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CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2012, 21:02
by Kroah
CoCoNet 1.0.1 is released !

Download link : CoCoNet Homepage
You can also check the CoCoNet 1.0.0 gameplay video on youtube.

Thanks to everyone having given their feedbacks & ideas or reported some bugs !

Changelog:
Fixed: Spelling in the winner dialog box (reported by Christine)
Fixed (?): Crash after clicking on the Host or Join button
New: "Move army" & "move navy" menu items are remplaced by a single "Move strength" entry (suggestion from cr1x)
New: "Move army" & "move navy" windows are remplaced by a single "Move stength" window
New: If the only available action on an area is "Move strength", then the move window appears without having to click in the popup menu first
New: Additional "<" & ">" buttons in the move strength window to speed up transfer (suggestion from Christine, cr1x & dizt3mp3r)
New: Additional "<" & ">" buttons in the build strength window to speed up purchase
New: Statistics window now shows a legend at the top (suggestion from Christine)

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2012, 22:41
by cr1x
Hi Kroah, great work with this update; very slick. :P

If you would like some constructive criticism based on my first impressions, then I would offer the following:

The menu item: 'Move strength' is not quite the right term and I would suggest replacing it with either:
'Movement'; or
'Military movement'.

The movement window could do with some minor adjustments:
The numbers shown under 'source' seem to be showing the same information twice, why? Surely the army and navy numbers only need to be shown once.
Under 'source' it uses the term 'Naval strength' for naval forces but 'Current strength' for army, shouldn't the term 'Current strength' be replaced with 'Army strength'?

That's it for now. Hope this is useful.

Great work. :D

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 13 Jul 2012, 22:51
by Kroah
cr1x wrote:The menu item: 'Move strength' is not quite the right term and I would suggest replacing it with either:
'Movement'; or
'Military movement'.
OK for "Movement" !
If you see some other strange terms, i'm ready :).

cr1x wrote:The movement window could do with some minor adjustments:
The numbers shown under 'source' seem to be showing the same information twice, why? Surely the army and navy numbers only need to be shown once.
The numbers in gray take into account the incoming moves (i call this the "projected" army or navy). If no move are incoming, then the numbers are equal.

cr1x wrote:Under 'source' it uses the term 'Naval strength' for naval forces but 'Current strength' for army, shouldn't the term 'Current strength' be replaced with 'Army strength'?
In fact those terms come from the Atari ST version. I think we should change some of them to have everything homogeneous. On top of that, this is mandatory if we want one day to define them in the xml (for example, to change the word boat with airship).

Thanks for the feedback !

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 14 Jul 2012, 13:51
by Christine
Well, the movement is... it needs getting used to it, but its a good solution. It will make the gameplay a bit faster, but the original feel is gone. Whatever, if I have some time to play a new game, I'm sure it would only gets me 2-3 minutes to get used to it.

The bug that appears while clicking "host" to fast seams gone. But theres a new bug:
While testing my new map with only AI players, the game is significant slower then before.
An other AI bug seams to be in the "RandomsRegionId" AI option:
it seams that the AI is ingoring this option a bit.

An Example. In my scenario, italy has the following rand id:
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9
I cant see that italy attacks more the regions 3 or 9.
I so i tested this rand id:
3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,3,9,9,9,9,9,9,9,9
in the first turn, italy was conquering something in region 6. But after, italy tends to attack region 3 or 9. If this issnt a bug, than I suggest to get the AI following more strict to the rand id.

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 14 Jul 2012, 14:07
by Christine
and the next bug is in the statistic:
if nobody has a region, the upper graphic showed all players like they have 1 region. Thats okay cause nobody has a region.
But its really ugly if 1 player gets his first region, some turns later losts his frst, than gets it again, lost it, gets it a again and so on.
Maybe you could get the graph to only show players having a region.

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 14 Jul 2012, 14:08
by Christine
oh, and the next bug:
the game carshes while minimizing it with opend statistics.

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 15 Jul 2012, 04:53
by Kroah
Christine wrote:Well, the movement is... it needs getting used to it, but its a good solution.

I actually don't know a better solution. I'm open to any suggestions.

Christine wrote:It will make the gameplay a bit faster, but the original feel is gone.

Please, explain me to which "original feel" are you referring to ?
You mean the previous version of CoCoNet ? or Colonial Conquest ?

Christine wrote:While testing my new map with only AI players, the game is significant slower then before.

Can you tell me the running context ? (autoend turn on/off, show battles of/off, etc...)

Christine wrote:An other AI bug seams to be in the "RandomsRegionId" AI option:
it seams that the AI is ingoring this option a bit.

FYI, This tag is only used by the Atari ST AI (not the 800 XL).
I will do some tests.

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 15 Jul 2012, 04:55
by Kroah
Christine wrote:and the next bug is in the statistic:
if nobody has a region, the upper graphic showed all players like they have 1 region. Thats okay cause nobody has a region.
But its really ugly if 1 player gets his first region, some turns later losts his frst, than gets it again, lost it, gets it a again and so on.
Maybe you could get the graph to only show players having a region.

I know.
I wanted first to remove this stats but finally left it to check if regions were computed correctly.
I don't have a simple way to prevent this behavior.

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 15 Jul 2012, 12:59
by Christine
Kroah wrote:
Christine wrote:Well, the movement is... it needs getting used to it, but its a good solution.

I actually don't know a better solution. I'm open to any suggestions.

I think there is no way to do it any better.

Kroah wrote:
Christine wrote:It will make the gameplay a bit faster, but the original feel is gone.

Please, explain me to which "original feel" are you referring to ?
You mean the previous version of CoCoNet ? or Colonial Conquest ?

I mean the original colonial conquest. Playing coconet always means a little bit nostalgy to me. Maybe you can make the "new movement system" as an option (default: on) if somebody wants the original feel back. But I really like the new system!Ill test the new system today with our kids. Im interessted to know that they're thinking (and if it is to complicated for them). Ill report you later...

Kroah wrote:
Christine wrote:While testing my new map with only AI players, the game is significant slower then before.

Can you tell me the running context ? (autoend turn on/off, show battles of/off, etc...)

autoend turn: on
show battles: off
battle sound: off
display moves: on
display strenghts: on
display geo: off
display worth: off
display adjacencies: off

zoom 2x: on
fullscreen: off
enable vsync: off
enable sound: on
mem stats: on
left button only: off

view: everyone


Kroah wrote:
Christine wrote:An other AI bug seams to be in the "RandomsRegionId" AI option:
it seams that the AI is ingoring this option a bit.

FYI, This tag is only used by the Atari ST AI (not the 800 XL).
I will do some tests.

if tested it with the atari st ai. Thats the only selectable AI at the moment...

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 15 Jul 2012, 13:11
by Christine
Kroah wrote:
Christine wrote:and the next bug is in the statistic:
if nobody has a region, the upper graphic showed all players like they have 1 region. Thats okay cause nobody has a region.
But its really ugly if 1 player gets his first region, some turns later losts his frst, than gets it again, lost it, gets it a again and so on.
Maybe you could get the graph to only show players having a region.

I know.
I wanted first to remove this stats but finally left it to check if regions were computed correctly.
I don't have a simple way to prevent this behavior.


my first idea is: dont show players who dont have a region. But this also looks a bit ugly.
an more complex idea is:
display the percentage of the region witch is the players greatest region. Expl:
region 1 = 10 countrys
region 2 = 20 countrys
player 1 = 7 countrys in reg 1 AND 7 in reg 2. -> player has 70% of a region (biggest value)
player 2 = 3 countrys in reg 1 AND 12 in reg 2 -> player has 60% of reg2 as biggest value

-> display all players with there current percantage of a region

if player 3 gets the whole region 3, the player would only be displayed as the "biggest" one, not the only one having a region.

But thats only an idea. I dont care about the upper region graph. In most cases Im looking to the graph at the bottom.

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 15 Jul 2012, 13:55
by Christine
and the next 2 bugs:
- italy have conquered a territory in my spanish mainland. I have moved the mouse over the flag to see the worth of the country: unknown. Should be: known, because its my mainland.

the bug with the minimizing appears also if playing an opengl/directx game while coconet is open. At first, a part of the coconet window (the "movement phase"-bar) is displayed in the new fullscreen opengl program. After quitting the new program ('cause i clicked it instead of my browser), coconet crashes. The log is included.

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 15 Jul 2012, 16:39
by Kroah
Christine wrote:- italy have conquered a territory in my Spanish mainland. I have moved the mouse over the flag to see the worth of the country: unknown. Should be: known, because its my mainland.

Right, it's now fixed.

Christine wrote:the bug with the minimizing appears also if playing an opengl/directx game while coconet is open. At first, a part of the coconet window (the "movement phase"-bar) is displayed in the new fullscreen opengl program. After quitting the new program ('cause i clicked it instead of my browser), coconet crashes. The log is included.

The "new fullscreen opengl program" seems to have exclusive access to the graphic device.
I have added some code to prevent CoCoNet to crash in this case : the map should show a red screen with a flickering black text "Another application has exclusive access to the 3D graphic device".
I can't test it myself with my graphic card, and i don't know if the fix is enough to restore the graphic device when the other application will release it.

Thanks for the feedbacks.

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 15 Jul 2012, 16:50
by Kroah
Christine wrote:oh, and the next bug:
the game carshes while minimizing it with opend statistics.

It's now fixed.

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 15 Jul 2012, 16:54
by Kroah
Christine wrote:While testing my new map with only AI players, the game is significant slower then before.

In this release, i have lowered the update frequency of the server to 20Hz. This is enough if not using autoend turn, but forgot some people still use it.
I have set it back to 200 Hz.

Re: CoCoNet 1.0.1 released

PostPosted: 15 Jul 2012, 17:41
by cr1x
Well, I have had a few more games and really liking the new movement, much simpler. As a suggestion and as a minor cosmetic improvement: I would suggest that when you click on a country and select it for a movement order (prior to selecting a destination), the country has a slight colour change – either lighter or darker tone of the original colour. This would only be a minor change but I think it could be quite significant as it will make it clear to the player that a country has been selected. The country could then be deselected by either selecting a destination and carrying out a movement order or by simply clicking on the same country again to cancel the selection (at the moment you have to select 'Cancel move' from a popup menu and this seems unnecesssary to me)

What do you think?