Hoi hoi all,

here are the latest updates...
...

Added code so after a scenerio is won, if the client remains idle for more than 90 seconds, then they are disconnected. This was needed since some players were quitting after the scenerio has completed, which left them logged into the server for days on end. They were not being disconnected, because the server was waiting for them to request to move onto the next scenerio

Increased the timeout value to 120 seconds, basically if it takes your machine more than 120 seconds to load you'll get disconnected. This was set to 60 seconds, which might have caused some slower machines to get disconnect once they get through the loading screen

Server crash has been fixed.. this was being caused by some data in the persistant file. Hopefully, this is the same bug that would cause servers to crash if they were stopped, then started back up.

Also fixed the save as box for persistant files, they were being saved with 2 dots.

Fixed a bug where the resources for a structure were used, but the structure was not built.

Added click tracking code the links on the main DS page. The links are sorted by the number of clicks now, so the most popular web sites should be at the top.

The shipselection Screen has been redone, you can now filter which class of ships to show, and they no longer change position based on what is enabled/disabled.

Well, fixed a pretty major bug with the collision detection. Firstly, ray to sphere collision was messed up, basically it would collide with the sphere even though the ray was going the other direction. This was causing some weirdness, especially since the beam weapons use this code alot. The fix was 2 lines, if ( v < d ) return false;

Also, added new code so that the collision detection will take in the radius of the ray. Basically, a fat-ray to sphere collision detection. This has basically fixed the problem with white lines on the navigation map where your ship may hit the outer part of the planet.

Richard currently working on the ship AI to do actual object advoidance. This means if you click orbit on a planet, the ship will actually plot a course around the object.

This will be very important to properly add all the space monsters into the game.

Fixed the navigation map, so that flag planets are ALWAYS shown in the contacts list.

Ships no longer use or require resources from the planets. They've made this change because they want to implement a different method for determining which ships are available or not. For the immediate future, the only requirements are that you have the badge and rank to take a ship.

Several changes with the fighters. Firstly, the sabot rocket has been replaced with an AR missile, making them far more deadly against other ships, however usless against planetary targets. (Note: We will be adding a fighter bomber which can attack planetary targets after release). Fighters now credit any damage done back to their mothership. Fighters can turn tighter now, which should fix the problem with fighters not being able to redock.

Added a Sensor Base, Anti-Sensor base, and interdictor base to the structures an engineer can build Changed the costs and fixed some problems with the new structures. Added code to display the average kilobytes received and sent on the server dialog.

Added a couple of new devices, which will be used firstly by the space monsters. The ELF device stands for electromagnetic leech field, basically it drains energy from ships with 750 gu of the device when active. This will be used by our energy monster who will gain health from extra energy (including energy based weapons). This space monster will really cause no harm other than to go around chasing ships and feeding.

This is unlike the crystaline entity which will get the death beam. This entity HATES all life, and will prompty destroy the most populated planet in the system with it's death beam.

The Gaifen will get more powerful weapons than before as well, so be cautious when attacking this monster. This creature feeds on hydrogen, so you will find it guarding hydrogen rich planets or nebulas.

Fixed a major problem with projectile trails, which also affected fighters. Fighters should have a much shorter trail now, which will cut down alot on the render lag caused by fighters. Also, in battle situations, trails will be much shorted and thusly render speeds should be better.

He is tweaking the missile and fighter flight code, to make them turn smoother and more life like.

Change much code in the spawn object, which allows him much more flexibilty in setting up monster and ship spawn points within the game. He can now make spawns recur, limit the number of units spawned, and introduce a random chance of the spawn occuring or not.

He have seen some problems with issues connecting to the lobby, so to attack this he have setup 4 meta-servers on our primary machine. This should help, since if the lobby fails to connect to 1, it will attempt a connection to the next.

Database is much faster now, Richard setup the chat table much better now so it no longer causes spikes in CPU usage when the metaserver checks for new chat messages every 5 seconds.

He have made it a bit more difficult to make a planet revolt. It's also now possible to completely destroy all population from a planet. However, no UGTO or ICC weapons can do this. how to colonize this "dead" planets again !? Same as caping neutral planets, drop infantry..

Added code to control a spread factor of the beam, so he can make certain beam weapons spread out at the end.

Currently, only the tractor beam and death beam use this code.

puuh :)