From jon at radscan.com  Sun Dec  7 21:08:34 2003
From: jon at radscan.com (Jon Trulson)
Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2003 21:08:34 -0700 (MST)
Subject: [conquest] Conquest 7.2h (v8.0 pre-release candidate) is now available
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.50.0312072050390.29989-100000@m5.radscan.com>


	... at the usual place on http://radscan.com/conquest.html

	The version is a pre-release candidate for v8.0, scheduled to be
released next weekend, barring problems.  In addition, the telent server
at conquest.radscan.com has been switched to this version.  If you had a
username on the old version, you will need to recreate it on the new one,
sorry.

	Distribution maintainers:  Please check out this version and send
me any patches by next weekend (Dec 13th) so I can get them into v8.

	The main difference between this version and the previous
development version, 7.2g, is the addition of a metaserver browser in the
conquest client, as well as updating all of the documentation to reflect
the current reality.

	The full conqnews.doc (change history) file is kind of large, but
the section between the last stable release (7.2) and this one is included
in full below.  I've also added a '## General playing tips' section to the
README which should provide some useful tips for new users.  Maybe even
old ones too ;-)

	Here's the main list of changes from stable 7.2 to the current.
It's kind of long.


Version 7.2h (devel - v8.0 prerelease) 12/7/2003

    7.2h

    - This is a prerelease version of the Conquest v8.0 client/server
      release.  Much has changed.  Read the docs (README, SERVER.TXT,
      etc) if you really must know all the details.

    - added meta server browser into conquest.  To get a list of
      servers registered with the meta server, and select one to play
      use the '-m' option to conquest.

        $ conquest -m

    - updated documentation, for release.

    7.2e, 7.2f, 7.2g,

    - various bug fixes

    7.2d

    - merge of CS-12 (client/server branch) into main branch (7.2d)

    - removed '-p <port>' option from conquest.  To specify a port
      other than the default, add it to the server name seperated
      by a colon.  For example, to connect to a server at
      conquest.radscan.com, port 1702, use:

        conquest -s conquest.radscan.com:1702

    - added meta server (conqmetad) and functionality to conquestd,
      based on a suggestion and some ideas from Josef Jahn.

      - meta server listens on TCP and UDP port 1700.  The UDP port is
        incoming only, and is used to recieve updates from
        conquestd's.  TCP is outbound only, and will dump the current
        server list and their stats ('|' delimited) upon connect.

           Try the cgi script at
           http://radscan.com/cgi-bin/conqmeta.pl, or run conquest
           with the '-m' option.

    - See README and SERVER.TXT for server configuration and options.

    - fixed conquestd and conquest to improve responsivness.  conquest
      will now process packets as soon as they are received regardless
      of the update rate, instead of wating for a timer cycle.

          conquestd updates the client whenever the client does
          something (raise shields, etc).

          These changes made a huge diff in responsiveness to
          commands, especially at lower update rates. Sorry about that
          oversight :)

    - client now processes incoming packets while in help, userlist,
      etc, rather than only when at the battle screen.


    7.2c-cs-12

    - feedback messages are no longer recorded.  Tersables are only
      recorded if the user has them enabled when the recording was
      made.  Server recordings never contain Tersables.

    - notify opers when someone enters conqoper

    - opers get all messages sent to GOD

    - fixed problem with reserved ship slots and no valid process
      controlling them in newship().  Also, when disconnecting from
      the main menu, turns off the ship before exiting.

    - clean up of the conf stuff

    - send relevant User packet *before* sending a Hist packet.

    - new '-t' option for conquest.

      When conquest is run with the '-t' flag, then no attempt will be
      made to read or write a user config file.  This is useful for
      people who still want to run telnetable servers, yet prevent
      such users from stomping over each other's settings.

      Such users always use the default options, which means they will
      need to set them to their preferences whenever they enter the
      game, since they are never saved.  If you (the user) find this
      annoying, then download the src, and use the client to connect
      to the server properly :).

    - new 'conquestsh' program for telnetable servers.  When setting
      up a telnetable server, use 'conquestsh' as the user's shell
      program.  conquestsh exec's the conquest client bianary, passing
      the '-t' flag, and the '-s localhost' flag.  Feel free to edit
      this program for your site, for example if you want the
      telnetable client to connect to a different server than
      'localhost'.

    - removed OpenGL/X11 dependancies that snuck in.  We aren't ready
      for that yet. :)

    7.2c-cs-11

    This is the first release of a development version of the
    client/server conquest.  There have been quite a few changes from
    v7.x!  Please read this document for the juicy details ;-)

    The common block revision has changed, making this version
    incompatible with previous versions.

    Of course the major change in this release is that conquest uses a
    network based client server model.  There is now a seperate
    conquestd program that listens to network requests from clients
    (conquest).  If you want to run a game on your machine, you will
    need to start conquestd like so:

	/opt/conqnet/bin/conquestd &

    Please read SERVER.TXT for intructions on how to run a secure
    game, and the options available.

    I would do this from a seperate non-privileged account of course,
    if you intend to invite the unwashed internet masses onto your
    server to play.

    If you just type 'conquest', it will try to attach to the conquest
    daemon on your local host.  To connect to a remote host, use the
    '-s' switch.

    This will take you to the login screen.  Choose a username,
    password etc, login, and kick some ass.

    I have setup a public server here for this release that you can
    connect to like so:

	conquest -s conquest.radscan.com

    Once an official 'stable' release is made, the old telnet server
    there (v7.2) will be pointed toward the new version, for those who
    don't want to use the client.

    There may eventually be multiple servers running (one for
    experienced players, for example, running on a different port.)

    - conquest is now client/server.  In the old days, the conquest
      binary had to be run on the same machine as the common block
      (universe).  In order to run a 'server', a telnet interface was
      required so remote players could connect.

      Now, conquest is a client that can connect over the network to
      any conquest server (conquestd).  In the future, there will be a
      graphical client, using OpenGL to render the main battle
      screen.  It won't be a 6 DOF combat simulator, but it should
      look alot nicer than the curses interface :)

      The protocol is endian safe of course.

    - The conquest login screen provides information about the server
      you are attached to - number of active ships, server name,
      enabled flags (see below), MOTD, etc.

    - The daemon (conquestd) listens on TCP port 1701 by default.  You
      can change this by supplying '-p <port>' to the conquestd
      command line.

      If you want to run your own public internet server, you need to
      allow tcp/1701 into your firewall (or whatever port you
      configured your server to use).  I would recomend running the
      daemon as an unprivileged user.  Oh, and if it's going to be
      available to the internet at large, run conquestd with the '-m'
      option, so it will notify the metaserver so others can find your
      game.

      Please read SERVER.TXT for information on running a server.

    - Client Updates.  From the options menu, a player can set the
      update interval anywhere from 1 to 10 updates per second.  The
      default is currently 5.  There is no AllowFastUpdates capability
      anymore.  I would not recommend 10 per second on a modem. Try
      different ones until you find one that works best for your
      connection.  In the old conquest, 1 and 2 were the only options.

    - Conquest operators are now defined as any user with the
      OOPT_OPER option set in his or her user profile.  They will be
      listed in the (U)ser list with a '+' to the left of their name.

      Currently a user marked with OPER can only start and stop server
      recordings from within the game using 'EXEC' messages sent to
      GOD.  Other than that, there is no difference compared to a
      normal user.

      Of course, only someone with shell access on the server machine,
      and who is a member of the conquest group can run the conqoper
      program.  Root can always run conqoper.

      In the future, more EXEC commands may be provided to conquest
      operators so they can become the tin plated dictators with
      delusions of godhood most of them secretly want to be. :)

    - Previous versions of conquest (v7.x) used to distinguish
      between 'local' and 'remote' users.  Local users were users who
      were playing conquest from a shell account on the machine where
      conquest was installed.  Remote users were users playing from a
      generic conquest account, usually setup by the system
      administrator, that had the conquest executable as the shell.
      In this way a 'server' could be run by providing telnet access
      to this special account from the internet.

      'Remote' users were denoted by a '@' next to their usernames in
      conquest.

      Since Conquest now uses a client server model, all users are
      remote.  The '@' tag is gone.  Even playing on a local machine
      is still accomplished by connecting to a local conquest server
      via TCP, so there is no such thing as a 'local' user anymore.

      Also for this reason, the conquest client is no longer
      set-groupid conquest - no need, since no special privileges or
      access is required.  If you can connect to a server, you can
      play.

    - user and system configuration (conquestrc) have changed
      significantly.  Some options are gone now, others moved into
      user config, etc.

      Many of the Sysconf options have been moved into User options
      (ETA stats, LR torpscan, etc).

      Some user options like clear_old_msgs have been removed.

      The 'compile options' are no longer viewable, since they don't
      matter much from the player perspective, and are of no use to a
      client anyway.

      The server (conquestd) advertises certain game flags enabled by
      the conquest operator (using conqoper) to the client.  These
      flags are displayed on the client login screen, as well as from
      within the client's (O)ptions Menu.  The flags are configured by
      the operator using the Option menu in conqoper.

      The current flags are:

          Refit              - refits are allowed.  You can refit to
                               one of the 3 types of conquest ships
                               when you have at least one kill, and
                               are orbiting a team owned planet.

          Vacant             - vacant ships are allowed.  A ship goes
                               vacant when a client exits the game
                               without self destructing first, while
                               flying a ship.

                               When vacant ships are disabled by the
                               oper, such ships are immediately killed
                               by a 'lightning bolt'.

                               NOTE: In previous versions of conquest,
                               oper's would always go vacant in this
                               case, regardless of the vacant option
                               setting.  In this version, every user
                               is subject to this option.


          SlingShot          - the SlingShot bug is enabled.  This is
                               a towing bug that existed in the
                               original VMS/RatFor version of
                               conquest.  It's a fun bug, and I
                               recieved several emails about it when I
                               inadvertantly fixed it in a later
                               version without understanding it's
                               significance.

                               If you don't know what it does,
                               well... figure it out!  You'll need a
                               buddy to make it work though ;-)

          NoDoomsday         - when set, the doomsday machine is
                               prevented from randomly starting up and
                               trashing the universe.

          Killbots           - when this option is enabled, robots are
                               created with a random kill point
                               value.  The kill points a ship has
                               affects the efficiency of it's engines,
                               the strength of it's weapons, etc.

                               Normally when a robot is created (by
                               attacking an unguarded homeplanet, etc),
                               it is initialized to 0 kills.  When
                               this option is enabled, a kills value
                               is randomly selected.  This means that
                               a new robot might prove to be much more
                               deadly than the default 0 kill robot.

                               This may not be a good option to enable
                               on a public server where newcomers play.
                               Fighting a 25 kill robot takes some
                               skill ;-)

          SwitchTeam         - when enabled, users can switch teams at
                               the conquest main menu.

    - the 'I' command is no longer provided.  All of those options
      have been added to the User options menu.

    - Users can no longer have multiple ships running at the same
      time.  If you have a vacant ship, you will be automatically
      attached to it.  The game still has most of this code present,
      so this feature could be added back in the future if enough
      people whine.

    - When using the (U)sers command in the client, only those users
      attached to currently active ships, or attached to entries in
      the History ring will be listed.  There is no point in checking
      500 user slots on each client update ;-)

      For this reason, only the conqoper program will be able to list
      *all* users.

    - the client creates it's logfile in your home directory
      (~/.conquest.log).  The conquest server, driver, etc, will still
      use the system log.  Check these for any errors or other
      oddities.

    - When you die, you now get to see your ship explode first before
      being taken to the 'dead' screen.

    - Recording.

      - Recording has been completely reworked.  Unfortunately, any
        previous CQR files are incompatible with this release.

      - you can now select the long range or short range view of a
        ship you are watching in conqreplay.

      - The new format uses the same packet protocol that the clients
        use.  This means recording files (cqr's) are *much* smaller
        and much more efficient (cpu-wise) during the recording
        process.

        Another benefit is endian safety.  With the old format,
        recordings could only be played back on the same machine
        architecture the cqr was created on.  Since the recording data
        is now based on the packet protocol, recordings are now
        completely endian safe (network byte order is used).  So now,
        some poor slob on his Sun SPARC can play back a recording I
        make on a lintel machine.

      - There are two types of recordings: client and server.

        - see the README file, 'Recording' section for more information
          on the differences between the two, and how to create and
          play them back.

    - Thanks to Clint Adams, the autoconf stuff has been significantly
      updated.

    - I looked upon my creation, and saw that it was good. :)

   7.2b 1/6/2003

    - some reorganization of a few data structures - sysconf,
      userconf, HasColor, etc..

    - Logon() now specifically looks up the CONQUEST_USER home dir in
      /etc/passwd for cases where one is using a telnet daemon to
      automatically start conquest.  The is needed since telnetd does
      not changedir to the conquest homedir before execing the
      conquest executable.

    7.2a 12/9/2002

    - big patch from Clint Adams adding automake/libtool support and
      changing direct references from sys_errlist[] to strerror()

    - added new 'Friend' target for messages.  You can send a message
      to all friendly ships by specifying 'fr'as the destination for a
      message.

    - added 'distress_to_friendly' option.  If true, sends distress
      calls to all friendly ships, not just your teammates.  The
      default is off.

    - added a new, experimental AltHUD option.  This is like the
      regular HUD, but adds some of the information returned from
      infoship and infoplanet calls to the lower alert line on the
      main display.  This can be useful in battle when messages or
      other commands remove the info after requesting it.

      Current info presented is:

      FA: (Firing Angle).  This lets you know the direction that any
          further firing requests will use, unless a direction is
          explicitly specified to the 'p' or 'f' commands.

      TA/D: (Target Angle / Distance). This item displays the Target
	    name, Target Angle and Target Distance obtained in the
	    last infoship/infoplanet request, and is updated whenever
	    you do an info command on any ship or planet.

      There may be more items forthcoming, though space is limited.
      The idea here is to present or preserve information that the
      user can already request.  It isn't intended to provide a 'auto
      targeting' or other type of advantage.  It's for information
      purposes only ;-)

      To use this, enable the 'Allow Alt HUD' option in the (O)ptions
      menu from within conquest.  Set to 'false' by default.



-- 
Jon Trulson    mailto:jon at radscan.com
ID: 1A9A2B09, FP: C23F328A721264E7 B6188192EC733962
PGP keys at http://radscan.com/~jon/PGPKeys.txt
#include <std/disclaimer.h>
"I am Nomad." -Nomad



From jon at radscan.com  Sat Dec 13 14:56:17 2003
From: jon at radscan.com (Jon Trulson)
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 14:56:17 -0700 (MST)
Subject: [conquest] Conquest V8.0 is available
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.50.0312131443090.31202-100000@m5.radscan.com>


	... at the usual place on http://radscan.com/conquest.html

	There were some minor bug fixes from the pre-release (7.2h) listed
below.


Version 8.0 12/13/2003

    - the official v8.0 release

    - fixed bug in meta.c that counted active ships improperly.  Same
      with PrintStatus in clntauth.c.

    - conqdriv will kill VACANT ships if the Vacant flag is not
      enabled for the server and it happens to find a vacant ship.

    - PrintStatus in clntauth.c will now show the server's local
      time as sent in the server's spServerStat_t packet.

    - changed AllowSigquit option to AllowVacant, to more properly
      reflect it's purpose.



-- 
Jon Trulson    mailto:jon at radscan.com
ID: 1A9A2B09, FP: C23F328A721264E7 B6188192EC733962
PGP keys at http://radscan.com/~jon/PGPKeys.txt
#include <std/disclaimer.h>
"I am Nomad." -Nomad