[karajorma]

Thing is that HotU exists to preserve old games so that they don't die out. I'm not sure how they'd feel about a bastardised version of the game (Which is why I said that the SCP stuff should be in the download but optional).

As for including all the retail movies etc. that's not what I was on about. I simply meant taking what you have now. Adding the retail 1.2 versions of the launcher, FRED and FS2 and making the installer script only install SCP extras if the user asks for it.

Do that and you might have something that HotU are interested in.


The other thing is that although MatthewPapa can change his version every time the SCP has a major revision I'm not so certain HotU would be so willing. Especially as they prefer people to use bitTorrent. That means that a lot of people downloading their version would after a year or so be downloading it with a VERY outdated version of FS2_Open.

For HotU it might be simpler to just include a URL to here or my FAQ or something like that. After all if we don't we're back to wasting bandwidth on stuff that becomes obsolete the second you get to HLP.

[Flex]

Thing is that HotU exists to preserve old games so that they don't die out. I'm not sure how they'd feel about a bastardised version of the game (Which is why I said that the SCP stuff should be in the download but optional).

lol. I respect them for that btw not letting a nice games die.

As for including all the retail movies etc. that's not what I was on about. I simply meant taking what you have now. Adding the retail 1.2 versions of the launcher, FRED and FS2 and making the installer script only install SCP extras if the user asks for it.

Do that and you might have something that HotU are interested in.

I can, no problems, will w8 what MP will say about, I can write the scripts but prefer not to upload the result image but instead MP to make it on his side

The other thing is that although MatthewPapa can change his version every time the SCP has a major revision I'm not so certain HotU would be so willing. Especially as they prefer people to use bitTorrent. That means that a lot of people downloading their version would after a year or so be downloading it with a VERY outdated version of FS2_Open.

True... it's not that hard to make a program that checks for updated fs2_open main & launcher, it is a normal practice the programs to get updated, that's what the updates stands for
The problem is with the vp files if they decide to update them -  100mb is not something I would like to download. Small difference patches will solve but that'll require a help from the scp

For HotU it might be simpler to just include a URL to here or my FAQ or something like that. After all if we don't we're back to wasting bandwidth on stuff that becomes obsolete the second you get to HLP.

Yep, almost full retail ver for HotU - the movies, they'll surely like it

[karajorma]

I don't think we want the SCP to be getting into the habit of patching media VP files. For a start after a few cycles it will become a mess where you have to download 4 or 5 patches and apply them sequencially far better to simply download them each time there's an update (It's only 2-3 times a year anway at the moment).

[Flex]

Heh. Looking at the SCP downloads now, there is no way I can get the files and versions without parsing some html code. There is a way... with the help of SCP (providing some some autogenerated ini file with the most current stable version, most current nighty and links, as well as the media files version), either SCP of me to build an autoupdate utility, and upon some big modification (of the media files for example), the hosted here iso to be rebuilt?

[MatthewPapa]

Update software sounds nice but I wouldnt really know how to write it...

[Flex]

I can do, no problems, just need a reply from scp (don't know who to refer) how should we handle the info file (some ini for example) and what is best for both scp in terms of easy handling and me to check it. If you are open to the idea, lets get it done

[karajorma]

My idea is basically along the lines of what I posted in that other thread.

The launcher checks for new versions of a file called default.ini on the SCP site (or whereever). This is a text file containing details of all the mods available. It also contains details for a folder called media_VPs which surprise, surprise contains the media VP files.

When the media VP files are updated we update the default.ini file to state that there is a new set of Media VPs available. The launcher can then connect and download them for you.

The beauty of this system is that it means the launcher can also handle mod delivery without any changes to the launcher. All that would need to be updated is the default.ini file (Which points to the location of the download).  

[Flex]

Yep, that will do the work too and means PR will have some more homework
Even better if the launcher itself does it since no additional programs will be required. 2 options has to be in effect :
- check for media files update (default on), you can exclude for saving yourself a 100mb
- check for nigty builds (default off) - if turned on, the current nighties will be installed.

PS: there will still be needed a 3rd program for the updating the launcher itself, but it is very simple

[karajorma]

PR?

I think that getting the launcher to check for new builds might result in more hassle than it is worth to be honest. New official builds is one thing but most of the coders upload to their own personal webspace when they are putting up builds so it could become a bit of a nightmare to manage.

The launcher itself doesn't need a program. We can simply get it to open a link to the new launcher in a web browser and leave it upto the user to do that. I don't think it's worth the hassle unless it's very simple to do (That said FS2 Retail does exactly the same thing with its launcher when you patch from 1.0 to 1.2 and it is convinient).

Doing this sort of thing would definately have the effect of making FS2 look a lot more professional.

[Flex]

It's not a big deal
Even a "news" about a new buld and address/discussion will help too.
What's the story with the official builds? From my point of view - the "official" tends to be most outdated and buggy build available and it is used by people until the say to themselves well... movies does not work, opengl results in a black screen, alt-tabbing crashes the game, the gamma is increasing when you decrease it and so on... and get to the forums to discover a place they can get the "nighties" built by one or another and after some tries to live happily. And if they dig long enough some of them can find higher-resolution movies, ligh-res textures, new effects and music, all goodies that are common to the veterans here but a newbies like me does not know they exist at all.
In that terms... wouldn't be better the "official" version to be updated more often? Still, the deep beta nighty test builds to remain, but after something proves stable, or just better than the official one, it goes the top?

I want freespace to look more professional too... and maybe gather some more attention because it is wonderful game and lot of work has been put from the V and all the community. The current way of "take that from this site, combine with this torrent, download the update from this site..." is definately confusing. My colleague, big fan of space sims saw the hotsu one I have just downloaded and said "graphics sucks, this is too old". 3 days later, when I had all parts gathered (those 2.8Gb) he saw me playing and said "what is this, why you haven't told me about!". Now he planned his holiday to be free to play the "new game". I new about fs2_open before, was a matter of time to find it, but he didn't and this illustrates clearly what is the first impression of FS2 and what *should* be after so much work involved.

Just my $0.02

[karajorma]

The last two official builds have had problems. That's why the SCP keeps pushing back the next launch so as to avoid the problem. The official build should be as stable as possible because when the code freeze is over things are going to destabilise pretty quickly.

The simple fact is that having release and development branches is something that often gets discussed but the problem is that we lack anyone with the time to do take care of it. As a result we end up with people who are brand new to FS2_Open being told to use a bleeding edge build. That's not something people should have to do.

The problem with news of a new build is that someone has to update the default.ini to tell people that it exists or we have to have a new file telling the game where to look for new builds. I like the idea of default.ini but if we ask too much of it things become a chore   and it won't get used.

[Flex]

Well... managing a single project with many developers all around the world is a challenging task indeed. As far as I know in such situations all work on their tagged builds, and a good commits gets occasionally merged with the dev branch... but it still requires extensive testing after the merge and is human error prone.

To be honest the problems with the current official build were the reason I came here crying for help quite soon after my first tries so it was kinda good

Skipping the default.ini will not be good... a "new" version could be detected by either datestamp (sigh) or some filename format. I can't count on the first way to be stable. The second looks more promising and best of it, does not rely on human to edit some file to let the people know.
a structure as follows:
scp/downloads
--fs2_open3.6.6.zip
--fs2_open3.6.6.txt
...
--mv_core1.0.2.zip
--mv_core1.0.2.txt
--mv_models1.3.5.zip
--mv_models1.3.5.txt

This may do work for the default.ini-less updates. The launcher looks in there and compares. The text files are the changelog in fact, the launcher should update only files present in the system i.e. although a new mv_cell file is out, if the user does not use the cartoonish textures, no need to download them. I refer "zip" as a general compression, 7z can be used for example too since it offers better compression than even winrar, + it is free and + I think it offered a small decompression prg/lib, just ideally suited for the purpose.

This if the launcher downloads and extract the files by itself. The other way is a simple nsi script that finds the freespace2 folder and updates the file, while the downloading is left to the user - best compression, automatic install.

The drawback - linux users will not be able to run the exe.

[karajorma]

That might work well for official builds but unofficial builds use a variety of names and are in a variety of places.

Now that I think about it though downloading new builds through the launcher might not be the best way to handle it to be honest. The posts on the forum that most people get them from can easily warn the user about certain problems etc in a way that an automatic download (where the readme is almost automatically ignored by most people) can't.

With Mods the laucher has a nice explaination screen for each mod so any issues can easily be entered into the mod.ini by the creator. Expecting developers to do the same with builds though would be something of a waste of time for them.

I'd say sticking to mods and the media VP files for now is probably the smartest idea.

[Flex]

Yeah, but if ignoring the nighties? You said that the current situation with the buggy official build is not common so if the officials are stable enough to be the recommended version should the automatic update, no matter if the user pays attention to the readme or not will do work?
Supposing a new officials will be as often as new media files - 2-3 times per year. Nighties are quite a different story, I pointed to them because the official is of a bad quality compared to them but if this is not the common case, then what about launcher updating only to official releases (+mods & media vp files)?

A single-cd (or may became a bit more with the high-res movies) FS2_open with automatic updates and mod support will be just killer game

[karajorma]

3.6 and 3.6.5 were pretty unstable. 3.5.5 on the other hand was so stable that there are people still using that version of FRED.

From what I can see 3.6.7 will hopefully be pretty stable too. If you look at the current CVS builds you'll notice that it's been a while since anyone mentioned any huge bugs. The builds that come out after 3.6.7 on the other hand will be a nightmare of stability problems. Everyone has been sitting on their hands for months now and Bob is about to do a massive overhaul of the texture system which will undoubtably cause problems for weeks or months afterwards simply due to the scale of the change.

Thing is that bleeding edge builds shouldn't be used by the average user but due to the lack of programmers we can't really branch which means we get an official build for the majority and recent builds for those willing to take a risk.

I do agree on how having FS2 able to look after itself would be a killer idea and working on the launcher is my number one priority after I can finally get some free time to sit down and finish learning C++

[Flex]

Heh, you'll have problems if you haven't played C up to now. There is no one playing with the laucher now?
I'm with ultra limited time too, working on 2 places for almost 16 hours/day including the weekends but FS is just too great and willing to make sacrifices and help out

[karajorma]

Random Tiger works on it when he has time but he tends to get busy and drop out for months at a time. Given that the launcher works pretty well at the moment no one gives it much priority but seeing as how I do a hell of a lot of troubleshooting I figure that spending a few manhours adding automatic delivery and installation to the launcher will save me double that in questions like "I've downloaded this mod. How do I installed it?"

Plus I'm guessing that the launcher code is much cleaner than the spagetti code of FS2 and would be a nicer place to take my baby steps in a different language

[WMCoolmon]

As kara said, mediaVP patches isn't practical. I tried it once and it didn't work too well, as naming had to be counter-intuitive and it was just a pain for me/people to keep track of if VPs were patched or not.

I've played with the idea of a selective download system that will compare the files between local and remote VPs, and then rebuild the VP files with the proper files, but I'd need an easy way to get the files from the server. Compressed VPs would be FTW if I could download individual files from them.