Colonial Conquest

[Kroah]

Hello Pascal,

Any news about CoCoNet ??

Fabrice, still on air.

Hi Fabrice!

Nice to see you here

Even if CoCoNet is ready for beta test, I'm currently working on the Alternate Reality section because:
1) AR section is done at 90% since last year.
2) To put the Colonial Conquest section, i must put online the AR section first (some changes in PHP).

I fear you should wait a little more.

Anyway, thank you to have some interests in CoCoNet

[captain jack]

Hallo Kroah,
i visit nearly daily this forum to see over if theres new pieces of news.
Is there any progress?
When can we count on a test version from colonial conquest?


with best regards
captain jack

sorry for my bad english!

[Kroah]

Hallo Kroah,
i visit nearly daily this forum to see over if theres new pieces of news.
Is there any progress?
When can we count on a test version from colonial conquest?

sorry for my bad english!

Welcome Jack!

English is not my native language either .

Thank you for your interest in CoCoNet. I'll start working on it after Alternate Reality, which is nearly done. Still some stuffs to add and spelling checks to do.

Concerning CoCoNet, even if i wanted to implement savegames before the beta release, i think i'll add it later.

To say you everything, we were alpha-testing CoCoNet with Monty and Symoon for several months last year until private life came in. The last version of CoCoNet was very promising and i can't wait working on it again . Monty and Symoon contacted me to get ready for testing too.

By the way, if you don't want to check the forum everyday, you can click on "watch this forum" at the bottom of the forum page. You'll receive a mail when a new message will be posted, including the one i'll post for the beta-release of CoCoNet. I'll certainly post a message on the Atari-Forum too.

Regards,
Pascal

[Symoon]

True that private life left very little spare time !
I haven't watched the forum for months, but still have a pool of players that might be ready to have a go on a Coconet test (thought synchronising 3 or 4 people with family life won't be easy
Cheers

[Kroah]

Hey Symoon!

Glad to read you .

I'm actively writing the last pages of AR. I can't stand showing my work on it and on top of that, your words make me even more eager to work on CoCo again!

See you soon!

[Monty]

Concerning CoCoNet, even if i wanted to implement savegames before the beta release, i think i'll add it later.

... thought synchronising 3 or 4 people with family life won't be easy

That's so very true and because of that I think it might be VERY useful to implement the savegame-feature as soon as possible...

Can't wait to play the Beta, even though I forgot all the little details from "behind the curtain" (Game mechanisms etc. - Though I only scratched the surface knowledge-wise)...

Greetz,
Monty

[Monty]

Hi Kroah,
do you have a rough schedule concerning the re-start of working on CoCoNet?
As far as I remember the public beta was kinda ready (including the revised battle system, which i'm eager to test) and just waiting for Alternate Reality getting finished. Now that AR is done, can we expect an update soon?
No pressure, just curiosity
Cheers, Monty

[Kroah]

Hi Kroah,
do you have a rough schedule concerning the re-start of working on CoCoNet?
As far as I remember the public beta was kinda ready (including the revised battle system, which i'm eager to test) and just waiting for Alternate Reality getting finished. Now that AR is done, can we expect an update soon?
No pressure, just curiosity
Cheers, Monty

Hi Monty! Nice to read you.

After Grand Prix Manager 2, a friend of mine asked me some information on Chaos Engine. I've just finished a level/sprite viewer and i'm putting up a mini-section for it. After that, i will be 100% on CoCoNet .

Concerning CoCoNet, i've tried to find a bug you've stumbled upon when playing > 2 players, but nothing found right now.
I've thought about a way to save and load a game too. Saving is easy... but loading is not a piece of cake. I think i'll have to rewrite some parts of the connections handler.
I want to find a way to make the AI less predictable too. I'll certainly do that after the first release only.

I've bought a new house and i move at the end of the month. I will not have internet for a month (at least) and few time for CoCoNet next month . I'm still eager to work on it.

Cheers,
Kroah

[Monty]

Hey, congrats on that new house (i hope it's already fortified, otherwise you'd have to spend another 1,000,000 $ on it ).
Great to hear it's going on with CoCoNet sooner or later, it's already a great product and still has potential for even more. I like the idea of making the AI less predictable, i already feared that i knew too much now...
Good luck with your moving!
Cya, Monty

[Kroah]

Hey, congrats on that new house (i hope it's already fortified, otherwise you'd have to spend another 1,000,000 $ on it ).

It's a fortified house, i don't want my neighbor spies me easily!

Great to hear it's going on with CoCoNet sooner or later, it's already a great product and still has potential for even more. I like the idea of making the AI less predictable, i already feared that i knew too much now...

I just added the load/save feature and it seems to work fine. Unfortunately, i will not have an Internet connection at home until the end of August at least. So i can't deeply test anything, nor give you anything to test. As soon as possible, I'll leave you a message at the private CoCoNet Forum to beta test (if you have some time to spend on it). Symoon would be in the party too i hope.

Now my main concern is the AI, some special cases are still predictable. This will not postpone the release anyway.

I want to add the original AI and let the user chooses between both AI.

The user can code his own AI too, letting the game compiles the AI C# class, but i don't know if this is a good thing because there's actually no way to debug anything without Visual Studio, so it's hard to code a new AI. All users must have the same AI C# files in their working directory, not easy when the AI is updated frequently. I'll try to let the server sends the files over the net, so the clients will always have the good AI files.

Concerning the window/screen resolution, i don't see an easy fix to double the window size: even if the UI seems custom, it's full Windows controls (with custom styles). That's why i added the fullscreen feature: easy to implement and no need to fiddle with the gfx.

Cheers

[Symoon]

I for sure will try to get players involved in a few games when there's a new version
I know 4 other potential players, most now have kids and so on but who knows, they might find a moment to test!

[Kroah]

Hi all,

Some news about CoCoNet!

I've worked a lot on it last month. Some major new features:
- Added Custom AI (compiled at run time)
- Custom AI files sent over the network if needed (server->client)
- Option to select distinct AI for each Computer
- Vanilla AI available
- Load & Save game feature (finally!)
- Clients can't join a server with a different CoCoNet version

I need a last feedback concerning the window size:
Monty asked several months (years?) ago if it was possible to stretch the window (zoom x2). I said it was not easy but i added a fullscreen feature.

Now i need your opinion: You wanted a stretched window because:
- the text & world map is too small?
- the text size is ok, but the map could fill the screen?
- everything is ok...

I think i could double the world map size. BUT all texts would still remain at their actual size (including all windows & the menu). Do you think doubling the world map size is a good idea or the biggest problem is the font size?

Thanks

[captain jack]

Hi Kroah,
great news! That sounds good.
I count the days.
If you need some tester, here i´am

greetings from germany
captain jack

[Kroah]

If you need some tester, here i´am

Hi Captain,

You are now a member of the CoCoNet beta tester team.
You have access to the CoCoNet forum where you'll be able to post your feedbacks (bugs, ideas...) and get the next version of CoCoNet.
A good idea is to subscribe to this private forum (check the bottom of the forum page).

Wait for the forthcoming release before posting anything because the last one is too old.

See you there!

[Kroah]

After two months of hard work, next beta release is ready for testing. The package will be available this WE (tomorrow i think). I'll post release information and the link in the CoCoNet forum.

I hope beta-testers will have spare time to give me some feedbacks.
Because the client part of this release (v9.6.33) is a major overhaul of the previous one (v9.5.32), it may be less stable, so be careful to all details .

CoCoNet now uses Direct3D 9 (with XNA) to speed up 2D drawing. GDI+ was not able to maintain a descent framerate when the map was zoomed at 1920x1200 with a GeForce 7600GS (~= 6600GT):
- GDI+: ~15 fps
- D3D: ~130 fps

The card must be compatible PixelShader 2.0 and VertexShader 1.1. For your information, an old GeForce 5200 FX has PS2.0 and VS2.0, so it should not be a problem.

See you soon!