[conquest] Conquest 8.3a (devel) is available

[Jon Trulson]

         Source tarball:
         http://downloads.sourceforge.net/conq/conquest-8.3a.src.tar.gz

         SVN tagged release:
         http://conq.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/conq/tags/conquest-8.3a

         SVN current (possibly unstable) development:
         http://conq.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/conq/trunk


   This version corrects a couple of serious off-by-one errors in the
   server. A new star texture is used, texture mipmapping is supported,
   a variety of compiler warnings minor bugs fixed, CQI fixes and
   enhancements, and alot of code cleanup just freaking
   happened.

   Solaris should build and compile now (even OpenGL and sound support,
   provided all the normal Conquest requirements are there).

   Due to the server fixes, I would strongly urge server operators to
   upgrade to this release.

   Here's the spew from the HISTORY file:

8.3a (devel) 05/10/2008

   - correct some nasty off-by-one's (NUMPLANETS) in
     serverpkt.c:spktPlanetLoc() and spktPlanetLoc2().  Depending on
     your environment (OS, compiler, etc) your results could vary.  The
     typical symptoms would be reports of invalid packet types or sizes
     in the logs (client and/or server), and usually a rapid ship death
     with a killed-by of "Nothing in particular".

     This is a server-only bug, and all servers should be upgraded,
     whether or not your clients have seen this problem, since it's
     pretty certain that something important in memory will get
     corrupted :).

   - bombing graphics and phasers are now displayed in LR scan.

   - enable alpha testing in glfRender so that font glyph backgrounds
     aren't rendered (obvious in the text overlay nodes like ship
     list, planet list, etc).

   - nCP.c (cockpit): Fix case where when bombing or beaming, and a
     mouse macro is used, the relevant sound effects might not stop and
     proper state restored.

   - new star texture, based on prodding from Michael Derek Barnett who
     pointed me toward NASA's SOHO site
     http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/gif/ .

     One of the images of the sun from this site was used, and with
     alot of GIMP majik, a new star texture was born :) I think it
     looks a lot nicer.  Note, stars will appear larger now, as a
     proper star should.

   - Per Derek Barnett, set Sirius to be a blue star, and Betelguese to
     be a red star, just like in real life :)

   - Add texture definitions (and appropriate colors) for the stars to
     the 00_plantex.trc file.  Remove all planet/star color
     specifications from conqinitrc as they don't really belong there -
     color is a texture property, not a planetary one...

   - Massive code cleanup, mainly related to the confusing use of
     Unsgn8 and char.  gcc 4.1.2 complains bitterly about these with
     '-Wall', so they have all been fixed up to use char where
     appropriate (strcpy, el .al) and Unsgn8 (packet data).

   - CQI parser:

     - fixup parsing routines to be 'flat' according to the current
       section, and only care about (nested) subsections when really
       neccessary.

     - fixup the CQI parser so that sections can be nested up to a
       depth of 15.  Get rid of the subsection crap^Wstuff - no longer
       needed.

     - add ability to inline animdefs directly into an animation.

     - add ability to derive inlined animdefs from previously defined
       global (non-inlined) animdefs.

     - remove the rmDQuote() function.  Now use checkString(), which
       ensures all strings specified to CQI are properly 'cleaned' at
       parse time :)

     - fix a reduce conflict in 'stmt' grammer

     - use a 'CQI' prefix to error/warning messages generated when a
       section is finished parsing.

     - remove multiple copies of 'check for banned substances' code
       since all strings are now sanitized as soon as they are parsed.

     - improve error handling/recovery during parsing of certain
       sections.

     - add ability to disable anim types within an animdef, by setting
       'stages' to 0, or in the case of toganims, delayms to 0.  Useful
       for derived animdefs.

     - remove the ability to specify a color specification within a
       planet definition.  Colors should only be specified with the
       planet's texture definition.

       This means you will need to update your
       <install_prefix>/etc/conqinitrc file maunally - if you have
       previously installed conquest, as color values can no longer be
       specified for a planet.  If you don't, then you will just get
       warnings since the conqinitrc file is not overwritten on
       an install...

   - texturesrc - inline most animdefs, and re-arange for the new
     world order.

     Derive the inlined 'bombing' animdef from the 'explosion'
     animdef.  Neat. :)

   - add support for mipmapping of textures.  Textures can specify the
     boolean 'mipmap' in their texture definition to specify that mipmaps
     should be generated for the texture.  This is now done for stars,
     planets, ships, and the doomsday machine.

     This improves the quality of these textures significantly when
     viewed at different sizes (scaling and magfactor).

     For now, the GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER is set to
     GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR (highest quality).  The min-filter is
     currently not configurable, nor can mipmaps be completely disabled
     (without editing the texture config files) though they should be.

   - use iBufFlush to flush the input buffer when entering the CP, so
     that previously queued commands aren't issued when you re-enter a
     ship after you've died in glorious battle.

   - fix configure.ac to SUBST YFLAGS.  No idea why this is now needed
     (perhaps the switch to AC_PROG_YACC in a previous release?).

   - sparc/solaris porting.

     - Sparc (and probably everything else) does not really like
       unaligned accesses to the common block.  On sparc, a bus error
       occurs when certain CB accesses are made.

       Now, on non-x86 hardware, always align the CB structures on a 16
       byte boundary.  This should be done on all architectures, but I
       do not want to break x86 CB compatibility yet.  Soon though,
       very soon :)

     - prefer OS native curses libraries and header files to ncurses
       when available.

     - include termio before term in c_defs.h to avoid SGTTY compile
       issue.

     - include -lsocket and -lnsl libraries during linking.

     - fixed longstanding problem with the lexer on Solaris and other
       systems.  Apparently, 'WS' is already pre-defined somewhere, so
       rename 'WS' to 'whtspc' in the lex (*.l) files.  Got rid of the
       'OWS' tokens since we aren't using them anyway.

   - fix some stupidness in sem.c.

   - move metaserver query into the nMeta node, where it belongs
     (conquestgl).

   - makesrcpkg: make sure install-sh and ylwrap are executable.

   - add a '-v' verbose option to the clients.  More '-v's increase
     verbosity.

   - implement a generic ringbuffer mechanism (rb.h, rb.c). Currently,
     only ibuf (keyboard/macro handling) uses it, but in the future it
     will also be used for network buffers when that code is reworked
     to use non-blocking sockets.

   - tcpwrap.c: only log successful connections if verbose/debug is
     specified.  Only 'access denied' events are always logged.

   - correct/update some of the documentation for CONQINIT.TXT (CQI).

   - New SourceForge project page (Conq):

     https://sourceforge.net/projects/conq/

     - migrated svn source repo to sourceforge.

     - svn URL's

       - current (possibly unstable) development

         https://conq.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/conq/trunk

       - tagged (official) releases

         https://conq.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/conq/tags/




-- 
Happy cheese in fear                 | Jon Trulson
against oppressor, rebel!            | mailto:jon at radscan.com
Brocolli, hostage.       -Unknown    | #include <std/disclaimer.h>