[conquest] Conquest 8.0.1k (devel) is available...

[Jon Trulson]

 	... at http://www.radscan.com/conquest.html

 	Devel versions 8.0.1f - 8.0.1i were not released to the public. 
Version 8.0.1j was, however no announcement was made to the lists.

 	There are some significant changes in this release compared to the 
last announced public devel release 8.0.1e.

 	Some highlights:

 	- *much* work has been done to cleanup and improve the OpenGL
client, conquestgl.  Various displays (like ship list) are now
overlayed on the cockpit (CP), some new textures added, others cleaned
up, new texture format, a new viewer background image from the Hubble
Ultra Deep Field, new fonts for the viewer, rendering oddities fixed,
new torp rendering, and many others.

 	- torp and planet trajectories are computed on the client side, 
greatly increasing the smoothness of play, and significantly reducing 
network bandwidth requirements (by about 60%!).

 	- the network protocol changed, so you will need to upgrade
your client if you want to play on new servers.  Server operators may
or may not want to upgrade to this release depending on how many
people they expect to try to play with the older (8.0.1e or lesser)
clients.  If this is not a concern, then upgrading your server would
be a good idea, as the playing experience is definitely improved.

 	- quite a few bug fixes


         I have setup an 8.0.1k server at conquest.radscan.com:1702 .

 	Server operators who upgrade will not need to reset their
games or re-initialize the universe.  Only the network protocol itself
has changed.

         Here is the relevant snippet from the HISTORY file, detailing
changes from 8.0.1e - 8.0.1k:


Version 8.0.1k 9/25/2004 (devel)

         - when entering a game, pointer troubles could cause a
           client to get stuck sitting on top of Murisak, or offered
           the wrong list of systems to enter from, if their team
           owned more than one system.

         - user config viewer background preference was not honored
           during replay of a previously recorded game. (conquestgl)

         - modifiers (shift, ctl, etc) were improperly discarded when
           decoding the macro FKeys. (conquestgl)


Version 8.0.1j 9/11/2004 (devel)

         - conquestgl

           - implemented background image (Hubble Ultra Deep Field) to
             viewer.  Added user option 'do_draw_viewerbg' to enable.  It
             is enabled by default cause it just looks so darn good :)
             ALT-B can be used to temporarily toggle it on/off while in
             the CP if it proves too distracting.

           - fixed viewer backgroud image to be displaced properly when
             in Murisak centered LR view.

           - Using [SPACE] to toggle between ship and Murisak centered LR
             scans will only work when in LR mode.  No more inadvertant
             switching.

           - more GL and render cleanups.

           - corrected bug in modifier key handling.  Several other
             potential key problems also fixed.

           - texture handling cleanups

           - planet and doomsday blend modes fixed so background image no
             longer interferes

           - fixed bug in options (GL) display where when the number of
             options exactly matched the number that could be displayed
             onscreen caused nothing to be displayed at all.

           - got rid of drawBox() - no longer used anywhere.

           - cleaned up the viewer background (vbg.tga) texture (reduced
             gamma).

         - conquestd

           - an attempt at better handling of UDP write errors that
             sometimes occurs when UDP was successfully negotiated, but
             the server finds itself unable to send them.  If more than
             15 write UDP errors are detected during the course of a
             session, the server will switch to TCP only, and a message
             will be sent to the client informing it of that fact.


Version 8.0.1i 9/03/2004 (devel)


         - conquestgl

           - when in the cockpit, various screens that used to be
             seperate such as help, userlist, planetlist, etc, are now
             displayed on top of the cockpit display, which is then made
             transparent.  This allows you to still see what is going on
             with your ship while reading the info.

             This also works when playing back a recorded game.

             Now you can see your ship explode while looking at the
             userlist for example :)

           - redid the viewer fonts - now use a tex mapped font as well,
             instead of the glut bitmap fonts.

           - fixed up GL version of cvtcoords to remove artifacts in when
             objects were considered to be 'in view'.  Previously the
             cvtcoords function from the curses client was being used to
             determine this... This could cause objects (planets, etc) to
             'disappear' when close to the min/max X/Y coordinates.
             Objects will now move properly into and out of view now in
             the viewer.

           - corrected perspective correction misunderstandings on my
             part :) Planet and ship labels now are always positioned
             correctly regardless of your position relative to the
             object.  Planets and ships are likewise positioned
             properly in relation to each other.

           - recolorized army count in planet names on long range display.

           - more GL related cleanups and re-organization.


Version 8.0.1h 8/10/2004 (devel)

         - conquestgl

           - added proper moon texture for Luna.

           - torp packets are no longer sent, only recorded.  TorpEvent
             packets are the only torp packets sent to the client now.

           - cleaned up GL.c a lot.  No longer use a seperate window (and
             associated GL context) for the viewer.

Version 8.0.1g 8/08/2004 (devel)

         - Planet and torpedo trajectories are now computed in the
           client for smoother motion and a significant reduction in
           the packet count needed from the server.

           The network protocol version changed as a result so only new
           clients can play with new servers.

           Recording files (.cqr) are still compatible.

           The common block was not changed so your universe will
           continue to work.

         - got rid of conqreplay program.  The clients (conquest and
           conquestgl) are now used to playback recordings using the -P
           option.

         - fixed CPCMD_RELOAD to properly send a full update to the
           client when a client starts recording.

         - addition of new CP_VARIABLE/SP_VARIABLE packet types so
           that new packets types can be added cleanly without
           neccessarily having to break the network protocol.

         - corrected pointer alignment issue with ctime() on Sparc
           architectures (or any other architecture that does not
           tolerate misaligned pointers).  Reported by Clint Adams
           (Debian).

Version 8.0.1f 7/11/2004 (devel)

         - conquestgl

           - switch to TARGA (.tga) format textures rather than BMP.
             That alpha channel comes in handy.

           - replaced lousy classd texture with a Mars texture.  Maybe
             someone wants to create individual textures for each
             planet someday? :)

           - added new torp texture rather than re-using the star texture.

           - redid torp rendering somewhat.

         - hitting [SPACE] while looking at long-range map will toggle
           between a Murisak centered, or ship centered map.  The
           default map display is whatever you set for the
           'do_local_lrscan=' option in your ~/.conquestrc file.


-- 
Jon Trulson    mailto:jon at radscan.com
ID: 1A9A2B09, FP: C23F328A721264E7 B6188192EC733962
PGP keys at http://radscan.com/~jon/PGPKeys.txt
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