Topic: SQL Mission Testing....

[DarkElf]

Using stock Taldren missions as a base, I have written two missions, that I need help testing.

Convoy Raid
Convoy Escort

There is an added new benefit to these missions, Economic Boost/Drops.  Depending on which mission you take and how you do, the EV will rise or drop.

Astounding victories will earn you +5 EV or -5EV, depending on which side your on.
Victories will earn you +2 EV or -2 EV, depnding on which side your on.

Draws will not effect EV.

Simularily, Defeats and Devestating Defeats will hurt you as well, in the above manner, only in the oppisite fashion.

Capt. Jeff also has a list he wanted me to try if I ran a fun server, so I will be running the shiplist he submitted to me.  I have placed all the nessasary files along with a readme in a *.zip file, located at ftp://downloads@sfc2.darktech.org:707/testing.zip

Remember the scripts go in the /Assets/Scripts folder, and the lists go in the /Assets/Specs/ folder.

And now I will launch the server, anyone is welcome to help.

[NuclearWessels]

Have you  changed the server shiplist since you posted the zip file last night?

This morning I'm getting CRC errors on the shiplist, but I've definitely got the posted version in both folders

dave
 

[Capt Jeff]

Hey DE......

It's most likely my fault in confusing you, as I was trying to get those shiplists to you quickly as I was way late for bed time as it was....BUT !!

You have the wrong shiplist in the download file.  That shiplist goes into the server kit's shiplist folder.

The other list goes out to the players, and gets put in the validation folder.  

To make certain of this, just open the shiplist and check to see if the freighters are restricted.  The list with the restrictions is the server list.   The list without is the player list as well as the one that goes in the validations folder.

Sorry for the confusion.

Everyone else :

DO NOT download this until the shiplist download has been changed.

Thanks
 

[Wendigo]

bump  

[luckyFed]

Even though there is "Edited" written in DE's text, the download is still not working. I am getting a bad CRC on shiplist.txt.  

[Capt Jeff]

Yes Lucky...please wait until you see a response here from Dark Elf.

My apologies for any inconvienence....

[DarkElf]

Ok, Jeff, please email me the revised shiplist and Ill update the *.zip. I need to recompile the missions anyway.

The downloads account will be disabled until I get the fixes done.

[DarkElf]

Jeff, I only the the SPECS version of the list for the server.  I do not have the PLAYER version of the list.  Youll have to e-mail it to me.

Also, all F-MON* *insert any character here* classes start out with no hull, no hardpoints functional, among other things.


When I receive it, ill reenable the download.

[FPF_TraceyG]

DarkElf, how did your testing go today?

[KATChuutRitt]

Quote:
Using stock Taldren missions as a base, I have written two missions, that I need help testing.

Convoy Raid
Convoy Escort

There is an added new benefit to these missions, Economic Boost/Drops.  Depending on which mission you take and how you do, the EV will rise or drop.

Astounding victories will earn you +5 EV or -5EV, depending on which side your on.
Victories will earn you +2 EV or -2 EV, depnding on which side your on.

Draws will not effect EV.

Simularily, Defeats and Devestating Defeats will hurt you as well, in the above manner, only in the oppisite fashion.
 

A word of concern DE,

I like the ability to lower the Evs, but wonder about the raising of them.  Will EVs have a max limit per hex like Dvs do?  If so my concerns are diminished.  It just seems than much of the economic benefit from delivering supplies to an area only come at the expense of moving those same supplies from a different allied area.  Better utilization of existing supplies of an empire would be beneficial but have limits I think.  Irreparable damage caused by enemy attack on economic targets would likely not be a good way to go, but the boosts to ev should be about 1/2 of the potential loses IMHO.  A cool side effect might be that by the end of the server all races had lessened economies, and like the old SFB history, the economic strain to all empires would cause an end of hostilities.  Also this might start limiting the production of dreadnaughts of all races on a reasonably balanced server, which might also be kinda cool.   Just my 2 cents.

BTW sounds really cool, keep up the good work

[FPF_TraceyG]

Yes, there is a maximum EV, just like DV for every hex, in fact, both numbers are stored in exactly the same way in the database.

In game terms, the economic value of an empire is a factor upon how large, and how many ships will appear in the shipyard, ie. the ability of an empire to construct ships. So, if we think of it then purely in terms of construction capacity, a mission then constructs a shipyard or shipyard facility will increase the EV, and a mission such as a shipyard assault will decrease it, as both these missions can be thought of directly effecting the ability of an empire to construct ships.

This opens up the possibility to develop an entirely new economic model, if for example we take complete control of the shipyard via SQL, PHP, and a website. (I just lost half the audience here, I'm sure). Allow me to explain, by using phpscripts to access the SQL database directly, we can 'buy' and sell' ships through a website just as if we were buying them from the shipyard in the game. The advantages are that we can control exactly what is on offer, (an OOB if its desired), and also WHO gets them (eg you cant buy a Dread unless you're a Rear Admiral). The disadvantage is, that you have to log out of the game to buy your ship.

[Mog]

Bearing in mind that you can Alt-Tab to desktop from the ship library in-game, you don't really need to log out to do that? Just go to a backwater base/planet where there is little chance of being drafted (maybe even advertise that fact in chat if it ever works again), Alt-Tab and do your business with the website.

[FireSoul]

Quote:
Yes, there is a maximum EV, just like DV for every hex, in fact, both numbers are stored in exactly the same way in the database.

In game terms, the economic value of an empire is a factor upon how large, and how many ships will appear in the shipyard, ie. the ability of an empire to construct ships. So, if we think of it then purely in terms of construction capacity, a mission then constructs a shipyard or shipyard facility will increase the EV, and a mission such as a shipyard assault will decrease it, as both these missions can be thought of directly effecting the ability of an empire to construct ships.

This opens up the possibility to develop an entirely new economic model, if for example we take complete control of the shipyard via SQL, PHP, and a website. (I just lost half the audience here, I'm sure). Allow me to explain, by using phpscripts to access the SQL database directly, we can 'buy' and sell' ships through a website just as if we were buying them from the shipyard in the game. The advantages are that we can control exactly what is on offer, (an OOB if its desired), and also WHO gets them (eg you cant buy a Dread unless you're a Rear Admiral). The disadvantage is, that you have to log out of the game to buy your ship.

exactly the same idea I had played with.
.. don't forget the ability to have a garage (if you want to use a single ship at a time).. and the ability to REFIT. (yes, we could implement the refit function this way.)

Other ideas toyed with:
  - creating AIs for your empire with your own prestige.
  - paying for base upgrades..
  - paying for better fighters on AI ships roaming around.. (I doubt that would be always useful, but could be fun)
  - 'hiring' pirate AIs to do.. tasks..


.. other ideas?
-- Luc


Edit: PS. I'm a linux sysadmin with good perl background, some PHP .. and decent SQL experience. I've done perl + apache + SQL before, but I will admit that PHP will be less CPU intensive.

-- Luc

[FPF_TraceyG]

Ship Upgrades is definately something we should do, I agree FireSoul.

Although we're restricted to 64 ships per hull class per race, its possible we can include several hull variants that represent 'modifications' to a hull class as well. If, for example, we make modifying a ship cheaper than buying a whole new one, it might be possible to 'modify' the ship a particular player has, without that ship actually necessarily being listed in the shiplist. Not sure if that's possible, but it does open up possiblilities. We may even be able to develop a SFC3 style system , if thats the case, where players can add armor, or hull, or more warp power, at the expense of other systems of course. It's just a thought.

[FireSoul]

Quote:
Ship Upgrades is definately something we should do, I agree FireSoul.

Although we're restricted to 64 ships per hull class per race, its possible we can include several hull variants that represent 'modifications' to a hull class as well. If, for example, we make modifying a ship cheaper than buying a whole new one, it might be possible to 'modify' the ship a particular player has, without that ship actually necessarily being listed in the shiplist. Not sure if that's possible, but it does open up possiblilities. We may even be able to develop a SFC3 style system , if thats the case, where players can add armor, or hull, or more warp power, at the expense of other systems of course. It's just a thought.  

That, however, is not possible..
Everyone must have a matching shiplist... and their ship must be in it.


..uhm.. if ever a working OP D2 with SQL is ever going to come to life, would its 128 ship per hull class limit come in handy? ..
.... not to mention the work I am currently doing.


-- Luc

Edit: some examples of the Y175 refit rework I have been doing for OP+ shiplist.
 OP+ 1.21 thread

[DarkElf]

Downloads account is renabled and file is updated....

Scripts go in yourC:/Program Files/Taldren/StarFleet Command II /Assets/Scripts folder.

IMPORTANT:
Config.txt goes in your C:/Program Files/Taldren/StarFleet Command II/ folder.  Fail to do this, and you will CTD at the end of the mission!

Notice for firewall users, you may have to open port 19120.  This port is used by the SQL Mission Reporting Server.

[DarkElf]

Sorry guys, I spoke too soon.

Theres another error I need to fix, unfortuately It will have to wait until tomarrow, Im too tired.

[FPF_TraceyG]

Quote:
Downloads account is renabled and file is updated....

Scripts go in yourC:/Program Files/Taldren/StarFleet Command II /Assets/Scripts folder.

IMPORTANT:
Config.txt goes in your C:/Program Files/Taldren/StarFleet Command II/ folder.  Fail to do this, and you will CTD at the end of the mission!

Notice for firewall users, you may have to open port 19120.  This port is used by the SQL Mission Reporting Server.  

If your fixing bugs, also add in error handling routines for when 1. if the config file doesnt exist, 2. if it exists but its empty, and 3. if the file is not in the correct format.

Never allow a program to crash if you can help it. eg. if I download a mission and run it in single player, not realising I need those files, the mission should still complete and run, it just wont be able to send any extra data anywhere. Ordinarily, an appropriate error message should appear somewhere, but if you're already at the debriefing screen, that won't be possible.

[FPF_TraceyG]

Quote:

Quote:
Ship Upgrades is definately something we should do, I agree FireSoul.

Although we're restricted to 64 ships per hull class per race, its possible we can include several hull variants that represent 'modifications' to a hull class as well. If, for example, we make modifying a ship cheaper than buying a whole new one, it might be possible to 'modify' the ship a particular player has, without that ship actually necessarily being listed in the shiplist. Not sure if that's possible, but it does open up possiblilities. We may even be able to develop a SFC3 style system , if thats the case, where players can add armor, or hull, or more warp power, at the expense of other systems of course. It's just a thought.  

That, however, is not possible..
Everyone must have a matching shiplist... and their ship must be in it.


..uhm.. if ever a working OP D2 with SQL is ever going to come to life, would its 128 ship per hull class limit come in handy? ..
.... not to mention the work I am currently doing.


-- Luc
Edit: some examples of the Y175 refit rework I have been doing for OP+ shiplist.
 OP+ 1.21 thread  

It might be possible. If I buy a ship and I own it, then I remove that ship from the shiplist, when I return to the game, I still have the same ship. Its details are being taken from the database where they are stored, not from the shiplist. The ship I have wont appear anywhere else in the game though.
This leads me to 'conjecture', then (something to test perhaps), that ships added directly to the database need not be in the shiplist. A ship mod facility on a website could then generate a ship spec and place it as a player ship.

And yes, the 128 shiplimit would definately be handy in OP. Which reminds me, any and all work being done for EAW is of course going to be made available for OP as well. I have the OP API and intend to recompile any missions I write for EAW into OP as well. Currently I dont have OP so cant test them though.

[Karnak]

ISC Inv. already has the PHP scripts and web site in place, thanks to Rajnsaj.  

If a java programmer makes up the shipyard interface we can implement the full solution.  If no one can do it, I'll look into it after SG3 ends.

[FPF_TraceyG]

Quote:
ISC Inv. already has the PHP scripts and web site in place, thanks to Rajnsaj.  

If a java programmer makes up the shipyard interface we can implement the full solution.  If no one can do it, I'll look into it after SG3 ends.  

I assume you mean javascript, which at any rate would still need another scripting language like PHP to access the mySQL database to implement a fully functional shipyard. I think it goes without saying that you would be using javascript anyway, because there'd be a degree of processing in there. Javascript isnt too difficult to pick up, by the way, Karnak.

[Karnak]

Quote:

Quote:
ISC Inv. already has the PHP scripts and web site in place, thanks to Rajnsaj.  

If a java programmer makes up the shipyard interface we can implement the full solution.  If no one can do it, I'll look into it after SG3 ends.  

I assume you mean javascript, which at any rate would still need another scripting language like PHP to access the mySQL database to implement a fully functional shipyard. I think it goes without saying that you would be using javascript anyway, because there'd be a degree of processing in there. Javascript isnt too difficult to pick up, by the way, Karnak.  

Yes, java programmer means someone who can do javascript, but I also would want someone capable of making a java applet so that Iadoka can slobber all over a new webmap for flatfile-driven campaigns.  I can do all this but I am too busy with SG3 development right now.

If anyone takes the time to look at ISC Inv. sql webmap carefully, one will see I made an effort to focus EVs on the shipping lanes that connect the major planets on a given empire.  If one makes an effort to focus on the shipping lanes one can quickly deteriorate the target empires EV.  Definitely, making convoys on shipping lane hexes, shipyard, base and planetary assault/defence missions have a higher EV impact than other missions is a feature that I will use in ISC Inv.

[FPF_TraceyG]

Java is a programming language that can be used to create java applets within a HTML script. Its ahigh-level  compiled language like C++.
Javascript is a scripting language that can be either stand alone or more commonly embedded into a HTML file. Its interpreted by a browser at the time it is executed.
Other than the letter j a v a in them, they have very litle to do with each other and are completely different. Just thought I'd make that distinction.

[Karnak]

Yes, Tracey.  If I want your opinion on the nitty-gritty details of programming languages I will be sure to ask for it.  

Until then....

I like to use more laymen terms.

[FPF_TraceyG]

Just so long as we're all speaking the same language... he he

[FireSoul]

Quote:
Ship Upgrades is definately something we should do, I agree FireSoul.

Although we're restricted to 64 ships per hull class per race, its possible we can include several hull variants that represent 'modifications' to a hull class as well. If, for example, we make modifying a ship cheaper than buying a whole new one, it might be possible to 'modify' the ship a particular player has, without that ship actually necessarily being listed in the shiplist. Not sure if that's possible, but it does open up possiblilities. We may even be able to develop a SFC3 style system , if thats the case, where players can add armor, or hull, or more warp power, at the expense of other systems of course. It's just a thought.  

It's a nice thought, but takes the game into your own hands. AFAIK, the ship really does have to exist in the shiplist.
.. besides.. SFC2 wasn't designed for such modifications. In fact, because of my SFB background, I don't want to see "warp core" upgrades make it to such a thing.

The refit ability I was refering to is more like :  "Ok. It's 2275. There's a drone-rack refit available for the ship I'm currently using. Let's buy the refit update with prestige." Just like in SFC1.

[FPF_TraceyG]

Quote:

Quote:
Ship Upgrades is definately something we should do, I agree FireSoul.

Although we're restricted to 64 ships per hull class per race, its possible we can include several hull variants that represent 'modifications' to a hull class as well. If, for example, we make modifying a ship cheaper than buying a whole new one, it might be possible to 'modify' the ship a particular player has, without that ship actually necessarily being listed in the shiplist. Not sure if that's possible, but it does open up possiblilities. We may even be able to develop a SFC3 style system , if thats the case, where players can add armor, or hull, or more warp power, at the expense of other systems of course. It's just a thought.  

It's a nice thought, but takes the game into your own hands. AFAIK, the ship really does have to exist in the shiplist.
.. besides.. SFC2 wasn't designed for such modifications. In fact, because of my SFB background, I don't want to see "warp core" upgrades make it to such a thing.

The refit ability I was refering to is more like :  "Ok. It's 2275. There's a drone-rack refit available for the ship I'm currently using. Let's buy the refit update with prestige." Just like in SFC1.  

I agree completely, FireSoul, absolutely.

[Maxillius]

the only thing I didn't like about that was sometimes, if there was a refit available that I didn't want, it would let me skip the refit the first 3 or 4 times I visited space dock, then I would find they updated my ship anyway.

EDIT: WITH prestige loss as well!

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I have already completed a basic php shipyard, it is
in place on The Wheel website.  Currently it just allows access
to the normal shipyard through the webpage.  I will add to it's capabilities
and add it to the portable php package in use on the ISC Invasion website
if I have enough time to finish it for the campaign (could use the existing simple one tho...)

There is already a java servlet and applet package in the works for SQL EAW D2 servers
as well. This has been put on hold for a time due to RL issues but I assume work will
resume to full pace soon. (The CVS Repository is still active...I'll try to contribute some
more to get things going again).

I love that garage idea, I'm going to try to work it out soon.
Refits/Upgrades could be implemented by an instantaneous bid and trade-in
but this would interfere with normal bidding... hmmm....

I can't wait to see a "working OP D2 with SQL", the new shiplist
would really come in handy too.

I'll logon the test server later on tonight if I get a chance...  

[Karnak]

You are da man, rajnsaj.  Or, should I say yer da Kat.

When you are ready we can set it up for ISC Inv.

Quote:
I have already completed a basic php shipyard, it is
in place on The Wheel website.  Currently it just allows access
to the normal shipyard through the webpage.  I will add to it's capabilities
and add it to the portable php package in use on the ISC Invasion website
if I have enough time to finish it for the campaign (could use the existing simple one tho...)

There is already a java servlet and applet package in the works for SQL EAW D2 servers
as well. This has been put on hold for a time due to RL issues but I assume work will
resume to full pace soon. (The CVS Repository is still active...I'll try to contribute some
more to get things going again).

I love that garage idea, I'm going to try to work it out soon.
Refits/Upgrades could be implemented by an instantaneous bid and trade-in
but this would interfere with normal bidding... hmmm....

I can't wait to see a "working OP D2 with SQL", the new shiplist
would really come in handy too.

I'll logon the test server later on tonight if I get a chance...  

[FireSoul]

Quote:
I can't wait to see a "working OP D2 with SQL", the new shiplist
would really come in handy too.  

I'm close to the end of the 'development cycle' for it. After 2 weeks of being obsessed with it, it's about time.
.. 2 weeks.. wow.. has it been that long? All this work and the focus wasn't even adding ships, but optomizing the shiplist into something more.. coherant.