[Freeciv-Dev] Re: CMA and observer (PR#1557)

[Per I Mathisen <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 13 Jun 2002, Christian Knoke wrote:
> As a player, I'm quite happy if you switch off controlling clients
> for now.
>
> But if there is a possibility of having _observing_ clients, which
> does not require much work, I'd be glad. But I guess it *is* much work.

Well observing clients works now with Raimar's patch, but even with my
improved version the client isn't really prepared for it. It is also a
poorly tested feature.

I've done a little testing of this feature, and here are my opinions:

Comments in the code says observers get full access to the map
(omniscience). This is not correct, nor do I think it should be this way.

The "set allowconnect" option must go. It is much too crude and much too
detailed at the same time. It doesn't allow setting these options per
player, but allows us to set them for dead players and makes a pointless
distinction between AI and barbarian players. Also there is no point in
allowing anything but observers for AI/barbarian players.

What we need is two options, one "observers <player>" which enables or
disables observers for that player, and one "coop <player>" which enables
or disables multiple controlling connections for that player. The
remaining functionality in "allowconnect" is entirely superfluous.

Furthermore, we need to gray out all options not available to an observer
in all clients when we are an observer. My patch does this for keys and
menues, but we still have all the dialogs to go.

The "coop" feature needs a lot of thought and testing, in particular the
interaction between multiple dialogs. However, it does seem to work fine
most of the time as long as CMA is not used. I am confident there is a
huge number of bugs to be found here.

None of the above should be done before release. The option is marked
experimental. That'll have to do, I think.

Yours,
Per

"It is difficult to catch a black cat in a dark room.
Especially if there is no cat there." - Confucius