[Freeciv-Dev] Re: observers (was: Against cheating clients: veteran status patch.)

[David Pfitzner <dwp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff Mallatt wrote:

> This patch lead me think:  Are observers more or less knowledgeable than an
> "enemy" player?  (By "observers", I mean those observers where
> (pconn->player == NULL).

Good question, and one which I didn't fully come to a decision on
in the implementation of observers so far.  A possibility would be
for pconn->observer to be not be boolean in this case, but instead
enumerate a few observer levels, eg: 
  0 - not observer
  1 - union of player visibilities, see as "enemy"
  2 - full map, see as "enemy"
  3 - full map, see full details of each player

>  Observers that are attached to players should see
> exactly what the player would see, right?)

Yes.  (Well, except on some cases for "response" messages which seem
better going to the requesting connection (eg "you can't do that")
although one could imagine uses where observer might like to see 
those too (eg, observing/testing client AI).)

-- David