Friday, July 18, 2008

Stuff I've read lately

"Cosmonaut Keep" (Ken Macleod) - This is some of the best space opera I've read in a long time. Really what I've been looking for lately. Reminds me more of Asimov, and the like. The story is a little confusing at first, because it covers two time frames: the first is in the future on a distant planet, where humans and aliens live together; the second is the near future, where humans make first contact with the aliens.

I look forward to the next book, "Dark Light".

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

New Stars Status

I started in on some of the bugs:


Here we can see the new fleet composition pane. I still need to connect the "battle plan", "estimated range", and "cloak" areas. Also, I need to add a drop down with other fleets in this location (for fleet to fleet transfers). I also need to implement the Split/Merge buttons.

I also fixed the "close enough" check when adding waypoints. That was one of the first features in the GUI, when the canvas had a lot fewer things floating around. At some point, all the new canvas objects threw off the logic. It should work much better now. I also fixed the "redraw paths on delete" bug.

Then there is the production queue. I fixed the "remove all" problem mentioned, and improved the checks which combine nearby items. Also, the production queue and waypoints list should behave better when adding multiple (always inserting at end, rather than sometimes at the beginning).


I looked into the research tax. It is a top level XML thing, so I may want to adjust that through the C++ interface. I also gathered some data on the hab distribution. It is looking fairly flat. I want to gather a few more data points to be sure... I also started on handling shift and control down, but that will need more effort.


I'm not entirely happy with where this check in is (should have a few more features), but the code has been this way since Saturday (IIRC) and I haven't had a chance to work on it, and might not for a few days...

Monday, July 07, 2008

New Stars Status

Some more operative bugs (and much needed new features):
  1. Floating-point exception while generating a huge universe (names underflow?)
  2. Need a redraw of paths on delete waypoint
  3. Waypoints always insert at 0 (should be end)
  4. Fix close enough on shift-click (canvas is returning a list?)
  5. Feature - drag waypoints
  6. Need to clear the current filename on open (fixed locally)
  7. Feature - recent files, remember working directory (.ini)
  8. Production Queue (PQ) - shift/control click, hot keys
  9. Generate player files automatically on new game
  10. PQ - "Remove" removes all on a multiple item!
  11. Messages on planetary build (will need filter!)
  12. Research tax in GUI
  13. Ship Designer - delete needs a refresh
  14. PQ - collect ships above and below on add
  15. Messages for fleet complete orders and new planet scans
  16. Feature - View all fleets (F3)
  17. Feature - Fleet composition and split/merge
  18. Scanner pane focus arrow, update on next (fleet/planet)
  19. Hab distribution is uniform
  20. Speed and fuel in fleet orders

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Stuff I've read lately

"God and Religion" (Bertrand Russell) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

"Surprised by Hope" (N.T. Wright) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

"Introduction to Christianity" (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

"Agent to the Stars" (John Scalzi) - I'm running out of Scalzi and Stross to read at the local library. I had actually seen this book. But the cover art is really bad. I didn't even realize it was science fiction. I found the text online, and read a bit, and realized it is sci-fi, and classic Scalzi. Very enjoyable.