|
|
|
|
 |
VGA Planets Community Tidbits |
 |
| |
4.23.2011
in case you find only boring easter eggs this Sunday, here's something more interesting: PCC2 beta 13.
This release's topic is messages: first, it fills the biggest gap that PCC2 was still having: it adds a message parser. This means you can now sensibly use PCC2 with Tim's host. Unlike PCC 1.x's message parser, PCC2's is controlled by a .ini file. This makes it easy to add own templates (although the syntax is not yet set in stone). As an example, PCC2 can now plot the "Ship tonnage sunk" score sent by PHCc, and the "PTScore used" score sent by PTScore.
While at it, I also improved the message handling GUI in PCC2, so it now includes all features we know and love from PCC 1.x, and I threw in a "c2mgrep" command line utility.
I have also updated the fonts. PCC2 now has most fonts in regular and bold-face, allowing for some nice graphical effects.
As usual, all downloads can be found on
<http://phost.de/~stefan/pcc2.html>
In addition to the Windows installer/ZIP file and source code, I'm now also offering a Debian package for Linux users. |
4.16.2011
Now that PCC2 is getting good enough for it, I've tried an experiment I've always wanted to try: use PCC2 as back-end for a web application. So here it is:
<http://planetscentral.com/play/game.cgi>
So far it's a technology preview / demo. You cannot yet upload your own RST files. But in the background, it's a real PCC2 running on a real VGAP result file (namely the demo RST that comes with Winplan).
I'm not a great webdesigner, and it's my first AJAX application, so I made a simple GUI not completely unlike the PCC2 GUI. Still, my ship build screen is better than Joshua's, hah!
It needs a recent browser, where "recent" starts at a 2002 vintage Mozilla, or IE6. And, to justify the subject line, I've tried it successfully on a Nokia N900 smartphone.
Well, what can be next?
- RST upload/TRN download? probably.
- adding (or connecting with?) and autohost? maybe. |
3.13.2011
VPA 3.63 Released
Note a new 'whatsnew' format:
! bug fixed
+ new feature added
- old feature removed
Version 3.63
+ worst-case finder in simulator: 'w' to find worst case for left side, 'W' for right side
+ support PHost 4.x new functions:
- hull functions: assigned to ships, new functions, per-race functions
- StarbaseCost, BaseFighterCost, FreeFighterCost, MaximumFightersOnBase, MaximumDefenseOnBase
- new mining formula
- recognize ChunnelSelf,ChunnelOthers,ChunnelTarget abilities for chunnelprediction. Note that ChunnelOthers ships will draw a Chunnel line, but not move themselves, so be careful.
+ reads TARGETx.EXT if exists, deletes it on unpack. This allows VPA to be used together with VPUNPACK / VPUTIL.
! some PList 3 ships did not show costs in build screen
! fixed crash in experience games
! do no longer accept mission arguments above 10000 (not allowed with any host)
+ added Range function (Shift-R) that draws circles for the distances that a ship can travel in the next 6 turns
+ added OptimizeFuel and AutoAdjustWarp options
+ a few bugs fixed (bioscan messages would erase the owner info, ships with an advanced cloaking device would still be predicted to burn fuel for cloaking, planet simulation had a few glitches, crash in notepad editor)
You can download the update from here or the
VPA Homepage. |
12.4.2010
A new version of PHost released. - Stefan
New features:
- New option - ColonistCombatCaptureRate. Together with the array-ized ColonistCombatSurvivalRate, this allows to configure both "Vorticons survive combat" and "Vorticons capture enemies alive". By Alex Veselovsky.
- New option - EPAcademyScale to change the "x4" bonus for Academy ships.
- New options - EPShipBuild10Fighters and EPShipBuild1000TorpUnits to allow experience for building torps and fighters on ships. Idea by Lee.
- PHost now generates a handful more failure information records (type 44) in util.dat, to aid debugging.
- It is now possible to pass the random seed to add-ons ('%S' place-holder in commands, or PHOST_RANDSEED environment variable). This can be used to make host runs reproducible.
Bugfixes:
- specific tow chains with five ships or more could crash PHost.
- specific invalid command messages could crash PHost.
- fixed some memory leaks and internal problems.
Changes:
- the Dutch language file got an update from Pieter van der Eems. Thanks a lot!
- if a player has no planet, his minefields have no fcode (was: "AAA")
- the limit of level-restricted ship functions has been raised from 64 to 256. PLIST was reaching the old limit.
- ships with non-numeric fcode now distinguish three cases: armed and aggressive get FCBO value 1000, armed and non-aggressive get 1002, freighters get 1004 (was: 1000,1000,1002). This is expected to be closer to what people expect. Idea by Quirin Herman.
Ports:
- there is a new port for x64 Linux systems. lee provided the machine.
- the FreeBSD, BeOS, Sparc-Solaris ports are currently unavailable due to unavailability of appropriate machines.
As usual, downloads are here:
http://phost.de/phost41e/
http://phost.de/phost35e/ |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
