resource

color table

a list of specific colors; Ares has a specific color table which its sprites and most graphics must use

condition

all scenarios have a set of conditions which get continuously evaluated; when a condition is found to be true, its action sequence gets executed

device

a kind of object which is not manifested physically; typically a device is a weapon used by a ship; any physical object can have up to three devices associated with it, called the pulse weapon, the beam weapon, and the special weapon

index

conditions and initial objects are refered to by index, starting with 0 (zero); for example, if there are five initial objets in a scenario, the fifth initial object would be referred to as #4

factory

built-in, or included with the standard package

initial object

a reference to a base object used by a scenario to create its pre-determined objects; conditions and actions can refer to initial objects by index

mission analysis

see briefing

non-thinking object

a "dumb" object which doesn't care about its environment; planets, asteroids, and non-guided shots are non-thinking objects

object

either a phyiscal thing in the Ares universe, or a desription of a device, such as a weapon; see also base obejct, initial object, device, thinking object, non-thinking object

player

also an admiral; each scenario has one to four players (three and four players are not recommended and only two players can be human controlled); a player can be human controlled, or computer controlled; typically a single player level has a single human player and a single computer player; a net level has two human players

pulse weapon

one of the three devices a physical object can have; the device does not have to be a pulse weapon or even be a weapon at all

scenario

a level, or chapter; a scenario includes player descriptions and references to a set of conditions, a set of initial objects, and a set of briefing points

sequence

a set of actions

special weapon

one of the three devices a physical object can have; the device does not have to be a weapon at all

sprite

a graphic object which can be moved around the display; all game elements such as ships and planets are represented by sprites

STR# resource

a standard MacOS resource consisting of a set of individual strings

string

a short length of text, under 255 characters

TEXT resource

a standard MacOS resource type consisting of plain text data with a maximum length of 32K

thinking object

an object which makes decisions based on its environment; ships and guided missiles are, for example, thinking objects