The SE4 companion - Why the long wait?.

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by Ruatha:
[QB]You can use ver 1.84 or 1.91 exe for your games.. any mod you like./QB]

What about 1.49? Believe it or not, I still have one of those games running...

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ruatha:
[QB]You can use ver 1.84 or 1.91 exe for your games.. any mod you like./QB]

What about 1.49? Believe it or not, I still have one of those games running...

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I haven't tested 1.49, I have only savegames from 1.84 and 1.91 and they differ enough in structure to have to be handled differently by the application.
I'd be happy if you could try it out when I release the beta, or mail me a savegame ver from 1.49, I don't feel the urge to reinstall my SE4 to try it.

[Ed Kolis]

Wait... your program actually parses the binary savegame data???
Does this mean there's a scenario editor coming up in the foreseeable future???
Though this would open up the door to cheating, as well...

In any event, I'll send you my savegame when I get home, seeing as you're not in this particular PBW game so you'd have nothing to gain from peeking at it

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Wait... your program actually parses the binary savegame data???
Does this mean there's a scenario editor coming up in the foreseeable future???
Though this would open up the door to cheating, as well...

In any event, I'll send you my savegame when I get home, seeing as you're not in this particular PBW game so you'd have nothing to gain from peeking at it

Oh no.
It only reads savegame Version, the empire names and turndate, nothing more and never will.
There is an manual option where you can access any eventfile without the savegame but then the empires are called "player 1, player 2.." instead of "The dreaded Katz Empire, The Rage collective.."

[Ruatha]

Thanks to Geo who came up with a new way to access PBW I'll have a special RTC in the new program... Thanks GEO (It's coming along well!)

[Ruatha]

Right now it can check on-line and alert for new turns, it does the same for mail but there it doesn't remember if it's alreadya lerted, so if it's set to not delete the mails from the server it will alert at each check.
This will be fixed.

It's coming along well but it's taking some time...

[bearclaw]

Every time I check out this topic my mouth starts to water. Can't wait for this one to be done.

[Ruatha]

Ok, I should've known better then to set some kind of release date.
I've worked 5 days with getting the downloads from the PBW server to work...
It's been the greatest challenge I've faced in programming...

First it seemed like no problems, the application just asked if the player wanted to download or save the file (The regular browser "Save AS" dialog appeared), shouldn't be a big problem getting rid of that I thought! HA!!!

Some routines worked great with my server but couldn't download the password protected files from the PBW server.
Some wanted that "Save as" dialogue.
Then when things started to look bright I for the first time found out the problems with multi-threaded programs... Oh how I miss the days of line-numbers and when subroutines was something fancy you've heard about but couldn't for the life of you see the meaning with...

Now I've finally managed to get the seperate threads to march in unison, so it wil download one file before it says that it has downloaded the next and triued to start the third (That hasn't ben downloaded..) and at the same time trying to download some other stuff aswell(?).

So now I predict a straight and nice course towards completion..


Whats left:
Connect downloads to favorite paths.
Manual turn download.
download and unpack mail attachtments.
Turn sending routines.
Deadline nag option.
More documentation (I've started on that in paralell).

[ June 02, 2004, 05:21: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Ruatha]

Heureka!!!

Today I statred the SE4 companion, it scanned the PBW site, downlaoded two games and started one (which was marked as favorite) and opened it with passowrd and everything!!

So I can start the Companion when I go to work, when I get home if there is a new turn at the PBW site it will be opened with the LOG window staring at me from the screen, the SE4 game started and ready for my commands.

I personally never thought it'd work!!!


Now all the finetunings and making sure it can start two Favorites after eachother and then the mail functions...

But, my God, it works!!!

[geoschmo]

Cool!

What's the LOG window?