[Freeciv] Re: rndCiv script

[Reinier Post <rp@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Oct 06, 2003 at 10:11:20PM +1300, banjo wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 04:00, Thomas Strub wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 04, 2003 at 09:07:13PM +1200, banjo wrote:
> > > Tangentally to this, ive got a perl script that extends the techtree.
> > > 
> > > What i does is create randomly shuffled techtrees, either very close to
> > > the standard tree or you can ask it to shuffle in other genera's of
> > > advances (ie. steampunk, cyber, fantasy, ... ).  

I know this is too much to ask, but do you think you can do a Perl script
that takes a ruleset and produces a HTML representation for display
on pubserver.freeciv.org?  That's most of what we need to put it in
operation there.  Because players surely would like to have a means of
*seeing* the tech tree before decide to participate.  Or is the idea
to let this be a surprise?

> > The idea from randomly shuffled techtrees is nice, but it would be nicer
> > if you would have written it for the server in C. Perhaps gen-techtree.
> i don't think it needs to be rewritten in C, but if anyone wants to
> that's fine by me, the data files are the important bit.

For security reasons the server as shipped cannot execute Perl scripts.

So if the server has to trigger techtree generation after startup,
it is best to write it in C.

> Ross Wetmore <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx> added:
> > This is not likely to be used once the game starts, and hence how you
> > access it or what its performance characteristics are is not of major
> > concern.
> 
> I don't think the server could handle the ruleset being redefined once
> the game has run.  Anyway the script writes out the rulesets to a
> directory, and maybe this way a cool ruleset can be saved to be
> replayed.

My concern is with the user interface.  At present, the ruleset cannot
be inspected from the client side before the game has started.  For
multiplayer use,players must be able to investigate the current ruleset
in pregame state.  (Perhaps the CVS client allows this?  1.14.1-beta1 doesn't.)

> The icons for new units would best be handled by ESR's idea of each icon
> being it's own file in a dir tree. Has this been done??

Look at the CVS version - there is no development on that at the moment.
As long as everything falls back gracefully, it's OK.

-- 
Reinier