Battleship Tech Rework Complete

The new battleship tech is done and tested.

New Battleship Tech Nearly Done

The new battleship tech is nearly done.   There is a new tech tree, a new equipment list and new unit types.  I still need to get the obsolete equipment to drop off the list correctly, but everything else is working.

Depending on your tech level, you can build everything from a HMS Dreadnought class ship to the (Never built) USS Montana.

There is also naval targeting tech, allowing the offensive capabilty of older ships to go up after they are in service.

Latest News.

This last week I have been mostly working on tool programming and working on the new tech editor within in the game editor.   There is nothing visible from a user standpoint, but its effects will be.

Client Update: Saving Unit Lists

Added the ability to save the unit lists as a .csv file so they can be loaded into Excel or other programs that read .csv files.

Client Update

The antisubmarine warfare values for organizations are now displayed correctly.

Bug Fix

Fixed a problem where you could not always cancel an organization's add unit order.

Updated Manual

Updated the trade page of the manual to read:

Trade

Trade is important to a superpower, it allows you to gain things you need without having to go to war to get them.

You can trade resources, companies, technology, units and regions for cash. Resources and companies can be sold to the market or other players. Technology, units and regions can only be traded to other players.

A transaction will not be executed until both sides approve it.

When buying resources, you must have enough storage to hold the resources purchased. If you do not have enough room to store what you have purchased, your government will only buy enough to top off your storage.

The market price for resources is set entirely by supply and demand. For example, if the grain price is rising, it means that more is being purchased from the market than is being produced. Keep in mind that this is also affected by the sales and purchaces of the other players.

Trading an organization also trades any units contained within it.

When you trade an incomplete unit to another player, they may not be able to finish construction on that unit unless they have the technology for it.

Help File Updated and Server Down.

Updated the help file to include the new score window and task list.

Took down the server.

End of Campaign Thirteen: Final Scores

Geography:

Most Regions: Italy 48 / 150
Whole Continents: USA 3 / 7
Largest Population: Japan 815,485,915 / 2,912,699,770

Military:

Land Combat Attack Strength: USA 1,064,270 / 1,941,134
Air to Air Combat Strength: Japan 14,903 / 31,828
Bomber Strength: Japan 521,942 / 798,559
Regions in Bomber Range: Italy 141 / 169
Sea Combat Strength: Japan 311.6 / 702.4
Naval Cargo Space: Italy 6,766,920 / 18,878,337

Economics:

Share of Grain Produced: USA 118.8 / 248.2
Share of Oil Produced: Britain 638.8 / 1,422.8
Share of Minerals Produced: USA 135.4 / 317.5

For the first time, in this game at the end oil was plentiful, but grain was in short supply, selling at over 200,000 per unit.

A note on the most regions score, in the future we will be counting land and sea regions separately.

The server is down and will be until the start of the next game.

Score Window Updated

Added economic data and a diplomatic section to the score window.

Working on the server version that will produce the definitive score.

Work Continues on the Score Screen.

The score window is a little more complete, still not done, but getting there.

Be advised that the score screen only shows what you can see. If someone else has more of something, and it is not visible to you, it is not considered in the score.

Client Update

Added a region home page. Reworked the region storage page and added separate icon column so you can now sort by icon.

Added a score window to the view item on the main menu.

Client Update

Added construction time to the unit type info view.

Transaction and Budget Page Changes

I changed the way the market approval check boxes work. They now indicate weather or not the market will approve the transaction next turn rather than weather or not the transaction was approved last turn.

The budget page now shows the results of the transaction only if both sides have approved the transaction rather than always showing it if you have approved it.

Hardware Failure

I Got a CPU overheat alarm on the server last night and shut down the system and went back to bed.

It turned out that the CPU heat sink was clogged with dust and wasn't letting any air through.

I blew out the heat sink and cleaned the fan and we were up and running again this afternoon.

Client Update: Transaction Rules

You can no longer create orders to sell the same company, region or unit to two or more other players.

Client Update

Removed the unused quantity edit box from the "Create Storage" dialog.

Client Update

Increased the precision on the company expansion orders page. If the expansion capacity is less than one, the edit text box now defaults to that number instead of 1.00.

Added Missing Equipment

Added the rest of the missing tech-7 bombers and tanks to the equipment database.

New British Submarines

Added the British Porpoise and Oberon class submarines to the equipment list.

Server Update: Load and Unload Messages

Adjusted the text of the load and unload transports message to make it clearer as to who's ships are being loaded.

Server Update

Cleaned up some of the text on the transaction message, added commas to the quantity fields.

Manual Updated: The Storage Tab

Updated the text of the Storage tab section of the Region Info View section of the manual to read:

The Storage Tab

The far right tab is the storage tab. This is where you can see the region's resource storage capacity and add additional storage.

Clicking on the button labeled "Build" will pull up a dialog that allows you to create additional storage for this region.

To build storage units with a greater capacity than one, adjust the quantity on the second (Select Unit Equipment) page.

Lots of Changes

While I was on vacation and was free from interruptions I made a whole bunch of changes to the game:

• Added a message in mail to show that an air mission has failed due to enemy interference.
• Fixed the missing "The server is busy incrementing the turn" dialog.
• Fixed an error in the code for the open company order that kept it from being executed.
• Consolidated the context menu (Right Click) code on all of the company lists. Added "Show My Companies" and "Show Others' Companies" to the context menu. Removed the redundant "Show Only Nationalized Companies" check box from the national government company tab.
• Added the ability to build large capacity storage units.

Manual Updated: Nation Info View, Build Queue

The Build Queue section of the manual has been updated to:

The Build Queue Tab

The build queue tab has six columns available:

The unit's icon

The unit's build order

The unit's name

The region the unit is in

The unit's build priority

When the unit is scheduled to be complete

A unit's build order is the order in which the order to construct this unit was issued. The oldest order is number one.

The unit's build priority is the priority the unit gets resources. Priority one units get access to resources before any other units. The default priority is "3".

To change a unit's build priority, right click on the unit and select "Change Priority". You can also select "Halt" which will put the unit's construction on hold.

The column labeled "complete" is when the unit is scheduled to be complete. Resource shortages will cause this date to be pushed out to a later date.

The columns can be rearranged according to your preferences by dragging them to a new position. To restore them to defaults, right click on the list and select "Reset to Defaults".

Client Update

Added a unit completion date column to the build queue page.

Client Update

Lightened the stockpile bars on the government info page to enhance readability.

Client Update

The 'Hold' order is now uploaded correctly.
Join organization no longer lists other players' organizations.

Transaction Report Updated

I cleaned up the text in the transaction report. It now shows the current prices of the commodities. I also fixed an error in the text for failed transactions.

Client Update

Added the unit name(s) to the final approval page of the build unit wizard.

Client Update

You can now only upload orders after downloading the current turn from the server. You can no longer load a locally saved game, edit orders and upload them to the server.

Company Expansion Window Fixed

The new production edit box on the company expansion window now rounds correctly.

Rule Change: Region Capture

Units under construction no longer vanish like soap bubbles when a region changes hands. They are now marked complete with their current equipment and training status. They will loose half of their morale due to being dumped out of training and being sent into battle without all of their equipment.

Naval units still will be either captured or scuttled, depending on the luck of the capturing player.

Server Update: Change to the Combat Messages

I added supply and morale information to the combat messages. There was no change to how combat was calculated, the mail just shows more information now.

Manual Updated: Combat Strength

The combat strength section of the combat page of the manual now reads:

Combat Strength

The first step in resolving combat is calculating the combat strength of a side in battle. The strength of each unit on a side is added together to calculate that side's total combat strength. The strength of each unit modified by the following factors:

Previous losses - A unit may be already damaged.

Morale - Morale is the state of mind of the troops; Their attitude toward their prospects of success and confidence in their side's abilities. Large relative differences in morale have a devastating effect on combat performance.

The effect of morale is = 0.2 + 0.8 * Morale / 100.0

Supply - The unit may be cut off from supply and may be short of food, fuel and ammunition. A units fighting ability is not substantially reduced by small shortages of supplies. A unit will fight at full strength as long as they can get 65% of their needed supplies. After that, strength drops off linearly until they are fighting at 35% of their normal strength.

Air Power Limits - There is a limit to how much air support is useful. The maximum air combat strength that is applied to a battle is three times the ground combat strength.

Change to Trade Tab

The trade page for other players is no longer disabled. Disabling the list control was preventing the scroll bar from working. Instead of disabling it, I am now blocking the 'Insert' and 'delete' keyboard shortcuts and mouse clicks in the client area so players still can not edit other players' trade transactions.

Server Update

Initialized the Independent player to be friendly to all unowned (warlord) regions. This should prevent strangeness like when Yakutsk was bombing its own supply lines in September of 1941.

Manual Updated

Made the Air Superiority text clearer on the Unit Orders page, it now reads:

Air Superiority

Assign aircraft to an air superiority role. They will attack any intruding aircraft and protect ground units from air attack.

Air superiority refers to the dominance of one force over another in an air battle. Air superiority allows the dominating power to conduct land, sea, and air operations at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force.

The side with air superiority in a region also gets a bonus towards ground combat in that region.

If an enemy nation has air superiority over your one of your regions, you cannot fly "Drop Bombs" or "Bomb Supply Line" missions out of that region.

Time Warp

We lost two turns this afternoon to an unknown cause.

Orders uploaded between 10:00 and 14:20 today will need to be reloaded.

Also be advised that we hit 10,740 units today. With that many records everything takes longer, especially game turnovers and downloading. When two players try to download at the same time, my bandwidth chokes and it looks like a lockup at the player end. Just wait it out and it will speed up once you are both not trying to download at the same time.

Fixed an Error in the Company Transaction Code.

You should be able to cancel nationalization and privatization company orders now.

Manual Updated

Added the "Various" order to the manual and updated the bomb target order to read:

Bomb Target

Assign aircraft to hit ground targets.

When you select the "Bomb Target" order, the target tree control will appear allowing you to select one or more targets for the bomber. When you select multiple targets, the bomber will hit one of the selected targets at random. You can only bomb targets in one region at a time.

If you select all of the units in a region as targets, the program generates an "Attack all Enemies in the Region" order. If any additional units are detected, they will also be targeted.

When there are no targets available that meet the selection criteria, such as when the target is destroyed or moves out of the region, the server cancels the unit's bomb order.

Server update

Changed the order validation code in the server to delete the oldest order instead of the newest order when it finds a unit with two incompatible orders.

Client Update

Changed the code when assigning movement to clear all of a units old orders before assigning a new move order. Sometimes when a new move order was given, it would just append the new move order to a unit's order list.

Client Update

Added a range column to the Player Equipment Tab. You can now sort equipment by it's range.

Added the "Various" order

Added the "Various" order for organizations for when their component units have different orders from each other.

The order is for display purposes only, you cannot give a unit the "Various" order.

Bomber Target Selector Fixed

Fixed a bug in the bomber target code to generate the correct unit orders when a player deselects a target check box.

Client Update

Added a range column to the unit component screen.

Move Page Distances Corrected

Fixed an error on the unit move orders page that was giving the wrong distances and travel times for units already in transit. It was incorrectly reporting that a unit was getting further away from it's target region as it moved toward it.

Server Update

Adjusted the text of the new unit messages.

Client Update

Reworked orders upload from the client. Uploading orders should be faster and more reliable now.

Server Update

Fixed an error where invalid company orders were not always clearing.

Server Logging

The server now logs every change of any units orders on every upload by every player.

At least until I start to run low on hard disk space...

Company Construction Cost Change

Simplified the calculations for company construction cost. Constructing a new company costs 125 Million Cash per unit and is no longer affected by regional productivity or the number of other companies being produced in the region.

Pirate Movement Changed

Pirate submarines will now wander like pirate surface ships. The pirate submarines were not included in the order generation for pirates... that has changed.

New Message Text

Added text to the game mail to indicate when a player forms or breaks an alliance with another player.

Declaration of War Text

Added text to the game mail to indicate when a player declares war on another player.

Updated the Equipment Tab

The equipment tab on the national government view now lists the combat strengths of each type of equipment that that player can build.

I also noticed that the Italians have an invisible tank (it's blind too!). I fixed it in the scenario file so it can spot and will be spottable in future games.

Help File Updated

Today I updated the help file, the manual was due for an update to cover recent changes to the game.

Mail bug fixed

Cleared a bug that was showing a player trying to sell and invalid company record in the game mail.

New technology message

Adjusted the text on the complete new technology message.

The Spoils of War

You can now nationalize companies belonging to nations with whom you are at war without taking an economic freedom hit.

Client Update

The client now clears the Main Info View before downloading the game data to prevent it from trying to display data that is being overwritten and might be inconsistent enough to crash the client.

Update to Game Mail Format

Added totals to the combat message columns.

Air Movement Change

Air units are no longer subject to the ground combat movement restrictions between regions under attack. If you have air superiority in a region, you can now freely move air units in and out of that region.

Client Update

Aircraft carrier hulls are no longer listed when building transport ships.

Server Update

Adjusted the text of the 'failure to sell company' message. It now reports the correct company owner.

Server Update

Finished the missing portion of the player-to-player company sales code.

Change to Game Mail

The ship sunk mail now includes any units lost aboard when the ship went down.

Fixed the Move Confirmation Popup

Fixed the move confirmation popup to work properly when invading independent regions.

Thanks to Bryce for bringing the problem to my attention and sending me this screen shot:

Random Move Bug Found.

Fixed a typo in the "Add Unit to Organization" code that would cause the organization to jump to an adjacent region the next time it was given move orders.

Client and Server Update

Verified that units are not disappearing for no reason.

Reworked the Load Unit and Board Ship Screens. Updated the Manual.

Server Update

You now can complete construction of units that have been rendered obsolete by advancing tech.

Client Update

I Broke the 'Status' columns into an 'Orders' and 'Notes' columns on the unit lists to make it clearer what is happening with the units.

The old Status column was masking some movement bugs and needed to be made clearer.

The Orders column shows what the unit has been ordered to do. The Notes column shows what the unit did last turn.

A side effect of adding another column to the reports will be saved column positions and widths will all go back to defaults so everyone will need to reconfigure their screens.

Fixed a movement bug

Fixed a problem with combat movement where when units were being pushed out of a region due to being outnumbered and were given orders to move out they were being pushed back into the region if they were inside an organization.

Orders Visibility Change

You can now see what orders your allies are giving their units.

Replaced Missing Picture

Replaced the missing picture in the confirm movement dialog.

Spoils of War

Enemy companies are automatically nationalized when a region is captured. This does not affect the capturing region's economic freedom stat.

Server update

Fixed a problem in the combat phase where destroyed units under construction were not being removed from the owner's build queue. This was causing a crash when the next construction phase came around.