MINICOM testing: now open for everyone.

[bert_the_turtle]

MINICOM is my little effort to fix the problems in the DEFCON client. Get it here:
http://minicom.simamo.de

MINICOM is incompatible with all other versions of DEFCON because that's the way fixing works (and because it's a requirement of the source license), it won't give you any kind of advantage. It's just boring old DEFCON, too. Battleships haven't been fitted with long range radar, bombers haven't been upgraded to stealth bombers and fighters still can't shoot down nukes. So don't sign up if you want any of that.

It's available for all platforms DEFCON has been available for, though. Anyone with an Intel Mac here? That's the only one I can't test myself.

[Forever Young]

i want to help test MINICOM.
i have no Intel Mac, only a normal intel pc with win 7.
i hope it will be not to difficult to test it, because i tried to test ace rimmers bot in the past without success.

[bert_the_turtle]

It's as easy as installing the regular client, and you need to already know how to install a mod if you want any sound at all (or, at the current stage, know how to copy the original .dat files into the installation directory, that works, too.)

[Forever Young]

okay, i will make it anyhow.
i cannot expect to test it.

[nuclear cocaine]

I have ipad but want to test minicon bert

[tllotpfkamvpe]

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[bert_the_turtle]

We found some of the fixes, like the carriers not going forward after firing fighters still not fixed.

Could be that I only fixed the one cause for the bug I could find, but left others unfixed. Can you readily reproduce it? I fixed the version where you launch fighters or bombers directly at enemy ships.

The plane behaviour seemed to be different. Bombers after sea nuking would automatically start attacking enemy ships when not told to do so.

Clarification request: the attacking bit is ok, right? I mean, that they need to be ordered to attack when they return was one of the complaints. What you observed and don't want is that they actually steer towards the targets and don't return to base?

Fighters from airbases would not land on carriers, instead they would go to a random place (from what I could tell from the orders tab).

They try to distribute themselves evenly across all viable landing platforms so the next plane in need has maximum freedom of choice. A better way for fighters especially would probably be to strongly prefer landing pads in front of them.

Yeah, about that. I should probably explain how the new landing selection code works. When a plane decides to land and is looking for a spot to do so, it goes through three phases. Phase 1 is the regular phase. It picks a carrier/airfield it thinks it will be able to reach based on the following priorities:
- for bombers without nuke, maximum number of available nukes.
- maximum number of free landing spots. Edit: wait, that's not true. One landing spot is better than none, but ten are no better than one.
- proximity.
Both the nuke supply count and the number of free spots take planes already headed that way into account (that the original code doesn't care about that is IMHO a 'bad default behaviour' type bug).
If no place can be found, phase two is trying to steal a landing spot from another plane. Priorities there:
- planes that definitely have another spot to divert themselves to
- for bombers: other bombers without nukes (reason being that they may have picked a distant landing spot for supplies)
- some random function of both planes' fuel supply and distance to target that avoids infinite loops
If that fails, the plane steers towards the closest landing site, hoping a place gets freed up while it is on its way.

All of that is negotiable and I'm not married to anything, except for the one bug it fixed (the code intended to let bombers head for bases with nukes available was bugged, set a wrong variable and thus lead to the distance not being taken into account randomly). Possibly further down the line you could be able to set your own preferences for automatisms like that, it's less intended as a gameplay element and more an ease of micromanagement. Not losing bombers to empty fuel tanks is quite a chore IMHO because it's so inconvenient to check the range they all have left.

We could not test the disconnecting and joining the server again, since after I disconnected the server would not let me rejoin. It said invalid defcon version.

Could just be a mistake in the server's setup, or the client mistakingly taking version compatibility information from the metaserver. Next time it happens, please note the full error message.

Apart from that I think asking the community on here as to what changes they would like would be a really good idea.

Absolutely. All the potentially controversial changes (like the fighter reload fix or the manual silo targeting fix) will get a vote on whether they should stay, go or become optional.

I would like to see only memory leaks etc, and cosmetic changes introduced, like how about having the orders tab show orders lines in different colours.

Do you have anything specific in mind? They already are red and blue by order type I can't quite see how adding any other colour criterion would not just turn the orders view into a multicolored mess that's just as hard to read. But maybe the highlighting could be made more useful so you can see more easily which order is given to which unit? Or do you just mean the spectator orders view?

For gameplay changers, I would like to see air craft able to land on allie's bases or ships.

That may be possible if you add shadow airfields in the same spot, just belonging to your team, with slightly different rules. No initial supply of anything, no fighter regeneration, no takeoff while the main base is active, and if the ground turns hostile, all grounded planes self destruct.

[cza]

I don't have a lot of time, but I do play on an intel Mac and would be happy to test when I can. Is there a window you are looking to receive feedback in?

I'm running OSX 10.6.8 on a 3.06GHZ Core 2 Duo

[bert_the_turtle]

Is there a window you are looking to receive feedback in?

Testing whether it runs at all would be useful ASAP, getting the build right if it doesn't will be hard enough even with timely information (I don't like XCode very much). For other kinds of bugs, nah, test it at your own pace.

[Forever Young]

i tested a few minutes against cpu without sound or mods.
at first had the same prob with fighters as mvpe said but at the second game i played, all seems fine with the fighters. curious!
in my first and second try it was not possible at def 1 to arm(get bombers ready to launch/ lol don`t know how to say it right at the moment) my bombers without a target.
i need a few days to check all the bugs or bug fixes.

[tllotpfkamvpe]

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[Forever Young]

Third point: Carriers need to be re-supplied with fighters from airbases, we do that using the old trick of select fighter, click on the sea but dont let go of click, drag over the ship and let go of click. Here is the old tutorial video from youtube showing how its done. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLe6ejUG ... ature=plcp
This was not working when we tested it.

that worked for me! at my first try that was the only possibility to refill for me.

[Schubdüse]

However it's just going to make the game too easy. It won't be good if this version turns pro players into sloppy players. Imagine if everyone's planes are attacking enemy ships at every possible opportunity, ships will get wiped out very quickly and not much effort will be required. Then again pro players will likely order their planes to way points after sea nuking thus making them attack ships in the current version anyway. So the fix is fixing something not required, only reported as a bug by noobs (no offence jon )

I strongly agree here! This is part of a players' skill and belongs to micro. Fixing that means cutting at the "body of skills".
I hope I can add some comments at the weekend...

[Zorotama]

Bert, If can help you I have time to test it in these days..

[Forever Young]

However it's just going to make the game too easy. It won't be good if this version turns pro players into sloppy players. Imagine if everyone's planes are attacking enemy ships at every possible opportunity, ships will get wiped out very quickly and not much effort will be required. Then again pro players will likely order their planes to way points after sea nuking thus making them attack ships in the current version anyway. So the fix is fixing something not required, only reported as a bug by noobs (no offence jon )

I strongly agree here! This is part of a players' skill and belongs to micro. Fixing that means cutting at the "body of skills".
I hope I can add some comments at the weekend...

absolutely properly!