Re: [Freeciv-Dev] Idea for 2.0

[Artur Biesiadowski <abies@xxxxxxxxx>]

Peter Schaefer wrote:

> 
> Ok, maybe that was not a good enough point - here is a better one:
> If the client sends the map to the server for safekeeping anyway,
> why not keep it in the server from the start ?
> 
> Last time I played on a small connection, downloading
> the map took very long - so I think yes, it matters.

I don't think that it is possible to avoid transmiting vital statistics
during reconnect/load game. During that time entire map can be send in
one packet - it would be not a lot of data (40k ?)

For now it seems that every map is send by one tile at time. It might be
good in some cases, but when for example two players exchange maps in
late game it is an overkill (if I understand it correctly each tile is

short length;
char packet_type;
int x;
int y;
int type;
int special;
int known;

Which gives 23 bytes per tile - compared to maybe 4 that are really
needed (only type and special are needed - and surely not 32 bits for
each, unknown can be represented by another terrain type). A lot of
overhead.

BTW, maybe we can just use terrain type VOID for representing unknown
tiles ? This way map would be a bit more consistent - no need to check
special case of non-known tile ?

Artur