[Freeciv-Dev] Re: civserver segfault with new research system (PR#1221)

["Ross W. Wetmore" <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:01 AM 02/01/17 +0100, Reinier Post wrote:
>On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 12:27:59AM -0500, Justin Moore wrote:
>> 
>> > > > > Do barbarians research at all?
>> > > >
>> > > > That is the question.
>> > >
>> > >    I would say no.  I think it's possible for them to get techs, but
not
>> > > to research them.
>> >
>> > Well where do you put the special cases for barbarians?
>> > A flexible solution is to make barbarians always set science to 0%.
>> 
>> IANAFH (I am not a freeciv hacker), but ...
>> 
>>    That's one way, but I think it would be easier to put the chokepoint
>> (so-to-speak) in the code where you increase the amount of research done
>> (where the lightbulb total increases).  It's relatively well-defined, and
>> would take care of cases where science is set to non-zero for whatever
>> reason, or if something gives the barbarians some light bulbs.
>
>I never liked the idea of barbarians - ideally they should just be
>normal players with a few special (ruleset) properties.  That way you can
>introduce half-barbarians and other interesting varieties without trouble.
>A hardcoded is_barbarian() test is ugly.  But the code is not going to come
>from me so do whatever you like ...

One way to look at it is ... they are. It is just that the concept(s) never 
made it into the ruleset properties, so are still rather hardcoded :-)

>> -jdm
>-- 
>Reinier

Cheers,
RossW
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