Status Update

[NiteHawk]

Going to keep a post with some status updates of stuff Brent and I are working on, just so people know what is up and why there hasn't been updates in the past couple weeks.

I've been working on the new stats, which is a HUGE coding change to make everything work and to test it. As of now, I was planning to release, but while checking online gameplay, I'm getting robot checksum errors like mad. I have a idea what the problem is, but it's going to take a few minor tweaks, but at the moment online play is not working just yet, so halting the release.

I also realized I need to fix default robot ranks. Previously, if you set a robot to a Flt.Adm, for example, it would give the amount of prestige and kills. But now since Prestige is a constant up to date calculation, and not a set value, what ends up happening is there stats get reset becuase you can't just 'set' prestige/score anymore. The workaround is to add it to there BONUS value, which is a 1:1 ratio to prestige. This shouldn't be hard though.

After we complete that, we will release for testing.

Next, I will be working on the credits/modules fix (as I posted about). I also want to add spacebar = rapid firing, and the 'fire rate' changes to weapons. I'll probably look into adding fleet functions, but I believe we may need a new nexus base first. Going to talk to Brent and Mobious about this, and I know Brent has some ideas for the base of the nexus, so we'll probably get this going soon too.

I'll keep this topic for any up to dates every few days if there isn't a SVN UPDATE, please make a new post if you want to discuss anything that I've written. Thanks!

[NiteHawk]

Close to complete, working on a couple minor fixes and I will be releasing either tonight or Sunday. I won't be around much next week, if at all, will be at the ladies house. I'll be coding however offline. Just won't be able to reply/respond for the week, so you'll know where I vanished too

[NiteHawk]

Apologies for the delay, was still working on fixing several bugs.

For the most case, again, I won't really be replying all week until Monday, I will try to release soon, Brent will be checking my recent coding to see if its alright.

[NiteHawk]

Anyways, we have been working on getting everything working smoothly.

There was a bug where gunfire wouldn't fire int he right angle on other screens. This is most likely the reason for trouble online for a good portion of it. It's fixed but not released yet. A bunch of crashes are fixed too, alot of 'CANCEL BUTTON' crashes are fixed as well. There was also a saving bug that was solved due to the new profile changes.

Brents working on the login/logout and fixing that, it's going to be NASTY to do because that coding was rather super rough. It never properly disconnects you, and in SF 1.4, you know that sometimes ended up in the server tripping out (and you having to ask for a restart), in 2.0 it pretty much bugs the server out too, so Brents going to be fixing all that stuff. Overall when that's done it should be rather healthy anyways.

There's a few other minor bugs we are working on, I'll try to release when we get this batch of bugs fixed. It should be alot better online wise when we get these going.

Mobious should be starting the Website/Nexus but I had to get Minddragon to reinstall Mysql atm which should be done soon

[NiteHawk]

Unlocked so people can post here if they want about the changes. I'm going to be posting here more in depth with everything that is changed so it's more 'understood' what has been changed. This is mainly directed to the new SVN update.

One note, there is a server running on our mega server, which you can connect to 216.115.67.17 .. If it crashes, we'll fix the crash since we have direct access to it now.

For the most case, 2.0.5.1 is completely online fixes & crashes. There is still more to do, but we've done a good bunch for SVN update. Brent worked alot on fixing the core of the server this week, as there was a huge bunch of issues with slots handling connections/disconnections/etc. Was pretty much a mess, and probably a core reason why SF 1.4 always 'locked up' after you ran it for too long (if people connected of course).

There was a nasty bug that messed with the gunfire a great deal after using the mouse button even once. It would end up being angle desynced, and probably was a HUGE reason why things blew up randomly and it was hard to fight online. This has been solve though, and it seems to be alot better in the syncing area now.

There was also a few 'doubling' messages that were being sent, like warp animations, and key clicks, which were a pain to handle while you were scrolling through your modules or target as it would often seem 'laggy'. Few other minor network details were adjusted, and we upgraded Raknet to the newest version to make sure everything is up to date on the network side. There may still be issues if the server has been running for X amount of time, but we'll get to those if they appear. Just remember, we will need a packetlog from a client if you get syncing issues for that.

There were a bunch of crash fixes too, including the cancel button lockup, which should work alot better. There is, from what I believe, to be one or two crashes that seldom occur when connecting to the server however, which needs fixing. If you get crashes while disconnecting/connecting/closing the client, report them with a crashlog! We also fixed a 'closing client' bug where profile would be corrupted due to it.


Note on crashes and network issues:

Just remember, ANY CRASH YOU FIND SUBMIT IT WITH A CRASH LOG! It is rather simple, when the game crashes, a message will appear asking if you want a crashlog, select 'YES' to make a crashlog, find it in your binwin folder, then zip and send to us! Simple as that, we fix it 100% faster as it points us right to where the crash was.

If there is a NETWORK ISSUE, such as latency or bug, turn on PACKETLOGGING, turn on SF, then wait until the issue occurs. When it does. Shut down SF and send us the packetlog. Again, it is in your binwin folder, with a obvious name.  It's rather easy to enable, one line in your sf.cfg file, (capture.capture = 1). You can find more details here: http://stellarfrontier.ss-network.net/index.php/topic,1183.0.html


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We will continue working on any bugs we find, but we really need some help from everyone finding them all. It's easy to state there is an issue, but we need you guys to point it out with the logs that can be made, as it's basically a pinpoint to what we need to fix. But please give network testing a go again on our server. I'll be there once and awhile to test myself.

The next thing we probably will be working on is the nexus, and syncing up more, along with more fixes. I wanted to get cloaked synced up. I also wanted to get the 'dreaded' status bars synced up, so you can actually tell when a player is taking damage rather then guessing on your screen (as often your client sees a player ship as dead, but its' really not). Though this should be not as bad in SF 2.0, there is always room for lag error.

[NiteHawk]

So there hasn't been much going on.

Brent and I are working on a major change to the way Objects are handled ID wise, and apparently, it's pretty bad and requires alot of changes. The downfall of not changing it is that ID's will eventually desync from each other. Though the ships are generally synced up 'movement wise', sometimes what they do, like docking or changing ships will not be incorrect.

This is because the SHIP LIST eventually unsyncs when new objects are spawned at the same time. (Aka if 3 objects are spawned, sometimes server vs client spawn them at different times, thus they get different OBJECT ID's.) So you can end up with wierd things like not seeing updates such as ship upgrades. This is most likely 90%, if not the rest of the sync issues remaining.

But yeah, that is why there is no testing this week, mainly because of this issue. When this is done we will give it a good test, see how the game does, and fix any remaining small bugs.

[NiteHawk]

We're moving at a steady pace.

But we keep finding more issues here and there that made 1.4 'out of sync'. Yesterday while I was working on the gun fire, I foun out that AI gunfire is CLIENT SIDE only. Meaning servers never 'send' bullets that AI sends. Though the idea was that an AI ship would be synced, so the gunfire would be same on client/server, this isn't always the case, as there is no way to make syncing instant, (aka always lag to compensate for), and other things.

The fix is that AI fire will come 'from' the server directly. Doing so requires a bit of modification though. So far I got generic gunfire, but angle of fire was never sent, so the bullets are just going 'straight' right now. Autofire is also bugged right now since I've been moving things around and needs a better solution to how it was handling it on the players end.

[NiteHawk]

Anyways, keeps getting worse and worse, but we'll get it done.

We are aiming to just have 'one' objectlist as well. This will be far simplier to manage, and should be helpful in keeping everything in sync since will be able to handle just one list rather then one for ships,colonies,missiles,etc. Though easy in theory, a pain in the ass to do because we'll have to adjust almost all of the coding.

All these steps are necessary before release unfort. Probably after this, the GUID full fix, and sync testing we should have a BETA that people can play on. Though it won't have alot of the 'extras' or changes to the gameplay like I was hoping for, getting the game to work smooth and proper is the first thing we should do.

Sorry about the delay guys, it's been all unexpected stuff. Brent and I have our hands full on this mess.

[NiteHawk]

Overall, after this hurdle things will start moving fast again. Yesterday I uploaded the first part of the gunfire changes to be server side (except for local fire). I've missed a couple things that I need to finish, and then we're working on the GUID replacement for syncing everything. Missiles will already be synced up due to the above changes I've been working on. It's quite the mess.

We were planning on doing a overhaul of the objectLists, but we are going to see how a GUID replacement handles first and see how well it does. The guess is that it will sync everything fine and dandy, however.

Also, you can now hold down spacebar to fire, something that I've been wanting for awhile. Added it in when I was revamping the fire coding. This includes the keys 1-9 as well. Mouse fire isn't included yet but it will be soon.

Thanks guys, sorry about the huge delays, the above issues we're unexpected. The next release should have some nice things, hoping to add 'saving ships' as well.

[NiteHawk]

Anyways, here is your update.

I finished the syncing of missiles. I had alot to fix up from my previous versions, but everything should be good for that portion. This is only missiles however, the AI and some ships can still get out of sync due to bad messages. Working on that next. However, I am going to push a SVN update soon.

It's noted that guns have a delay now, and you can hold down the spacebar or a key to fire. Currently, you can't do it with mouse fire yet (rapid fire with mouse) because mousefire is handled wierdly and needs to be adjusted.Missiles now are going to be more 'like' missiles with a longer delay, but heavier damage.

I was going to add 'saving' of ships as well, but I found out I need to create a full function for it as swapping modules won't work properly here. But that might be in next update or two.

After Syncing is done, we'll get the nexus going on it, then release a beta version. After the syncing changes and the nexus, updates should come often releasing all the things we have WANTED to add. For now, we will consider the 2.0 beta coming to be a fixed up 1.4 client with some extras. and we'll slowly add to it.

Thanks guys.