Stuff I've read lately

"Altered Carbon" (Richard K. Morgan) - This book was very well done. Morgan creates a very interesting universe. People can be saved and restored, and transmitted digitally (and FTL). Bodies are considered temporary and interchangeable (people refer to them as "sleeves"). The main problem I had was trying to understand why more people don't have backups, and why rich people only have one. Also, why there weren't more crimes that carried the erasure penalty? "Double sleeving" (being in two bodies at once) was the only crime on Earth, most colony worlds didn't have any such crimes.

"The Probability of God" (Stephen Unwin) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

New Stars Status

Things are starting to come together. I have worked mostly on the two player test case. I ended up going after the initial fleet code.

Here is the JOAT w/IFE player (the warmonger posted previously is the other):




Note that JOAT gives all tech at 3, and IFE is good for +1. The fuel mizer is available, so the starting long range scout makes use of it (as well as the Rhino Scanner). I expect a bug, in that IT plus IFE and CE gives Prop 7, which can use Alpha 8. But for some reason, Stars! only gives the Long Hump 7. I'm not worried enough to change anything.

Note that we are not seeding the random generator, so player 1 is back at Marge :)

Thanks to John for adding in all the scanners. I had added the Bat Scanner in XML myself, but I wasn't looking forward hacking in all the others.

I also hacked up a quick tech browser in pure Tcl (using tdom to parse the XML):



Next step will be to add the tech readouts to this, and probably making it editable to enable quick fixes.

For the engine, the next step is scan. Then I will modify the tests to send the scout before the colony ship.

New Stars Status

Some good progress on the code base. Not a lot visible, because a lot of it is in the initial conditions (making sure all players get the same mineral concentrations and minerals - trying to figure out the distribution of starting minerals).

I started work on the research control dialog, then discovered that players were not getting initial tech. I have it fixed for some of the races now.

I also took care of the initial conditions of the starting starbase (which was initially empty).

Another irritating bug was that the client would open to planetMap(0). That is just what planet is first in the client data. I've fixed it so it goes to the lowest object id planet you own.

The colonize test is looking really good. With initial minerals and factories, the colony ship builds fast, and can move and colonize in one turn. I am moving off of it for now (since the next step would be to give players the initial colony ship - which is supposed to be built with max available tech, which is the beginnings of computer players...).

I created a new two player test. This should be a base for the most of the other existing tests.

Here is the initial load of the war monger player, with a quick F5 to bring up the research panel:

Stuff I've read lately

"Remnant Population" (Elizabeth Moon) - meh. The story of an old woman contacting an alien civilization is just kind of weird. What really bugged me was a universe with both STL sleeper ships and FTL. It made me want to break out GURPS Vehicles and try to come up with an economic situation where that could possibly make sense.

"The Exemplary Husband" (Stuart Scott) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

"Once a Hero" (Elizabeth Moon) - This looks like a mil-SF book; but it's more like a drama set in a military background. I'll probably read one or two more in this series to see where she is taking it. That's three Elizabeth Moon books in a short span, I still like "Speed of Dark", but I'll probably take a break.

New Stars Status

Not much progress the last month.

I created a command line version of the client. It just loads the C++ New Stars Tcl library, and issues a bunch of commands. A lot of them use information eye-balled from the files. Here is a sample from orders2400.tcl (which updates the first turn file):

#### copy the colony ship
set colShipId -1
for {set i 0} {$i < $::numHulls} {incr i} {
   if {[newStars $::ns_hull $i $::ns_getName] eq "Colony Ship"} {
      set colShipId $i
   }
}

Another file is applied in 2403 to give the load colonist, move to planet, and colonize orders.

Here is the final screen shot:




I had to fix the server to properly update client object ids to server ids (I didn't see this before, because the client actually generates the turn through the client data - that's a bug...).

I also had to fix the client to properly use GUI load commands (otherwise you need another turn).

The mining rates are probably off. There is an oddity in the battle engine, in that the colony ship and star base try to fight. I need to add lots to the client to get a better feeling for how much ships cost and how long they will take to build.

Stuff I've read lately

"The Speed of Dark" (Elizabeth Moon) - I liked this book a lot. On the surface, it is a book about autistic people. But it is also a book about being different. About trying to fit in, being pressured to fit in. Not just fit in, but to be like everyone else.

And everyone knows the speed of dark is faster than the speed of light (Neverending Story 2). That's why it's dark until light gets there. Dark got there first!

"Misquoting Jesus" (Bart Ehrman) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Gianormites of the World Unite!

Gianormous has made it into the dictionary! Except the dictioneers (who else compiles dictionaries?) misspelled it! Everyone knows it's giant-enormous, not gigantic-enormous. Their spelling (ginormous) looks like "djinn-or-mus". Blech!

So everyone needs to start using gianormous. Then the dictioneers can get it right next edition.

New Stars Status

Ok, more progress. We almost have a game:



Here is page 2 of the New Game Wizard. I recreated the race from the colonize test (Ugly Ducklings), and made a tiny sparse game for them by themselves.

Here is the first turn in the client:



I've added 30 factories and 50 mines to autobuild. I had to fix the code to handle this. It would try to build the factories, see no G, and then skip to research. It now works. Here is 2401:



18% growth rate. 20 resources, mines are 5 per. Autobuild shows 0% done for all.



Next turn. 23,600 * 1.18 = 27,848. 23 resources gives 2 factories, and 1 at 30%. Mining rates may be off... concentrations are 80, 76, 20. I forget how to calculate it right now... Original G must of been 15 or 16.

I need to repair the regression. Lots of them have uninhabitable home worlds. The old code was more forgiving of this...

I'd also like to develop a command line version of the client (for regressions to insert player commands).

Then I will add the intervening turns to colonize test, to make it a new game -> first world colonized test. Then I can check the numbers.

Stuff I've read lately

"Igniting the Reaches" (David Drake) - This is the first book in the trilogy continued in "Through the Breach" and finished in "Fireships". I would say the quality is consistent through all three books. Also, each book stands fairly well on its own. Still, I would of preferred to read them in the proper order.

"In the Grip of Grace" (Max Lucado) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Stuff I've read lately

"Paying the Piper" (David Drake) - This "Hammer's Slammers" novel is classic Drake - plenty of action, punctuated by brief breaks.


"The Purpose-driven Life" (Rick Warren) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

New Stars Status

I actually got a lot done the last month. I have integrated my old universe generation code into the main engine. While I was there, I fixed a bug in the tech research code, and in the colonization code. Now, the colonize test works; and I have added it to the regression. I discovered an oddity in the way planets are handled for players (separate objects), and I will probably rebuild it into a single true object with per-player data views.

Here is the new game wizard:




Only page 1 is done. Page 2 is the race list (the normal wizard has a third page, with victory conditions). Currently, it always saves the game to newFile.xml. I will add a save dialog shortly. The main thing is to update the struct UnivParms to include a race list. Then, update the engine to pull in the races. Then I can add them to the gui.

If you do 'newStars -n newFile.xml' it will generate a universe according to your parameters (to stdout). But there will be no players. We also need to work on random seeds.

Stuff I've read lately

"Fireships" (David Drake) - This is the third book in a Sir Francis Drake-like future setting. The second was "Through the Breach". I will have to read the first. It was very good. I usually consider Drake to be light on characters. But the characterization was very well done. The ending is tidy, without feeling contrived. And Drake continues to pull off the "history repeated" without damaging suspension of disbelief.


"Essential Truths of the Christian Faith" (R. C. Sproul) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Stuff I've read lately

"The Independent Command" (S. M. Stirling) - It's a shame the trilogy has come to an end. Stirling had finally come to grips with the universe and characters. This book is a big improvement over the other two. It has a good treatment of an alien culture and first contact scenario. The ending felt a little rushed and pat, but I have seen far worse. About forty pages from the end, I was thinking, "I need a gianormous space battle right about now." There were plenty of opportunities, but Stirling didn't go there. Not sure why.

"Drawing Near" (John Bevere) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

New Stars Status

Things are moving, slowly but surely:


Here I have taken the colonizeTest (turn zero, player one file) and removed the colonize order. I then added it back through the GUI and saved. A diff of the files yields:

$ diff guiout.xml colonizeTest_P1_Y2402.xml
246,247d245
< <NONPLAYERFLEETDATA>
< </NONPLAYERFLEETDATA>
295a294,295
> <NONPLAYERFLEETDATA>
> </NONPLAYERFLEETDATA>

For some reason the GUI places NONPLAYERFLEETDATA before the universe planet list, while the newStars -r command places it after. Not sure why... But that is close enough for non-technical people...

Next step is to add starbase designs and create new game. Then let the bugs commence!

Stuff I've read lately

"Privateer" (S.M. Stirling) - I found this book to be much better than the first. Perhaps Stirling is settling into the material. It is still very campy, but I think that is the target audience. The main issue I have is with Stirling's battle balancing. He takes somewhat fair conditions, then throws in radical elements to make it wildly against the heroes. Then he has to pull out crazy saves for the heroes. I'd much prefer to just see a straight-up fight.

"Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer" (Myles Munroe) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Musical Interlude

Put down that chainsaw and listen to me!
It's time for us to join in the fight.


It's time to make a mountain out of a molehill,
So can I have a volunteer.


Buy some sensible shoes and a Chevrolet,
Then party 'til your broke and they drag you away, it's ok.

New Stars Status

After much delay, I have load and unload orders working. Here is a clip from the load unload test:



Here we can see the idle fleet has been changed to move to Beta 9 and unload its colonists. I need to fix the text for the order in classdef.h. I also need to fix the engine to understand all the various Stars! cargo orders. But first I need colonize and new game generation. Then the game should be playable.

Stuff I've read lately

"Through the Breach" (David Drake) - This is a classic Drake military sci-fi book set in his "sidereal-bubble" universe. It has a almost overwhelming age of sail feel, but I think he manages to pull it off. The science is hard enough to maintain my suspension of disbelief, and the universe has a lot of character. This one seems a lot harsher than I remember Drake's books being, and the impact on the characters psyche is very well done.

Stuff I've read lately

"The Dawn of Amber" (John Gregory Betancourt) - I liked the original books by Zelazny, the world was unusual and the characters well done. This one didn't seem as good. Not sure if I am no longer as interested in that world, or if Betancourt is still warming up.

"Judas and the Gospel of Jesus" (N. T. Wright) - Reviewed on my faith blog.

Ruby.new chunky_bacon

Do you want to learn Ruby? Do you want a bookful of random stuff? Better random stuff than I can write? Lots of chunky bacon? Check out "Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby".

Word is C++ is dying, and everyone knows Tcl has never been more than a zombie. So I need a new language. Is Ruby it? Please don't suggest Java, I know I need to learn Java, but I refuse. :)