Re: [VANILLA-LIST:2883] some mods to make netrek more accurate

[Trent Piepho <xyzzy@speakeasy.org>]

On Sat, 19 Feb 2000, Mark Mielke wrote:
>              || pstatus->status != PALIVE
>              || pstatus->status != PEXPLODE
>              || pstatus->status != PDEAD)
> 
> /* WTF?  This if always tests true??? */
> 
> I'm having trouble trying to guess what the expression should be
> in the first place though, so I'll leave that to somebody else.

My guess would be:
    
    || !(pstatus->status == PALIVE || 
         pstatus->status == PEXPLODE ||
         pstatus->status == PDEAD)

In other words, send the status message if the player is not alive, dead, or
exploding.  For short packets 2, alive/dead status of the first 32 players is
sent with every packet.  Hence the send_short<2 and the pl->p_no>31 tests. 
Since status is sent another way, there is no need to send it via a player
status message.  Except that I'm not sure if status is sent with every packet,
or just those with a VPlayer message in them, which would be almost all
packets, but not necessarily.  It also doesn't differentiate between PEXPLODE
or PDEAD.  I'm not sure if that matters either.  I suppose I can just fix the
code and see what happens.




> I'd like these changes to be incorporated into the vanilla source. They
> have only bare minimum effect if wrap_galaxy == 0.

It sounds like you are talking about client changes too?

> 
> Another change is to have a .sysdef option for whether planets can be
> orbitted in two directions. The thing here, would be that when a person
> approaches a planet, the angle at which they approach it when they
> engage the orbitting mechanism determines the smoothest path for
> orbitting. This has to be optional as it does affect game play, especially
> for LPS, as the cloaker can be a little smart about which way he/she
> wishes to orbit the planet.

I think this has been tried before, and people didn't like it.