Big World

I am making another attempt at an endless world system for my Galaxynet arcade game. I am using panels that are 2x the screen size. Up to three will be loaded at a time. The center panel will be the active one, and any neighboring panels the player is approaching will be loaded and ready to display. If the current panel moves far enough a neighboring panel becomes the active one and its relevant neighbors are loaded.

Each panel has its own GUID and its data is stored in text files. The panels are arranged relative to each other so there are no massive x and y values. For save and restore, the active panel's GUID is stored in the saved game state. The background texture is an exception, it is either random stars or a grid of textures. All other elements will be stored and loaded - as ling as they have non-blank GUIDs. So to create elements like display screens etc, give them blank string GUIDs and they will not be saved to data files.

I know from past attempts, loading ad positioning neighboring panels will be a challenge. Hopefully this new means of handling it will work far more seamlessly than my earlier attempt.