

                      Descent 3 Stats Viewer
                              Beta 6

                             Freeware

            Copyright 2000 Robert B. Pilkington aka Mad


The Descent 3 Stats Viewer lets you view your statistics for multiplayer
in Descent 3, as well as who you've played against.

System Requirements:
A *LOT* less than Descent 3. If you have Windows 9x, (NT should work, too),
then you should be able to run this. I copied my stats files to my Pentium
120 and ran this program just fine. Can't say the same for Descent 3...

How to use:
D3Stats should be simple enough to use, but some of the quirks may not be
understood immediately by everyone, so here is the documentation on how
to use it.

First, click on Settings and make sure the folders are correct. The defaults
are C:\Games\Descent3 for your D3 folder, and C:\Games\Descent3\Netgames for
your stats files. If Descent 3 is installed somewhere else, or if you like to
move your stats files somewhere else, then make any changes needed.

Now, click on Pilot. All the pilots you have in the specified D3 folder
should be there. You can simply double click one to choose it. You can
add more names if you wish. (For whatever reason you may want to do that.)

You can also click on the box labeled Callsign and type a pilot name there.
Remember, D3Stats is case-sensitive. So 'Callsign' and 'callsign' are counted
as different.

Now click on the gamemodes you want to view your stats for. Usually, you
will want to pick them all. But sometimes you may only want to view stats
of a certain type. (Team games, for example.)

Now click View. If everything is correct, then you should see the stats
compile in a few seconds, depending on how many stats files you have, and
you can view them.

You can click on the box labeled "Look for" and type in a pilot's callsign to
quickly zoom to their position in the Players Encountered list.

If you know pilots who have aliases, and would rather see all the kills and
deaths to them in one entry, then click on the Aliases box. In the alias
editor, the left list is the main alias, and the right list contains the
alternate aliases for the selected pilot. The top callsign on the right list
will be the same as the main alias, and will be the one displayed in the
Players Encountered list.

The main alias does not have to be the same as the pilot's callsign. For
example, the ^BoTS^ tag the Brothers of the Stone squadron use is appended at
the end of their name, as opposed to the usual method squads use, which is
putting their tag at the front of their name. So if you wanted all of the
BoTS players to be at the same area in the list, just like D3k, ROX, or CG
already are, (when the players use proper capitalization, anyway), then you
can make the main alias of the pilots be ^BoTS^ Callsign, (or ^BotS^ Callsign,
if the uppercase 't' bothers you as much as it does me :P) and have
Callsign ^BoTS^, as well as just Callsign, and any other aliases used by the
pilot, used for the Other Aliases.

If you want to quickly add a name to the alias list, right click on the
name in the Players Encountered ilst. Then select 'Add Alias'. The Aliases
dialog box will open up with the selected alias in the alias box, ready to
be added. Select the main alias and then click Add.

If someone changes teams or their main callsign, you can click on the 'Make
Primary' button. This will make the selected alternate alias become the
primary callsign.

To view all of your stats at once, or for mutiple aliases of yours, add your
callsign and aliases to the alias list. Then select any pilot on the list
(main callsign or alias) to view, and check the "Include aliases" checkbox.
All the aliases will be loaded. (Note that it will take longer for each alias
you add. Each .stats file is read once for each alias chosen.)

That should have been simple enough. Now if you have trouble, here's some
more information:

Troubleshooting:

Problem: Nothing shows up!
Solution: Check your path and callsign. Make sure at least one game
mode is checked.

Problem: That didn't work.
Solution: Make sure you actually have the .stats files in the Netgames
folder. Descent 3 will by default create the files when the level
ends in multiplayer, but the logging can be turned off.

Problem: I don't see players in my kill list that I know I've played.
Solution: If you haven't made a kill or gotten killed by the player, they
won't be in the list. But more likely, you may have disconnected from a game
before the level ended. By default, Descent 3 will not save statistics files
when you disconn from a game. You can enable it by hitting F6 in multiplayer
(you should do this while you are 'dead' so you don't risk getting killed by
someone who sees your ship as Mass Driver practice) and choosing Netgame
stats and turning on "Autosave on disconnect." Also, make sure that "Autosave
on level end" is set to on.

Please note that if you disconnect from a server, and have "Autosave on
disconnect" enabled, or leave the server, and come back, you will gain double
stats for that first game. In other words, if you have 3 kills, then exit to
fix something, then come back and get 2 more kills, you will have one
statsfile with 3 kills, and one with 5 kills, totalling 8. (Hence, you gained
3 free kills.) Note also that deaths, suicides, time and all other stats for
the first game will be doubled, unless you delete the first one.

Joining the server again with a different alias will prevent the problem. The
first pilot will be marked as "left the game before it was over" in the .stats
file, and so logically, D3Stats figures that wasn't your pilot in that game.

Problem: But I want to see that player in my list.
Solution: If it wasn't logged to disk when you did it, then there is
no way to see that kill. Unless you edit a .stats file. (But if the
program crashes because you modified a file, don't blame me. Well, I can
try to keep it from crashing, at the expense of inaccurate data for the
corrupted file. So far, I haven't had a single report of D3Stats crashing,
but that could change any time.)

Problem: I downloaded an awesome new gametype in a MOD, but I can't
view my statistics for it!
Solution: Each gametype creates a .stats file in a slightly different format.
It is possible for a MOD to do a completely different format. If the MOD
saves the stats to disk in a similar manner to the current game modes, then
all I have to do is create a small (300-400 byte) .MSF file that contains the
information on how to read the file. Of course, I'll need information on the
format of the new statsfiles to do that.


Contact info:
Name: Robert Brandon Pilkington
Descent 3 callsigns: Mad, [D3k]Mad
E-mail: pilking@bellatlantic.net, rpilkington@netzero.net
ICQ UIN: 17645603


Disclaimer: This program is provided as freeware. Because I don't earn any
money from it, I can't supply any warranty. I cannot guarantee that the
program will work one hundred percent, that it won't have or cause problems,
or that you will be able to figure out how to use it. All I can say is that I
use it and it doesn't cause me any problems.

Other information: D3Stats was written in the Win32 port of the Euphoria
interpreter, with the 2.2 release (www.RapidEuphoria.com). I used David
Cuny's Win32Lib for access to the Win32 interface.


* Known bugs
Here are the bugs I know of so far, but either haven't been able to fix,
or are out of my hands for now:

+ When you hit 'Enter' to view stats, or hit 'Enter' anywhere, after the
  operation is performed (like loading stats), a bell will sound. This may
  have something to do with the way David setup Win32Lib to handle the
  default pushbutton. I find it irritating, so I'll see what I can do to
  get rid of it. Update: He doesn't know why this bug is happening either,
  but he'll see what he can do. Update 2: I have fixed this for the Alias
  Editor window, but can't seem to fix it for the main window.

+ The "Time" field for how long you have played is way off. Starken has
  brought to my attention that Descent 3 saves the total time played as on
  that server. So if you play 10 minutes through The Core and the level ends,
  and then quit after 5 minutes of Half Pipe, then D3 will say you played 10
  minutes on the .stats file for the game you played in The Core, and it
  will say 15 minutes for the game you played in Half Pipe. Most likely, all
  that I can do is remove the 'Time' feature, since this is an issue with D3,
  and not an error in my code.

+ If you are using Large Fonts, the text may not display properly. I'll
  see what I can do to fix this sometime. (When I learn more about coding
  with fonts.)
