Suggestion for reducing size of map files, server/client bandwidth

[Ken Woodruff <woodruff@cadence.com>]

It occurs to me that in general there is very little use for floors
being represented in maps as individual, repeated archetypes.  Since
these are generally intended to serve only an aesthetic purpose it would
seem to make more sense to allow a map to simply specify a "background".
One simple example is map city/houses/house2.  Nearly half (230 out of
580) of the total archetype entries are "woodfloor".  Additionally,
the aesthetics of many maps is ruined by the fact that the floor
used in most regions is not drawn under tables, chairs, generators,
etc., which leaves strange looking blank spaces when the objects
are destroyed (say by a fire).

I'll leave it to the coders to work out the details of implementing
this.  A sophisticated solution would allow for rectangular "regions"
of a given background, but as a first pass a single background per
map would be of significant use.  Existing maps could be patched by
a utility program which finds the predominant background (i.e. the
most frequently occurring archetype) sets the background and removes
the unnecessary archetypes.  (The background could perhaps be stored in
in the other_arch field of the map archetype?)

--Ken

+------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Ken Woodruff           | "In every jumbled pile of person    |
| woodruff@cadence.com   |  there's a thinking part that       |
+------------------------+  wonders what the part that isn't   |
| Disclaimer: What tote  |  thinking isn't thinking of."       |
| bag full of $20 bills? |          --They Might Be Giants     |
+------------------------+-------------------------------------+