history.txt

# $Id: history.txt,v 1.31 2005/01/23 14:05:50 christhecat Exp $

Release 6.4.8: January 2005
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42)
  + finished work on Pax Galactica, allowing GM to enforce peace
    at the start of the game for a set number of turns
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42) and Chris Shaffer (christhecat)
  + added web submission of orders and report requests
  + added feature to allow GM to specify homeworld coordinates
o By Chris Shaffer (christhecat)
  + modified GalaxyNG home page, which does not list individual
    games anymore, as it was too difficult to keep up-to-date
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42) and Jeff Frasca (jafrasca)
  + cleaned up mail headers

Release 6.4.7: November 2004
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42)
  + enabled compressed reports from a report request (it already
    worked from normal turns)
  + added code to include additional parameters to sendmail in order
    to "shape" the From line in the email so it looks like it comes
    from the server - this is especially useful for people with hosted
    sites.
  + changed a couple of emails so they came from the server instead of
    the GM
  + changed message so that race names specified incorrectly can be
    distinguished from badly formed email (1051567)
  + fixed bug that player's ships didn't get removed when a player was
    eliminated by the DropDead process (991269)
  + fix for bug 1051572 and 1051560 - invalid missing orders report
    going to GM and due time creeping forward by one interval every turn
o By Chris Shaffer (christhecat)
  + standardized subject lines on email sent by server
  + updated server and player manuals
  + revised installation files to make cleaner examples (e.g. procmailrc)
  + added guides and example reports to web site

Release 6.4.6: February 2004
o By Chris Shaffer (christhecat) and Bogdan Mincu (mincub)
  + major revision of GalaxyNG web site
o By Chris Shaffer (christhecat)
  + updates to manuals, particularly to support changes listed
    below
  + updated text in ARE messages to players
  + modified sample galaxyngrc, procmail, and other files created
    during installation, particularly to support changes listed
    below
  + modified text of the mailing attached to reports and other
    items sent to players
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42)
  + added the -due command to email players who haven't yet sent 
    in orders. (#889054)
  + removed upper casing of game name in report file (#886895)
  + changed "address" in option names to "anonymous" (#889198)
  + ensured ships with cargo space and no drive don't get sent on
    routes (#860007)
  + changed all occurances of "nation" to "race" to be consistent
    in all code and documentation. One side effect is that this 
    engine can't be used with existing templates (.glx files) unless
    you edit it to change "nation_spacing" to "race_spacing"
  + changed the relay command so it will stop at a #END line
    added the ability to relay to everyone in the game by using the
    game name as the destination
  + added an optional turn number to the score command (#891475)
  + added a PaxGalactica - GM can specify the number of turns that
    Races won't be able to declare war on each other
  + added a new kind of map - "public". it's like location, but
    without colour coding
  + fixed bug where extra turn report file was getting created with
    the wrong name (#892931)
  + added code to replace the sending player's password with '*'
    characters in relayed messages.

Release 6.4.5: January 2004
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42)
  + changed CMD_create to load the config file to fix the problem
    of not finding fonts during initial map creation in this phase
  + added the -influence command to generate influence maps without
    running a turn.
  + changed the method of allocating memory to reduce the impact of
    map generation.
  + fixed an issue with having more players than colors defined. We
    can now comfortably fit 80 players on these types of maps. More
    than that and the names will run off the right side.
  + XML reporting temporarily turned off as the C command would cause
    TXT reports to be not be created and copies of orders were lost
o By Chris Shaffer (christhecat)
  + Lots of minor updates to the manuals and web site.
  + Modified files created by install.sh script.  Better documentation
    and examples for procmail and crontab.
    
Release 6.4.4: January 2004
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42)
  + added fontpath variable to the rc file to eliminate dependency on
    the environment variable
  + restored generating an influence map on turn 0 as the main 
    impediment was the lack of an environment variable

Release 6-4-3: January 2004
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42)
  + added env variable GNG_LOG_LEVEL to dynamically change the 
    log level - this replaces hard coded loglevels in the code
  + changed to not output map on turn 0 or game creation
o By Chris Shaffer (christhecat)
  + ARE is documented in the server manual.
  + ARE makefile updated.  NG/makefile now executes ARE
    makefile.
  + ARE procmailrc examples integrated into the procmailrc
    example created by install.sh

Release 6-4-2: December 2003
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42)
  + Updated version information
  + Made change to ensure the "to" field in the envelope
    is always valid
  + Game creation file now correctly creates all sub-
    directories.
o By Chris Shaffer (christhecat)
  + Updates to server manual
  + Bugfixes and updated to galaxyngrc and procmailrc
    generated by install.sh
    
Release 6-4-1: December 2003
o By Chris Shaffer (christhecat)
  + Bugfixes.

Release 6-4-0: December 2003
o By Chris Shaffer (christhecat)
  + Rewrote all manuals, FAQs and help documents.  Major
    changes to /NG/Doc/.  Removed /WWW/.  Sent Tiger score
    information to Hall of Fame maintainer.
  + Updated makefile, which no longer creates the Manuals.
    GMs should point to http://galaxyng.sourceforge.net/
    now, rather than hosting the manuals and FAQ and such
    locally.

Release 6-3-0: September 2003
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42)
  + both text and xml reports are sent on turn 0
  + new option: TXTReport to turn them off if necessary
  + now forecasts are returned in XML format if that option
    (XMLReport) has been enabled
  + further work on influence mapping. Works better, slower 
    than it should be, gradation of influence not working
    correctly.
  + XML report has been brought up to current standards - note
    that this is *not* the interchange level with GalaxyExplorer.
    That goal was deemed to be proceeding too slowly (by 
    both sides) and so we've temporarily delayed that effort
    and will compromise on an exchange dtd instead of 
    attempting to have all engines put out the same dtd.

Release 6-2: July 2003
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42)
  + fixed bug that could cause the create process to hang
  + added code to ensure each planet is in a unique location
    this also accounts for the fact that planet coords are
    only kept to 2 decimal places
  + recommend that, for the moment, the .png option is not
    used. I'm rewriting that code and it isn't stable - it
    might not even compile.

Release 6-1a: April 2003
o By Ken Weinert (madcoder42)
  + Added an option to generate a .png file when the turn is 
    run. This is for GM use only as it shows all planets. It 
    will probably be most useful when first setting up a game
    so the GM can get a visual indication of how things go 
    together. It could also be useful when showing the history
    of the game.

Release 6-1: July 2002
o By Steve Webb (scum-o)
  + Added gnuplot output
  + Added some command-line fixes to commands that weren't very
    well documented.
  + Fixed the 'fleet recall' bug.

Release 6-0: May 2002
o By FS (gumpu)
  + Code is GPLed

Release 5-1: March 2002
o By FS
  + the galaxyng executable is stripped before it is installed.
  + Added gameoptions pactch by CB
 
Release 5-0g: March 2001
o By FS
  + Fixed a bug in the battle code that caused ships that were 
    destroyed to fire one more shot.
  + Added a framework for a new version of WOPR based on the 
    galaxyng source code (this is beta code).
  + Added a source file for globals.
  + Fixed a bug that caused the engine to complain about the order
    L 1 COL 1 AMOUT 1.1
    on a group with shiptype 1 0 0 0 1
    This was again due to a:
      return expression;
    which screws up a subsequent compare statment.
    it was solved by changing it to
      double res;
      res = expression;
      return res;
    see also the comments at Version 2.1g    6-Oct-1997
  + Added house_rules.txt in Doc/
  + Fixed a bug in ARE that allowed twice as many players to join
    a game than was specified. 
  + -players switch also shows which players are inactive.
  + Using mmencode and zip to send out compressed reports.
  + updated the server manual.
  + added support for team games  (Tiger)
    team field in the player structure
    reportTeam() to generate a report for a team captian.
  + Fixed a bug that caused the .galaxyngrc file to be ignored when
    a copy of a report was generated.
  + added -teaminfo command for team game support.

Release 5-0: Aug 2000
o By FS
  + Changed the battle algorithm. The attacking ships are now selected
    randomly from all the ships that not fired their guns yet.
  + -score shows time it was created.
  + added plot.pl by Steve Webb (steve@badcheese.com) to Tools/

Release 4-4b: Aug 2000
o By FS
  + The default production of home planet is now DRIVE.

Release 4-4a: July 2000
o By FS
  + Fixed a bug that caused a wrong version of the highscore list
    to be included in a requested copy of a turn report.

Release 4-4: June 2000
o By FS
  + The -hall command reported dead players, this is fixed.
  + Fixed spellings mistakes in ARE.
  + Fixed bug in ARE that let players select planets above
    the limit set by the GM.
  + Enables XML reports.

Release 4-3a: May 2000
o By FS
  + Fixed the bug that caused the number of planets, ind, and pop to
    be zero in the nation station section in turn report 0
  + Fixed a bug in the -mail0 command, that created file names that
    started with /tmp\
  + Fixed a bug in the bombPlanet code that cause planets on rare
    occasions to have a negative industry. 

Release 4-3:  March 2000
o By FS:
  + Dumbed-down all makefiles to make them work with less
    featurefull versions of make.
  + Added a "toall" command that creates a mail header that can 
    be used to mail all players in a game a message.
  + Used checker to hunt down memory leaks and illegal memory access.
    (CMD_dump and CMD_run work now without violations).
  + Added bug fixes to report_xml by Byron Ellacott.
  + Created a number of function to hide OS dependencies:
    GOS_fopen(), GOS_mkdir(), GOS_delete(), GOS_copy()
  + Integrated the patches provided by Martijn van der Kooij to make the
    code compile under WIN32.

Release 4-2patched:  December 1999
o Fixed bug in the code that handles turn report copies requests.

Release 4-2:  December 1999
o By FS:
  + Fixed the newly introduced technology bug, which cause ships to
    have higher tech levels than expected.
  + Updated ARE. Players can now enroll in a game and at the same time
    specify the sizes of their home planets.
  + A report request with the subject "report" will retrieve the most
    recent report. It is no longer necessary specify the turn number.

Release 4-1:  December 1999
o By FS:
  + There is a now a check on the length of names.
  + The L order now recognized the keyword AMOUNT <amount>, which
    can be used to specify the amount of cargo to be uploaded.
  + mistake() now works like printf().
  + Fixed a production bug. If a planet had slightly too few materials
    to produce a ship, the ship was still produced, and negative amount
    of materials showed up.
  + Split the producephase function in several parts.
  + Spell-checked install.sh, README.
  + Added -hall command, for automatic creation of Hall of Fame
    data.
  + Added '=' order with which players can set their real name.
    (Used for the Hall of Fame).
  + Removed the call to Create_Center_Planet() in createGame().
  + Remove hardcoded use of "Game/" in install.sh
  + Added -template function, which creates a documented template 
    .glx file.
  + Added key SaveReportCopy to .galaxyngrc file. When used a
    copy of each turn report is saved in reports/
  + Added key starttime to .galaxyngrc file. It defines when
    a game is supposed to run. It is used for a sanity check to
    protect against cron errors.

Release 4-0:  November 1999
o By FS:
  + Added an UPGRADE file that tell how to upgrade existing games.
  + Added mail relay function, for in-game anonymous email.
  + Engine keeps track of how much ship mass is produced and loss
    and gives a short report about it to the players.
  + If players do not send in orders for turn 1, they are removed.
  + Modified run_game, it can now also be used to re-run a turn.
  + Added a rule to the example .procmailrc to filter the server
    respone to an email with orders.  This prevents an infinite
    loop, when the GM sends orders from the same account as the 
    server runs on.
  + Elements on the map are printed in the following order:
    *, o, +, ., -    So if two elements are printed on
    the same spot the last one in  the list is the one that
    is displayed.
  + Turn 0 does no longer include the list of addresses of
    the other players.... as they are all set to anonymous anyhow.
  + $GALAXYNGHOME or $HOME are used to determine the home
    directory of all data files.
  + The email address of the GM and the command used to send
    the turn reports are read from a configuration file
    .galaxyngrc
    Added an example configuration file in GalaxyNG/Doc
  + The specifications for a new game are now read from a file.
    After a game is created a map is printed to stdout.
    Added an example specification file in GalaxyNG/Doc
  + reports are directly send from the engine... saves another
    script file. Saves several megabytes of disk space,
    which used to be needed to store all the reports before they
    were send. Each game, even after many turns requires only
    1 - 2 Mbytes.
  + galaxyng -check reads the orders directly from stdin. Saves
    a script file.
  + Cleaned up ARE. Now used stdin to read the incomming email.
    Saves having to copy the mail to a file first.
  + added a struct game, which holds all the defaults for a game.
    This gets rid of a lot of global variables.  Code should be
    easier to read and maintain now.
  + Added a runProcmail.sh script for people whos system does not
    allow direct invocation of procmail on incomming email.
  + Cleaned-up the source code, added documentation to a number
    of functions.
  + Most strings are now dynamically allocated, prevents many
    buffer overflow errors.
  + Fixed a syntax error in run_game.sh, this showed up in a debian
    system.
  + Added a portable number generator to util.c.  The engine should
    now give the same results on most platforms.
  + replaces all occurences of  rand() % "range" with frand3(range).
  + The seeds of the random number generator (a table of unsigned
    integers) are saved to the end of the turn data file.  They are
    read before the start of a turn. 
    This way the random number used during each turn are different,
    but it is still possible to rerun all turns and get the same
    outcome at the end.
  + Added a selftest function.  For now this tests the random number 
    generator. But it should develop into a function that does an
    extensive diagnostic of all functions.
  + fixed 3 security holes.
o By KW:
  + Added support for xml turn reports.
  + The order parser now recognizes cases parameters have
    a negative value and reports this as an error.

Release 3-8
o By FS:
  Fixed the install.sh script.  It did not conform to the
  bash syntax rules. Lots of missing ";"
  For some odd reason it did run on a slackware system. However 
  it did not run on a Debian system.
o Solved a bug in process.c.  The send command allowed a negative
  number of ships to be send to a planet.
o removed references to "cequal" from the unpackorders.tcl program
  so that it can run under plain tcl.
o Improved the entry for the V command in the manual
  Added documentation for the O BattleProtocol and O MachineReport
o Added a section on the Battle Protocol.

Release 3-7b (April 1999)
o By FS:
  make install   now checks if the configuration files it creates
  already exist. If they do the new files are created under the name
  <file name>.new.  This to ease upgrading existing version of galaxy.
o Fixed a bug in the battle code. A shuffle routine to shuffle the players
  before a battle starts used the lower few bit of the random number
  generator for the suffle process. This resulted in non-random shuffling.
o By CB: 
  Added report version, and galaxy size.
  Groups record in battle now almost the same that in "normal situations"
o When a new game is created, the machine report option is switched on
  by default.

Release 3-7  (April 1999)
o By CB:  Changes to the machine report.
     Corrected a bug in number of uninhabited planets
     Replaced semi-colon delimitor with space (native separator in tcl/tk)
     Section header : Added a space before the "greater" sign, thus last
     record is no longer "polluted".
     Try to get a standard form for header of each section :
     <section-name(only one word) name(if any) number-of-elements >
     Try to get a (poor) standard form in groups record :
     each alien group begin with a 0 (for his number)
     Section format (groups, battles...) is now :
     <"section name" "battle or location name" quantity >
     Messages section is now :
     <messages "global or personnal" quantity >

Release 3-6,  
o Orders are logged in log/orders_processed.txt

Release 3-5,  Jan 1999

o It is no longer allowed to upgrade ships at other nations planets.
o Log files are now stored, per game, in a directory called log/ (If
  you don't have this directory create one!  or run install.sh)
o The checking of orders is not logged any more (procmail keeps a
  log of when orders came in).
o It should now be possible to run more than one game at the same
  time.  So you can start 5 games and let them all run at 23:00 on
  monday and wed and friday.  All temporary files are unique, and
  should therefore no longer generate conflicts.

Release 3-4

o Solved a bug in the battle code. 
  It affected battles with more than 2 parties.

  The battle algorithm worked as follows:

  while "there are groups that have not shot" do
  {
    select the group that will attack 
    randomly select one of the enemies of the owner of the attacking group
    randomly select one of the groups of this enemy
    fire on that group
  } 

  In this each enemy has an equal change of being chosen.
  This produces some counter intuitive results.

  For instance, 
  Players A and B attack player C.
  Player A sends 100 probes.
  Player B send a big gun.
  Then during the battle the big gun has still a 50% chance of being hit.

  Hence the code that selects the enemy
  batstat        *selectTargetSide(batstat *attSide)

  now randomly selects an emeny based on the number of ships each
  enemy has left.

  So in the above case Player A has a 100 / 101 chance of being
  selected.  Player B has a 1 / 101 chance of being selected.

o The G+ reports now correctly show if a group was in
  or out of battle.
o The G+ report fleet sections now correctly shows the number
  of groups in a fleet.

Release 3-3b

o The seed of the random number generator is now randomized
  (using time()).  This to avoid that the first battle will
  follow the same pattern each time.

Release 3-3

o Fixed a bug that prevented to break of the last ship of a group.
o Added battle protocol.
o Added compression support
  That is the option COMPRESS works now :)
o Ran all source code through the indent program, the formatting
  of all code is now the same and should be more readable.

Release-3-2          Nov-1998      

o Added a section to the forecast that lists the status of the nation.
o Modified the code to produce G+ compatible reports.
  Players can switch it on with  O GPLUS
o In orders the planet number can be used to specify a destination
  i.e  S 50 #20      ; planet with '20' as name in turn 0
o Solved a bug that some orders to be missed because the
  last line of the order "#END" did not contain a '\n'
o Included Tommy's circular galaxy construction.
o Included Christophe's MachineReport code.
o Removed the randomize home planet feature... there is again a
  relation between the home planet name and nation name.
o Changed the removal of dead players rule.  If the turn number < 10
  and a player has been idle for ORDERGAP1 turns the player is
  removed. All his planets are reset to 0, and groups are destroyed.
  If the turn number >= 10, and a player has been idle for ORDERGAP2
  turns the player is removed but all the nation's planets and groups
  will continue to exist.
o If no turn number if given for the options -address, -planets, or
  -password, the current turn is used.
o Fixed a bug in the incomming section of the G+ report...
  planets are listed by their number.

*** by CB

o added h command to halt a group and let it return to
  the planet of origin.  
o added a fleetspeed function in util.c

*** by FS

o added the -nodrop  option.  This will turn off the code
  that removes idle players
o added the commands -sidea and -sideb. These list the number of idle
  turns of the even and uneven numbered players.  (For the tiger
  project).
o Fixed a bug in the incomming groups section.
o In the groups section (G+) if a ships travels to an unidentified
  planet the planet is listed as #<number>
o In the fleet section (G+) if a fleet travels to an unidentified
  planet the planet is listed as #<number>
o Changes the code for the function isunidentified() Previously all
  planets that had an owner were listed as unidentified...  now
  planets the player can see or that are owned by the player are
  excluded.
o Added graphscore.tcl -- this creates graphs for all players that can
  be used for a WWW site.
o galaxyng -create, and the install script now create the directory
  statistics and don't create nreports anymore.
o Cargo technology now only needs 2500 industry points to increase by
  1 unit.  To emphasize the economic aspects of galaxy.
o Added a section to the manual on the number of turns a player is
  allowed to miss and what happens else.

Release-3-1      15-April-1998

o Made the output of -score -html option compatible with all
  browsers.
o Fixed a 'move phase' bug.  Ships that are within 0.01 ly now are
  considered to have arrived at the planet.  This to avoid funny
  'distance left: 0.00' values in the turn report.

Release-3-0     13-April-1998

o Put the code under CVS version management.
o Added documentation on how to use and configure the program
o Added some syntax check to the  D  (design ship) order.
o Randomized the home planet names. There is now no longer a relation
  between the nation name and home planet numbers.

Version 2.1i    13-Dec-1997

o Bug fix in the intercept code.  Bug fix thanks to Tommy.

Version 2.1h    8-Dec-1997

o Bug fix in the joinphase code, ships that had different
  flags were still being joined.  Bug fix thanks to Tommy.

Version 2.1g    6-Oct-1997

(1) Made changes to all code in util.c that has the format

 double <name>()
 {
   return <expression>;
 }

changed it to

 double <name>()
 {
   double res;
   res = <expression>;
   return res;
 }

to circumvent some curious intel gcc bug.
 
Version 2.1f    25-July-1997

(1) Changed the log levels, the log file should be much smaller now.
(2) Highscore list now includes the address of players that do no
    play anonymous.

Version 2.1e    25-June-1997

Updated the create game code: 
(1) It now generates a random password for each player.  
(2) The random number generator is initialized with the return value of time().
(3) Fixed the bug that caused the score list of turn 1 to be listed as
    that of turn 0.

Version 2.1d    

Inserted a bug fix by Tommy, that prevents players to create feets
that have a number as name.