Thousand Parsec KDE Client

As it’s only a couple of weeks till another Linux.conf.au is underway, I thought I better post this draft from the last one! This year LCA is in Wellington, New Zealand, sadly I didn’t get my act together enough to make a proper holiday of it. I’m definitely looking forward to catching up with all the cool [...]

I have recently been watching and really enjoying a little known series called Starhunter. At first I thought it was an enjoyable rip off of Firefly, so i was surprised to find out that it was made first. It has so many of the same elements, the quirky ship mechanic, the captain who doesn’t play by [...]

As you probably read from [my previous post][1], Thousand Parsec had quite a successful Summer of Code last year. Unlike previous years, where we have concentrated on getting new stuff developed, this year we have decided to concentrate on building ... [More] on the work of our [previous years students][2] [1]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/news.php/2009-03-31-2300 [2]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/news.php/2008-10-16-1400 With the deadline looming, some of the ideas on our [ideas page][3] have already had lots of attention, but there are a number of ideas which have yet to have any applications. I would like to point out these ideas because we think they are very important and have a good chance to be accepted! [3]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/wiki/Ideas_for_Programmers Some of the most important ideas have to deal with our coolest looking last Summer of Code project last year, [Eugene Tan's new 3d client][4]. [4]: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62052477,00.htm * Adding single player support to the 3d client. As [mentioned here][1] we have just release single player support in our 2d client. We would like to see this extended to support our other major client. Most of the code for this support is in the libtpclient-py support library that is already shared between both the 3d and 2d clients, so it should be significantly easier then Ezod's own task. * Create a "Simple 3d ship designer". Spore has shown us that it is possible to give people non-professional 3d artists, the ability to create cool looking models. With a little bit of prefabed art work and some easy transforms, even programmers don't have to be scared anymore. We would like to see a similar ability added to Thousand Parsec. It can be developed as part of the 3d client or as a stand alone program. Another project we think is really important, is to continue the efforts to improve single player support. These include, * Adding support for saving and restoring games. Having to play a complete game in one sitting is a real pain, specially since some of the Thousand Parsec games can requires many hours to play. The jist of this idea would be to add save/ load support found in most game types. This would require adding saving/loading support to a number of back end projects like our primary server (tpserver-cpp) and daneel-ai. * Adding support for single player "scenario" mode. In some ways, this is related to the previous idea but a little simpler. This would be similar to the "missions" you get in other normal games. An example would be something like "King Unorganised has run our intergalactic empire into the ground, we have put you in charge of restoring us to our former glory. " * Extending single player support to include "set up your own multiplayer game". Single player support has also paved the way towards adding support for simple wizard set up of games to be played with friends. Much of the procedure is the same and we already have an auto- discovery process created. Getting started with the single player development should be very easy, it only takes 6 commands ! git clone git://git.thousandparsec.net/git/tpclient-pywx.git git clone git://git.thousandparsec.net/git/daneel-ai.git git clone git://git.thousandparsec.net/git/tpserver-cpp.git cd tpserver-cpp; ./autogen.sh; ./configure; make; cd.. cd tpclient-pywx ./tpclient-pywx If you are interested, I suggest that [you jump on IRC][5] and chat with our wonderful bunch of mentors. It is also recommended that you put in an application (even if only a draft) as soon as possible, as we are happy to help you with your application and provide feedback. [5]: irc://irc.freenode.org/#tp [Less]

As you probably read from [my previous post][1], Thousand Parsec had quite a successful Summer of Code last year. Unlike previous years, where we have concentrated on getting new stuff developed, this year we have decided to concentrate on building ... [More] on the work of our [previous years students][2] [1]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/news.php/2009-03-31-2300 [2]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/news.php/2008-10-16-1400 With the deadline looming, some of the ideas on our [ideas page][3] have already had lots of attention, but there are a number of ideas which have yet to have any applications. I would like to point out these ideas because we think they are very important and have a good chance to be accepted! [3]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/wiki/Ideas_for_Programmers Some of the most important ideas have to deal with our coolest looking last Summer of Code project last year, [Eugene Tan's new 3d client][4]. [4]: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62052477,00.htm * Adding single player support to the 3d client. As [mentioned here][1] we have just release single player support in our 2d client. We would like to see this extended to support our other major client. Most of the code for this support is in the libtpclient-py support library that is already shared between both the 3d and 2d clients, so it should be significantly easier then Ezod's own task. * Create a "Simple 3d ship designer". Spore has shown us that it is possible to give people non-professional 3d artists, the ability to create cool looking models. With a little bit of prefabed art work and some easy transforms, even programmers don't have to be scared anymore. We would like to see a similar ability added to Thousand Parsec. It can be developed as part of the 3d client or as a stand alone program. Another project we think is really important, is to continue the efforts to improve single player support. These include, * Adding support for saving and restoring games. Having to play a complete game in one sitting is a real pain, specially since some of the Thousand Parsec games can requires many hours to play. The jist of this idea would be to add save/ load support found in most game types. This would require adding saving/loading support to a number of back end projects like our primary server (tpserver-cpp) and daneel-ai. * Adding support for single player "scenario" mode. In some ways, this is related to the previous idea but a little simpler. This would be similar to the "missions" you get in other normal games. An example would be something like "King Unorganised has run our intergalactic empire into the ground, we have put you in charge of restoring us to our former glory. " * Extending single player support to include "set up your own multiplayer game". Single player support has also paved the way towards adding support for simple wizard set up of games to be played with friends. Much of the procedure is the same and we already have an auto- discovery process created. Getting started with the single player development should be very easy, it only takes 6 commands ! git clone git://git.thousandparsec.net/git/tpclient-pywx.git git clone git://git.thousandparsec.net/git/daneel-ai.git git clone git://git.thousandparsec.net/git/tpserver-cpp.git cd tpserver-cpp; ./autogen.sh; ./configure; make; cd.. cd tpclient-pywx ./tpclient-pywx If you are interested, I suggest that [you jump on IRC][5] and chat with our wonderful bunch of mentors. It is also recommended that you put in an application (even if only a draft) as soon as possible, as we are happy to help you with your application and provide feedback. [5]: irc://irc.freenode.org/#tp [Less]

[Thousand Parsec][1] is pleased to announce our [first release that includes single player support][2]. Now all of our players can easily enjoy the game at anytime, whether or not they can find other interested players. We've made several other ... [More] improvements with this release, but this feature is the most significant change for 0.3.2. Binaries are currently available for Windows and will soon be available for other systems (but you can always grab the code from our repository! ). [1]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/ [2]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/downloads.php?category=client#tpclient-pywx Single player support is a huge step forward for us, as it gives players a quick way to get involved with minimal fuss. We have strived to hammer out this functionality for the past 3 years. Better still, contributions from [Google Summer of Code][3] students have allowed us to reach this goal. [3]: http://code.google.com/soc/ The story of this release is long, and has its beginnings back in [2008][4] when [Thousand Parsec joined][5] Google Summer of Code for the second time. The previous year's GSoC had been very successful, and we were looking to achieve even more success in round two. [4]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008 [5]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/news.php/2007-03-16-0157 [Ezod][6] is our first Summer of Code student. He was pivotal in making this new release possible. At the start of the summer, he proposed an interesting project, " [Add single player support to Thousand Parsec][7]". Little did he know what he was getting into ! [6]: http://ezod.livejournal.com/ [7]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/parsec/appinfo.html?csaid=7731B9B4B375E2E5 To the naive, this may have seemed like a simple project; all it needed to do was start up the server and an AI or two in the background. The proposal actually meant that Ezod would have to touch almost every part of the code base and project infrastructure, from the servers, through the AIs, to the clients. Thousand Parsec was never really designed to work in this way, as everything designed to run standalone. We had no qualms about Ezod's skill having already started submitting patches and packaging Thousand Parsec for Gentoo, but the extent of the changes needed for the proposal to work still raised some skepticism. To make things tougher, we had received a large number of quality applications, meaning that we had plenty to choose from. Luckily, Google blessed us with more slots then we could manage (we ended up giving back two) and it was decided to take a risk. By the end of the summer Ezod had not disappointed -- he had the basics working -- but it would take another 9 months and integrating the work of two other students before we would reach the release we have today. One problem we faced was that a game is not fun if you don't have any competition. This is were our second Summer of Code student joins us. Iwanowitch put in a proposal for creating a [rule-based AI][8] for Thousand Parsec. His proposal was one of the two AI projects accepted as part of the 2008 Summer of Code. [8]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/parsec/appinfo.html?csaid=AD885F56FE726D6C The AI originally targeted the RFTS ruleset, which was developed as part of our first [Summer of Code][9]. While functionally complete, it ended up having a number of show stopping bugs for AI development. This only became clear halfway through the summer with the mid-term evaluations coming up. [9]: http://code.google.com/soc/2007 The mentors put their heads together, and the best solution we could come up with was for the AI to switch to a different ruleset. This decision would later decide which ruleset Ezod would support in single player mode. Thanks to a good design, by the final evaluation, Iwanowitch had his AI competing against the second AI being developed over the summer. Ezod then worked with Iwanowitch to integrate the AI into the single player mode, and it has now become the major opponent that everyone who tries out Thousand Parsec will play against. So which ruleset did they switch to, you ask? Well, that is where our third summer of code student comes in. Jphr proposed (and was accepted) to create a [new ruleset][10] for Thousand Parsec. Not having any C++ experience at all, he choose the ambitious goal of developing a modified version of the risk board game for the C++ server. He charged through the development, and by the mid-term evaluation the core rules had already been well developed and he was working on more advanced features such as custom maps. [10]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/parsec/appinfo.html?csaid=5B1B1C8E204530AD It made sense for us to suggest that the AI guys target this ruleset. It had already been shown to be solid and it helped relieve some of the painful process of finding bugs. This also meant that with Ezod's help, Jphr's ruleset has gone on to be the first to be fully supported by single player mode. So that is the story of how three students' work came together to produce this release. Both Iwanowitch and Ezod will be joining Thousand Parsec as Summer of Code mentors this year. These were not our only successful projects for Google Summer of Code 2008 -- in fact, all of our projects achieved success that year and more can be [read about the others on our website][11]. [11]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/news.php/2008-10-16-1400 Sound like everything for Thousand Parsec has already been finished? Far from it! We are glad to be participating in [GSoC once again][12], and I hope this story has inspired you to be part of Google Summer of Code and part of the Open Source community. [12]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code [Less]

[Thousand Parsec][1] is pleased to announce our [first release that includes single player support][2]. Now all of our players can easily enjoy the game at anytime, whether or not they can find other interested players. We've made several other ... [More] improvements with this release, but this feature is the most significant change for 0.3.2. Binaries are currently available for Windows and will soon be available for other systems (but you can always grab the code from our repository! ). [1]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/ [2]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/downloads.php?category=client#tpclient-pywx Single player support is a huge step forward for us, as it gives players a quick way to get involved with minimal fuss. We have strived to hammer out this functionality for the past 3 years. Better still, contributions from [Google Summer of Code][3] students have allowed us to reach this goal. [3]: http://code.google.com/soc/ The story of this release is long, and has its beginnings back in [2008][4] when [Thousand Parsec joined][5] Google Summer of Code for the second time. The previous year's GSoC had been very successful, and we were looking to achieve even more success in round two. [4]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008 [5]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/news.php/2007-03-16-0157 [Ezod][6] is our first Summer of Code student. He was pivotal in making this new release possible. At the start of the summer, he proposed an interesting project, " [Add single player support to Thousand Parsec][7]". Little did he know what he was getting into ! [6]: http://ezod.livejournal.com/ [7]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/parsec/appinfo.html?csaid=7731B9B4B375E2E5 To the naive, this may have seemed like a simple project; all it needed to do was start up the server and an AI or two in the background. The proposal actually meant that Ezod would have to touch almost every part of the code base and project infrastructure, from the servers, through the AIs, to the clients. Thousand Parsec was never really designed to work in this way, as everything designed to run standalone. We had no qualms about Ezod's skill having already started submitting patches and packaging Thousand Parsec for Gentoo, but the extent of the changes needed for the proposal to work still raised some skepticism. To make things tougher, we had received a large number of quality applications, meaning that we had plenty to choose from. Luckily, Google blessed us with more slots then we could manage (we ended up giving back two) and it was decided to take a risk. By the end of the summer Ezod had not disappointed -- he had the basics working -- but it would take another 9 months and integrating the work of two other students before we would reach the release we have today. One problem we faced was that a game is not fun if you don't have any competition. This is were our second Summer of Code student joins us. Iwanowitch put in a proposal for creating a [rule-based AI][8] for Thousand Parsec. His proposal was one of the two AI projects accepted as part of the 2008 Summer of Code. [8]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/parsec/appinfo.html?csaid=AD885F56FE726D6C The AI originally targeted the RFTS ruleset, which was developed as part of our first [Summer of Code][9]. While functionally complete, it ended up having a number of show stopping bugs for AI development. This only became clear halfway through the summer with the mid-term evaluations coming up. [9]: http://code.google.com/soc/2007 The mentors put their heads together, and the best solution we could come up with was for the AI to switch to a different ruleset. This decision would later decide which ruleset Ezod would support in single player mode. Thanks to a good design, by the final evaluation, Iwanowitch had his AI competing against the second AI being developed over the summer. Ezod then worked with Iwanowitch to integrate the AI into the single player mode, and it has now become the major opponent that everyone who tries out Thousand Parsec will play against. So which ruleset did they switch to, you ask? Well, that is where our third summer of code student comes in. Jphr proposed (and was accepted) to create a [new ruleset][10] for Thousand Parsec. Not having any C++ experience at all, he choose the ambitious goal of developing a modified version of the risk board game for the C++ server. He charged through the development, and by the mid-term evaluation the core rules had already been well developed and he was working on more advanced features such as custom maps. [10]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/parsec/appinfo.html?csaid=5B1B1C8E204530AD It made sense for us to suggest that the AI guys target this ruleset. It had already been shown to be solid and it helped relieve some of the painful process of finding bugs. This also meant that with Ezod's help, Jphr's ruleset has gone on to be the first to be fully supported by single player mode. So that is the story of how three students' work came together to produce this release. Both Iwanowitch and Ezod will be joining Thousand Parsec as Summer of Code mentors this year. These were not our only successful projects for Google Summer of Code 2008 -- in fact, all of our projects achieved success that year and more can be [read about the others on our website][11]. [11]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/news.php/2008-10-16-1400 Sound like everything for Thousand Parsec has already been finished? Far from it! We are glad to be participating in [GSoC once again][12], and I hope this story has inspired you to be part of Google Summer of Code and part of the Open Source community. [12]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code [Less]

[Thousand Parsec][1] is pleased to announce our [first release that includes single player support][2]. Now all of our players can easily enjoy the game at anytime, whether or not they can find other interested players. We've made several other ... [More] improvements with this release, but this feature is the most significant change for 0.3.2. Binaries are currently available for Windows and will soon be available for other systems (but you can always grab the code from our repository! ). [1]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/ [2]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/downloads.php?category=client#tpclient-pywx Single player support is a huge step forward for us, as it gives players a quick way to get involved with minimal fuss. We have strived to hammer out this functionality for the past 3 years. Better still, contributions from [Google Summer of Code][3] students have allowed us to reach this goal. [3]: http://code.google.com/soc/ The story of this release is long, and has its beginnings back in [2008][4] when [Thousand Parsec joined][5] Google Summer of Code for the second time. The previous year's GSoC had been very successful, and we were looking to achieve even more success in round two. [4]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008 [5]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/news.php/2007-03-16-0157 [Ezod][6] is our first Summer of Code student. He was pivotal in making this new release possible. At the start of the summer, he proposed an interesting project, " [Add single player support to Thousand Parsec][7]". Little did he know what he was getting into ! [6]: http://ezod.livejournal.com/ [7]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/parsec/appinfo.html?csaid=7731B9B4B375E2E5 To the naive, this may have seemed like a simple project; all it needed to do was start up the server and an AI or two in the background. The proposal actually meant that Ezod would have to touch almost every part of the code base and project infrastructure, from the servers, through the AIs, to the clients. Thousand Parsec was never really designed to work in this way, as everything designed to run standalone. We had no qualms about Ezod's skill having already started submitting patches and packaging Thousand Parsec for Gentoo, but the extent of the changes needed for the proposal to work still raised some skepticism. To make things tougher, we had received a large number of quality applications, meaning that we had plenty to choose from. Luckily, Google blessed us with more slots then we could manage (we ended up giving back two) and it was decided to take a risk. By the end of the summer Ezod had not disappointed -- he had the basics working -- but it would take another 9 months and integrating the work of two other students before we would reach the release we have today. One problem we faced was that a game is not fun if you don't have any competition. This is were our second Summer of Code student joins us. Iwanowitch put in a proposal for creating a [rule-based AI][8] for Thousand Parsec. His proposal was one of the two AI projects accepted as part of the 2008 Summer of Code. [8]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/parsec/appinfo.html?csaid=AD885F56FE726D6C The AI originally targeted the RFTS ruleset, which was developed as part of our first [Summer of Code][9]. While functionally complete, it ended up having a number of show stopping bugs for AI development. This only became clear halfway through the summer with the mid-term evaluations coming up. [9]: http://code.google.com/soc/2007 The mentors put their heads together, and the best solution we could come up with was for the AI to switch to a different ruleset. This decision would later decide which ruleset Ezod would support in single player mode. Thanks to a good design, by the final evaluation, Iwanowitch had his AI competing against the second AI being developed over the summer. Ezod then worked with Iwanowitch to integrate the AI into the single player mode, and it has now become the major opponent that everyone who tries out Thousand Parsec will play against. So which ruleset did they switch to, you ask? Well, that is where our third summer of code student comes in. Jphr proposed (and was accepted) to create a [new ruleset][10] for Thousand Parsec. Not having any C experience at all, he choose the ambitious goal of developing a modified version of the risk board game for the C server. He charged through the development, and by the mid-term evaluation the core rules had already been well developed and he was working on more advanced features such as custom maps. [10]: http://code.google.com/soc/2008/parsec/appinfo.html?csaid=5B1B1C8E204530AD It made sense for us to suggest that the AI guys target this ruleset. It had already been shown to be solid and it helped relieve some of the painful process of finding bugs. This also meant that with Ezod's help, Jphr's ruleset has gone on to be the first to be fully supported by single player mode. So that is the story of how three students' work came together to produce this release. Both Iwanowitch and Ezod will be joining Thousand Parsec as Summer of Code mentors this year. These were not our only successful projects for Google Summer of Code 2008 -- in fact, all of our projects achieved success that year and more can be [read about the others on our website][11]. [11]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/news.php/2008-10-16-1400 Sound like everything for Thousand Parsec has already been finished? Far from it! We are glad to be participating in [GSoC once again][12], and I hope this story has inspired you to be part of Google Summer of Code and part of the Open Source community. [12]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code [Less]

Hot on the heals of 0.6.1 comes 0.6.2 release of tpserver-cpp. The main reason for this release is to update the single player support files which changed since the last release. Single player client, etc are coming real soon now. Also in the release ... [More] are the quickstart conf files, shave support (nice build messages), and clearer TurnTimers split out into separate ones, basic, players finished and threshold timers. 14 patches by 3 people. 47 files changed, 3363 insertions, 1480 deletions (thanks libltdl update ). TPServer-cpp 0.6.2 is on the [downloads page][1] and will be on our SF downloads page soon. The GIT repo is tpserver-cpp (branch master) and the tag is TPSERVER_CPP_0_6_2. Feedback and suggestions are always welcome. [1]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/downloads.php?category=server [Less]

Hot on the heals of 0.6.1 comes 0.6.2 release of tpserver-cpp. The main reason for this release is to update the single player support files which changed since the last release. Single player client, etc are coming real soon now. Also in the ... [More] release are the quickstart conf files, shave support (nice build messages), and clearer TurnTimers split out into separate ones, basic, players finished and threshold timers. 14 patches by 3 people. 47 files changed, 3363 insertions, 1480 deletions (thanks libltdl update ). TPServer-cpp 0.6.2 is on the [downloads page][1] and will be on our SF downloads page soon. The GIT repo is tpserver-cpp (branch master) and the tag is TPSERVER_CPP_0_6_2. Feedback and suggestions are always welcome. [1]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/downloads.php?category=server [Less]

This release is mostly little fixes, mostly around windows cross compiling and single player support . 38 patches by 6 people. 148 files changed, 770 insertions, 452 deletions. TPServer-cpp 0.6.1 is on the [downloads page][1] and will be on our SF ... [More] downloads page soon. The GIT repo is tpserver-cpp (branch master) and the tag is TPSERVER_CPP_0_6_1. Feedback and suggestions are always welcome. [1]: http://www.thousandparsec.net/tp/downloads.php?category=server [Less]