Just supposing someone were to be stupid enough to volunteer to go through sparky's 1567 interface file pictures and provide a complete list of the files that look very, very similar to each other (there are many of them), would it be possible for a coder to create a launcher flag that tells FS2 to use image A whenever it encounters a call for any image in list 1, Image B for images in list 2, etc. etc.? (For a good example of what I'm talking about, go into sparky.vp and run through TSB_160001.pcx to TSB230002.pcx. All identical images, but FS2 apparantly needs them all).
There are two key reasons why I'd like to see this:
1 - HOTU. If we can cut out several hundred images from sparky and sparky high, we might be able to cut down the size enough to make it a more reasonable download for the 1024 interface. TBH, I doubt this would happen, as most of the images would be small (though I suspect there are at least several hundred of them), and most of them are very subtly different (only in the pattern of the greens, but it might be noticable ingame when you're hovering over the buttons.
2 - the Standalone interface. We all know that the interface files are the biggest hurdle towards making any kind of purely fan made standalone game with the FS2 engine. As it stands, you need to include around 2000 - 2500 odd low and high res interface files, or FS2 will probably refuse to run, or at least cause CTDs if you open the wrong part of the menu. Cutting that back, even if only by a few hundred (and I think there could be more than that) would make it a much less daunting task.
Ideally, it could be setup as some sort of table, so that the interface could be made as simple or as complex as needed, but even if it was hardcoded, that'd still be a step up from the clunky system we have now.
For the record, such a list does not yet exist. I didn;t want to do it up until I had some sort of guarantee from a coder that it would be possible, because I suspect it's going to be a time consuming exercise, probably for both me and anyone who volunteers to code it in. Err... on that note... any takers?
