New Release - Whats left to do?

Development directions, tasks, and features being actively implemented or pursued by the development team.
pheonixstorm
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by pheonixstorm »

The Big Problem
Thought of this earlier today. A serious problem to us releasing a new package is that no one still actively posting (except ace123) has admin rights to the project. So we can't do much for the moment anyway unless we use some service like rapidshare. Does download.com, tucows, or other sites like them still host the files they distribute?

@greenfreedom10
I don't think its the map itself thats confusing, just the way that it was setup. I think when viewing the system map (which a system will be mostly 2D if you base it on our own solar system) while the jump map should be and IS 3D. The serious problem I have (other than the transparency issues) is that the system map bunches everything to close together. If you zoom in the mouse does not adjust accordingly so it is very easy to loose your map entirely until you scroll back out. If you have played privateer you see that it is a near match for how privateer in-flight maps were setup. Not the greatest setup but functional in priv at least, though priv has a much cleaner setup.

@breese
Going to look into the diff and see why things changed. Notepad++ nor Visual Studio should have added carriage returns.. so not sure where they came from. As far as mempry issues... Who knows why vs was programmed the way it was... that we would have to ask the original devs and they have long departed this project for something else.

@Deus
What 3D cockpit... How many of the cockpits are actually complete? So far the llama and robin share a cockpit of nothing. Guess I will have to alter the save file and buy up every ship type I can to see what has a cockpit.

F1-F4 for me is for comms. Will have to check on what turns 3d cockpits on/off. I think it would be easier for developers to create 2D cockpits. I don't know... both privateer mods (PU, GG) use 2D cockpits and all craft that I know of there have cokcpit graphics unlike VS.

The big thing though.. I don't see why the nav map is a 3D object when a 2D solution would work just as well and probably a bit faster.
Because of YOU Arbiter, MY kids? can't get enough gas. OR NIPPLE! How does that mkae you feeeel? ~ Halo
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by Deus Siddis »

pheonixstorm wrote:The Big Problem
Thought of this earlier today. A serious problem to us releasing a new package is that no one still actively posting (except ace123) has admin rights to the project. So we can't do much for the moment anyway unless we use some service like rapidshare. Does download.com, tucows, or other sites like them still host the files they distribute?
Ask ace123 for his and hellcatv's email; then when we have a release ready contacting them about it won't be hit and miss.
@Deus
What 3D cockpit... How many of the cockpits are actually complete? So far the llama and robin share a cockpit of nothing. Guess I will have to alter the save file and buy up every ship type I can to see what has a cockpit.
Try the Rlaan and Aera fighters or a Goddard.

In 0.5 the Llama no longer has a 3D cockpit. It was removed because it wasn't bulky and distracting enough to be on par with the others. :)
F1-F4 for me is for comms.
Yeah sorry, it turns out it is the "1" key (not numpad 1, just regular 1) that switches between 3D and 2D.

Or was it shift-1. . . :twisted:
The big thing though.. I don't see why the nav map is a 3D object when a 2D solution would work just as well and probably a bit faster.
Probably because they planned on having more and better 3D cockpits in the future and they wanted to make it all feel consistent. Problem is the 3D model of the map interface itself is kind of lame too.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by pheonixstorm »

After downloading and running .4.3 I think I prefer NO COCKPIT over the horrible 3D bars that should someone thought looked cool.

I think we should come up with at least 1 new cockpit for the next release... 2D or 3D doesn't matter.. or at least get a full set of 2d cockpits ready to go and work on the 3D later.
Because of YOU Arbiter, MY kids? can't get enough gas. OR NIPPLE! How does that mkae you feeeel? ~ Halo
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by breese »

pheonixstorm wrote:Going to look into the diff and see why things changed. Notepad++ nor Visual Studio should have added carriage returns.. so not sure where they came from.
Can I pursuade you to commit these minor changes fairly rapidly? Although I use git and therefore can commit my changes to my local repository, I am unable to submit more patches until I have an updated svn branch to make my diffs against.
pheonixstorm wrote:As far as mempry issues... Who knows why vs was programmed the way it was... that we would have to ask the original devs and they have long departed this project for something else.
Looking at the code I can understand why they decided to start anew. I do not think that the code is beyond repair, but it is going to require some major refactorings, redesigns, and even rearchitecturing to make it maintainable and extendable again.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by charlieg »

Idea: release 0.6.0beta1 this side of Christmas. It's beta - people won't expect 100% stability (attach a 'YMMV' notice to the release). It's beta - you can label some features as WIP or WILLFIX. It satisfies the lack of a recent release, it gives people something new to try without dealing with SVN, and it'll bring publicity to VS.

/2c
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by Gungnir »

charlieg wrote:Idea: release 0.6.0beta1 this side of Christmas. It's beta - people won't expect 100% stability (attach a 'YMMV' notice to the release). It's beta - you can label some features as WIP or WILLFIX. It satisfies the lack of a recent release, it gives people something new to try without dealing with SVN, and it'll bring publicity to VS.

/2c
Good idea. Also, it would be nice if someone could compile a new Mac binary; the Mac branch hasn't been touched in like two or three years.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by pheonixstorm »

I don't know if anyone on here HAS a mac. Windows and linux has more users on here that mac even though OSX is a nice OS compared to past mac OSes
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by pheonixstorm »

Also, sent an email off to ace123 to check on what he can do about getting a new release up or setting project permissions so someone who is more active can take care of it w/o the need to keep bugging the other project admins who are either gone or rarely come around anymore.

Side note: I have also asked about board mo and admin rights so that first post moderation can more easily be enforced if it is setup (i think it is) so it doesn't have to be turned off and we can keep the spam bots out.
Because of YOU Arbiter, MY kids? can't get enough gas. OR NIPPLE! How does that mkae you feeeel? ~ Halo
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by Deus Siddis »

charlieg wrote:Idea: release 0.6.0beta1 this side of Christmas. It's beta - people won't expect 100% stability (attach a 'YMMV' notice to the release). It's beta - you can label some features as WIP or WILLFIX. It satisfies the lack of a recent release, it gives people something new to try without dealing with SVN, and it'll bring publicity to VS.
I agree with charlieg, though let's make it 0.5.5 Beta (or a somewhat lower number). We need testing and we need a new release of some kind. Kill two birds with one beta.

Over the next two or three weeks we should try to pack in as many small or nearly mature projects as possible.
pheonixstorm wrote:Also, sent an email off to ace123 to check on what he can do about getting a new release up or setting project permissions so someone who is more active can take care of it w/o the need to keep bugging the other project admins who are either gone or rarely come around anymore.

Side note: I have also asked about board mo and admin rights so that first post moderation can more easily be enforced if it is setup (i think it is) so it doesn't have to be turned off and we can keep the spam bots out.
Excellent.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by strook »

I have a mac but no time to compile for it cause there are numerous bugs when compiling.
plz visit my vegastrike project branch here

plz support VegaOgre by donating to it!

My systems: Mac mini 1, 4gig RAM;
i5 Quad Core 2400, 300mbit WLAN, 1,3Tbyte HD, 60 GB SSD,
nvidia geforce 8400gs 512MB, 6gig RAM with Ubuntu 11.4,
win7 and hackintosh installed
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by breese »

pheonixstorm wrote:Going to look into the diff and see why things changed.
Have you applied my fixes yet?

I have another patch ready that fixes two memory leaks and another uninitialized variable (an array to be precise), but I cannot create a diff until my earlier patch has been applied.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by pheonixstorm »

yeah, diff got applied that night (at least a few hours later). Any refactoring or fixes are more than welcome for patches regardless of svn update (so long as diffs don't change the same file)
Because of YOU Arbiter, MY kids? can't get enough gas. OR NIPPLE! How does that mkae you feeeel? ~ Halo
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by ace123 »

pheonixstorm wrote:Also, sent an email off to ace123 to check on...
I don't remember getting that email. I'd recommend ace123@users.sourceforge.net (or simply patrick.horn at gmail.com which the former redirects to).

Anyway I'm open to setting up access for contributors. Just let me know what you need when you're ready.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by pheonixstorm »

I sent the email via the board so not sure if it actually worked or what email it went to.

Will see if the outbox kept a copy and resend to one of those addresses.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by charlieg »

pheonixstorm wrote:I sent the email via the board so not sure if it actually worked or what email it went to.

Will see if the outbox kept a copy and resend to one of those addresses.
Board emails do not work. Sourceforge web hosting does not support sending emails.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by breese »

pheonixstorm wrote:yeah, diff got applied that night (at least a few hours later).
Let me rephrase my question: did you apply and commit the diff? I cannot find my changes in svn.
pheonixstorm wrote:Any refactoring or fixes are more than welcome for patches regardless of svn update (so long as diffs don't change the same file)
Without an updated svn branch I would have to do this manually, but this is too laborious.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by pheonixstorm »

Yeah, I did a commit. The only files that didn't seem to change to register were bootstrap-sh and configure.ac For whatever reason the diff didn't change those, all other files changed and commited. I checked the sourceforge svn diff just to make sure. Don't know why they wouldn't show on your end. They are under revision 12963

@charlie
That would explain it then... stupid non working email... Oh well, I have working email addresses now so doesn't matter.
Because of YOU Arbiter, MY kids? can't get enough gas. OR NIPPLE! How does that mkae you feeeel? ~ Halo
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by pheonixstorm »

Check the front page for list of what coming out.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by Deus Siddis »

If you haven't already, please also commit my updated factions.xml. This upcoming (beta?) release will be the perfect time to begin testing a rebalance like that. Speaking of which. . .
myself wrote:Missions (and trading?) do not pay enough and/or ships and upgrades too expensive.
I have located the code that controls mission pay and have found that a 10 fold increase to cargo missions and 20 fold increase to combat missions (versus v0.5) works very well (and much, much better than before). Additionally, an increase in mission pay from 4x to 10x for bounty missions against a capship, versus an ordinary light craft like a fighter, is vital.

On the other side, I feel a reduction of wingman costs, perhaps similarly strong, might make them used by players. I believe this is needed do to the presently clunky AI and the disappearance of escorts from your squadron as soon as you next land (often merely for repairs and/or ammo).
myself wrote:Most medium ships (corvettes) not available for purchase (the Goddard-Clydesdale Gap).
To remedy this issue, the available Corvettes (those that have models) can be added to the master_parts_list.csv and (if put under a utilized category or two) will be purchasable in, for example, military stations. In addition, bringing the size of corvettes down will close the large gap in available warships between them and heavy assault craft.

From there I can balance them with the other player-purchasable ships over the near future releases.
myself wrote:Turning accelerations insanely high on light craft.
Movement acceleration and governors far too high on light craft.
Like mission pay this is a major, imbalanced issue that needs a similarly large change to begin the process of making it not totally broken. I have been testing 1/20 torque applied to all ships and 1/2 rotational governor plus 1/10 thrust and 1/4 speed governor. This radically improves major issues with interceptor and fighter classes. But for heavier strike craft and cargo shuttles a thrust reduction half as severe is working well, in addition to relative increases in lateral thrusters.

A closely related problem is the size of capital vessels and stations. They are fucking enormous, ~10 kilometers long or wide near the big end, causing many issues for both immersion and content creation. Fortunately I can easily change this too, from units.csv. Also I imported the models into blender, scaled them to their in game levels and have worked out a good replacement scaling scheme.

There's a side effect that I could use help with though, which is counter adjusting SPEC. After these changes it will need to be faster, but I have not found how to modify it in anyway. Specifically, if the speed limit on it could be increased from where it currently is at ~97C to maybe 1000C, that would probably do the trick. Also, if you see the code that handles SPEC proximity sensitivity, it would be cool to have SPEC interception back. :)
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by charlieg »

Isn't enormous capital ships a feature though? I mean, can't you imagine ships of this scale coming into existence? We already create oil tankers 1.5km in length and that has to deal with pretty harsh gravitational forces that are not really applicable in space. Plus once we master space travel, all the new resources available (metals etc from asteroids, planets, moons) mean construction on this large scale isn't going to be prohibited by lack of materials.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by breese »

pheonixstorm wrote:Yeah, I did a commit. The only files that didn't seem to change to register were bootstrap-sh and configure.ac For whatever reason the diff didn't change those, all other files changed and commited. I checked the sourceforge svn diff just to make sure. Don't know why they wouldn't show on your end. They are under revision 12963.
Aha, I only checked bootstrap-sh and erroneously assumed that the other files were not committed.

I have attached another patch that fixes two memory leaks and an uninitialized array. The patch includes bootstrap-sh and configure.ac partly because the diff program automatically included them and partly because they are necessary to build from scratch on Linux.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by Deus Siddis »

charlieg wrote:Isn't enormous capital ships a feature though?
Probably, but I'm not talking about enormous capital ships. I'm talking about a couple dozen fucking enormous capital ships. You'll still have enormous capital vessels and stations, they just won't be as numerous or get well above 1km for a capital or 2km for a station.
I mean, can't you imagine ships of this scale coming into existence? We already create oil tankers 1.5km in length and that has to deal with pretty harsh gravitational forces that are not really applicable in space. Plus once we master space travel, all the new resources available (metals etc from asteroids, planets, moons) mean construction on this large scale isn't going to be prohibited by lack of materials.
This isn't about realism or else space elevators would be beyond impossible. From what I understand they are not impossible. Though possible with the "Nano-Plague" having cleared away the material science that their creation might depend on, is another matter.

And it's not about what I can imagine, it's about what I (and other content creators) can create on the technical side (think polygons and texels). When you get up to this size for a man made object, we artists have to start to trade quality for quantity in a big way, or else no computer yet built will be able to handle the load. That quantity means repetition on a massive scale and possibly a noticeable lack of fine details. Not to mention that we'll want even more quality over quantity when we start to do walkable interiors for these things. So I think a fair compromise here is to have just the three star fortresses plus the Leonidas and Dezong really push the limits of quantity. And the same for the infrastructural stations if they can be much more obviously repetitively modular (since that kind of ugliness "works" for them).


PS. I have never heard of a 1.5km super tanker, are you sure about that? I thought the biggest was 450m. Either way, the tanker is essentially resting on the water, it's not at all handling harsh gravitational forces. If you lifted it into the air by it's front and back end, without a series of supports for the long middle section, it'd most likely break up.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by greenfreedom10 »

charlieg wrote:Isn't enormous capital ships a feature though?
That is my first thought also, but >2km in length does seem rather extreme.

A "tugship" and barges would be better.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by pheonixstorm »

Capships >2km: I have looked and looked and no present day or past cargo or warship listed is over 500 meters. The tanker you think of as 1.5km is actually 1.5k FEET and around 460 meters. Even the largest carrier the Enterprise only tops 342 meters or 1100ft.

Now, in Star Wars an ISD (Imperial Star Destroyer) hits 1.6km and the SSD (Super Star Destroyer) is noted at 19km. In Battlestar Galactica, the Galactica is noted as running 1.4km while a Basestar is listed at 1.03km

In terms of weaponry, all of the sci-fi ships have listed in most cases hundreds of weapons. Usually 20+ anti-capship and 100+ point defense weapons. While this may be too much in VS, it would still be nice to see a ratio of 1:5 in terms of cap and pd weapons. Flak style weapons as seen in the BSG re-make would be nice too.. but thats wishful thinking.


Now, on to other things.
This isn't about realism or else space elevators would be beyond impossible
For realism, space elevators are very possible.. just too costly. I have read several articles, one from popular mechanics that shows we can use carbon nanotubes to create a working space elevator easily. Its just way too expensive ;)
And it's not about what I can imagine, it's about what I (and other content creators) can create on the technical side (think polygons and texels). When you get up to this size for a man made object, we artists have to start to trade quality for quantity in a big way, or else no computer yet built will be able to handle the load.
Actually just nothing us poor gamers could afford you mean. Most sci-fi series/movies no longer use models like they once did for the original Star Wars trilogy. Its all CGI on graphics cards that run circles around what we use for gaming. I think as long as we have one or two nice HUGE ships we should be ok. It really depends on what kind of scale we are looking at for every other ship in the game. As for walkable interiors.. we don't need the ENTIRE interior just parts of it. And this is where we CAN get away with reusing the same stock models over and over again. How often are the corridors going to change appearance? I think huge ships should realisticly be modeled in section anyway then pieced together when completed. I know a fair number of buildings from SimCity 4 were done that way.

@breese:
I havent had a chance to run the new diff yet. Been busy with a few things and the kids today. Hope to have it patched and commited by tomorrow though.
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Re: New Release - Whats left to do?

Post by klauss »

pheonixstorm wrote:Flak style weapons as seen in the BSG re-make would be nice too.. but thats wishful thinking.
Some ships in VS already have Flak. Usually big military capships. I remember being the target of their fire once ;)

I think they're implemented as nearly invisible missiles without steering, they detonate after a certain range or when they hit something (like all missiles) and have a relatively large blast range.
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