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Shannon V. OKeets -> RE: When? (11/3/2009 9:51:36 AM)
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The Phillies are in the World Series [:)], but down 3 games to 2[:(]. I have been watching more baseball in the last month (14 games) than I have in the entire 13 years prior that I have been in Hawaii. Hawaii has no professional sports team - and I have been a Phillies fan since the Philadelphia Athletics moved out of Philly in the 1950's. Hence the delay on this status report. Sorry, but fixing bugs took precedence over this report.
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November 2, 2009 Status Report for Matrix Games’ MWIF Forum
I. Project Management
I still don’t know how long it will take me to fix all the bugs, but I am making reasonable progress on them. In October I focused 90% of my time on fixing bugs.
Communications
I received a couple of short emails from Mike (Players Manual), but nothing from Jim (sound effects), or Dave (music).
I monitored all the threads in the MWIF World in Flames forum daily and uploaded versions 2.01.05, 3.00.00, and 3.00.01 for the beta testers. There were fewer new versions but the number of chances per version was higher.
Orm finished his after-action-reports on Barbarossa.
Patrice helped abbreviating the longer port names for the Naval Review Summary form.
Robert continues to do new naval unit writeups every week.
Alain sent me an updated version of the Land Unit writeups, which contained new contributions from David Hughes.
Michael has been doing a ton of testing on the sequence of play.
No communications with Harry Rowland or Chris Marinacci.
Hardware and Software Development Tools
I have not installed ThemeEngine July/2007 although I will probably do that in November.
II. Sequence of Play
Beta Testing
I uploaded three new versions for the beta testers this month, which didn’t quite meet my goal of one a week.
Version 2.01.05 (31 changes): added 5 more slots for context sensitive help, fixed a couple of bugs in and substantially revised the Production Planning form, added more buttons for viewing combat charts in the Spend Surprise Points form, enabled doubling the Global Map (each hex is twice as wide and twice as high), and added another half dozen checks for invalid values. The latter keep popping up depending on which optional rules are being used. Given all the different phases in the game and the different forms for reviewing the status of units both on map and off, it is really difficult to foresee all the possible situations where some variable might be undefined.
Version 3.00.00 (39 changes) reflects a numbering change because substantial changes were made to the Naval Review Details, Naval Review Summary (NRS), and the data stored in the Screen Layout files (SLY files). I had let the SLY file format remain static for almost 3 years and decided it was time to implement all the changes I had accumulated during that time. The changes to the NRS form mandated a new format too. The other major work I did for the new version was to coordinate the use the UnitsInHex form, the Naval Review Details form, the Naval Review Summary form, and the double size Global Map. These now complement each other with different combinations serving different purposes during game play. There were a couple dozen other bugs fixed in this release.
Version 3.00.01 (17 changes) make “follow up” changes to the NRS form after the beta testers had a chance to work with it. The mods included adding a new check box for determining whether the displayed columns remain the same or are redetermined anew whenever the filters change. Other corrections were to air transport missions, displaying land combat odds using decimals instead of whole numbers when fractional odds are in use, processing the naval combat abort queue, and a couple of other naval movement fixes.
Test Script/Plan
Nothing new.
Game Engine Redesign
Nothing new on rewriting the supply routines (but is it now 3rd in my task queue behind naval combat bugs, and coding the redesigned system for routing resources to factories.
Units, Map, and Scenarios
Rob continues to generate new naval unit writeups and send me periodic updates of the master file. Alain sent me his current master copy of the land unit writeups, including some new ones from David Hughes. Patrice found a few names to tweak on the map (e.g., adding the Neva River) and inserted shortened names for many of the ports. The NRS form displays the names of ports as column headers but there isn’t a whole lot of room. I added another field to the NAM data file so alternative shortened names could be added for the ports. According to Alain’s count there are 127 major ports and 427 minor ports = 554 named ports!
Optional Rules
I broke the interdependence between the Amphibious and SCS Transport optional rules. You can now use neither, either, or both. While fixing bugs I did a lot of detailed checking of the optional rules related to land combat. There are probably combinations I still haven’t checked, but I know that the component parts are coded correctly when used individually. There was a discussion in the forum on the optional rule for Compulsory Peace between the USSR and Japan. A consensus seems to have been reached on how to implement the rule, although perhaps there are more voices yet to be heard.
Saved Games
Nothing new during October. There are some places in the sequence of play where the player is permitted to save a game but the saved game can not be restored. And sometime the reverse is true, where the program prohibits saving a save, although if it were saved, it could be restored. I’ll go through all this systematically someday, but with 150+ forms and 150+ phases/subphase/et al, nailing this down perfectly is more than a few minutes work.
III. Player Interface
I spent serious time this month fixing player interface bugs. These did not relate directly to the sequence of play but had to do with bringing up forms and entering orders using the map.
The biggest improvement in the player interface was the creation of a double size global map. This makes using the global map feasible for a lot of decision making where previously the tininess of the hexes made visibility difficult and clicking on individual hexes virtually impossible. One new use for the global map is displaying the resources and factories controlled by each major power or side. Besides being informative, this production display for the double size global map is one of the key design element in the new system for routing resources.
Conceptually, during Production Planning the player will be able to select a resource from a list of his resources, choose a factory from a list of his factories, and then plot the route from one to the other through sea areas. In actual practice, most resources are routed directly to a factory over rail lines without having to go overseas. For these there is no need to route resources. However, when overseas routes need to be specified, primarily for the Commonwealth, the player wants to have precise control of the overseas route. Equally important is for the interface to enter a route be easy to use, so decisions are made without fighting the computer.
Once the double sized global map was working, I worked on integrating it with the Naval Review Details, the Naval Review Summary, and Units In Hex forms. I am now pretty happy with the ability of these tools to enable a review of naval operations and enter orders for naval units. This was one of my major concerns from the very beginning of this project, since a player examining 25 square feet of paper maps to review all the navies worldwide would seem to have a marked advantage over anyone using a system with only 1 to 3 square feet of map visible on a monitor or two or three. The more screen real estate a system has, the better this design works, but even with a minimal sized monitor, a player should be able to assess a position and make informed decisions for his navy.
IV. NetPlay
Nothing new.
V. PBEM
Nothing new.
VI. AI Opponent
Patrice and I worked on defining a geographical breakdown of Europe, including the adjacent sea areas. This is now ready for use in the AIO scripts. I expect to resume (and hopefully finish) coding the parser in November.
I realigned the decision making assignments for each decision maker. Mostly this involved splitting a list of tasks into subsets for a hierarchy of decision makers. For example, instead of there being just one naval decision maker (i.e., the Admiralty), there are now 4: Admiralty - global responsibility, Rear Admiral - theater of operations, Fleet Admiral - area of operations, and Naval Group Commander - sea area group.
Continuing the example, the Admiralty decides on convoy pipeline entry and exit points for each theater of operations (TO) and allocates new/unused units to each TO. The Rear Admiral decides on the use of convoys and naval transports within his TO as well as the positioning of naval units to establish a naval presence in individual sea areas. The Fleet Admiral moves convoys with accompanying escorts within his area of operations. He is also responsible for committing units to attack enemy naval assets and deciding to which port(s) naval units return. And at the lowest level, the Naval Group Commander decides all the tactical naval decisions, ranging from shore bombardment through choice of naval combat table.
The key benefit of these changes is that each decision maker has a geographical area of responsibility that aligns perfectly with the geographical breakdown that Patrice, Peter, and I have defined (still incomplete at this point).
VII. Documentation
I got an email from Mike that he is working on editing the Players Manual.
I continue to finish up writing and taking screen shots for Players Manual Section 8. The Naval Review Details and Summary forms documentation was completed immediately after those forms were finalized. I also documented the Land Air Transported Units and Drop Off Units forms after making some changes to them.
I revised the text in chapter 11 on the keyboard shortcuts and the use of the mouse for entering commands. The text hadn’t been 100% accurate when compared to the code that processes those commands.
Nothing new on Section 6, PBEM and NetPlay forms.
VIII. Learning Aids (tutorials, training video, embedded help text)
Nothing new on the 2 remaining chapters of the training video: naval movement/combat and production. I am much closer to authoring the chapter on naval movement and combat. Besides a few remaining bugs, what has me confused is defining a sequential script that covers all the various elements of naval movement and combat. There are a lot of variations and I am now sure how many of them should be included/excluded.
I added a new Help form for keyboard and mouse commands, more or less taking screen shots of my revised text in the Players Manual section 11. I think this is the last Help form that will be needed. There is still missing text for some of the context sensitive help, but most of that can also be taken from the Players Manual once I finish writing it.
IX. Glitz (historical video, sound effects, music, historical unit write-ups)
The currently active authors for the unit writeups are Robert, Alain, and David. I am waiting on the sound effects from Jim and the music from Dave.
X. Marketing
Andy Johnson has retained the ownership of the MWIF fan site he started to set up before his new job prohibited him from working on it. If anyone is interested, just send me an email or Personal Message (PM) - Andy is quite willing to transfer ownership to someone else.
Remaining Tasks
I Tasks requiring a small number of hours
1. Historical video
Integrate these into the program (randomizing when they are shown).
2. Sound effects
Awaiting Jim’s complete set of sound effects, after which I will integrate them into the program.
3. Music
Awaiting Dave’s complete set of music, after which I will integrate them into the program.
4. Unit writeups
I simply replace old master files with new ones when Rob and Alain send me updates.
5. Players Manual
9 of 11 sections are done.
6. Context sensitive help
I need to write a few lines for ~40 minor forms that pop up during play.
7. Auxiliary files
These are starter sets for new players so they can jump right into playing the game without having to make a lot of preparatory decisions. I need to round out my collection.
8. Tutorials and training video
The Training Video is 80% done. There are still some lingering bugs in naval combat which need to be fixed before I can record the training video on that topic. The same is true of production.
9. Player Interface
With the exception of the Standing Order forms for PBEM, I have finished the forms.
10. Optional Rules
For the optional rules that I want to finish, I need to fix bugs and bring them up-to-date with rules changes since 2003.
II Tasks requiring a medium number of hours
11. PBEM
The technical task of sending and receiving emails from within the program hasn’t been coded. Work on the standalone program (running on a third party computer) to generate random numbers hasn’t begun. The large task here concerns the Standing Orders: defining and instantiating internal variables, then displaying them in the forms so players can review and revise them.
12. Sequence of Play
There are still bugs related to the sequence of play, though that number keeps dropping.
III Tasks requiring a large number of hours
13. NetPlay
There isn’t a lot to do directly related to NetPlay, but the underlying performance of the program in generating Game Record Log Entries has to be perfect. That’s because the GRLs are sent to each computer in a networked game to keep them up-to-date with the decisions of all players. I need to instantiate, with actual data, the form used to monitor internet communications while a game is in progress.
14. AI Opponent
I need to finish writing the parser. Which then leaves the task of calibrating the rules’ performance so the AIO plays well.
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