<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><b class="">Update</b>: I solved the network performance problem. I’m currently running ~43 packets per second between my Swift client and the Swift server.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><b class="">News</b>: I’m pleased to announce a new Netrek game mode: <b class="">Empire!</b></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Uses standard Bronco clients</div><div class="">All 4 teams active.</div><div class="">Sufficient robots for minimum of 28 players (robots logoff as humans join).</div><div class="">When you join, you are randomly assigned a “home planet”.</div><div class="">You spawn on whatever team controls the planet (if the planet is Indi, then you spawn on the original owner’s team).</div><div class="">When one empire controls 75% of the planets, they win.</div><div class="">If you want to refit ships, you need to do it at your assigned home planet.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">As an empire gains planets, it gets more ships/players. But it might be possible for the 3 other empires to stop a large team from becoming dominant.</div><div class="">Due to the random assignment of players to planets, there in no guarantee that teams will start out even.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I’ve tested that the following clients handle 28 players successfully:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">MacOS-Swift</div><div class="">Linux-COW (although the full player list may not be visible)</div><div class="">Windows-x86</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Server is <a href="http://netrek.networkmom.net" class="">netrek.networkmom.net</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Feel free to login and try it out anytime (warning: I’m restarting the server periodically as I push new features/bugfixes). I continue to appreciate feedback on the server.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We will have an early adopter test game Tuesday 7/21 6PM Pacific.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Thursday 7/23 is hockey. We will have a full game Tuesday 7/30 6PM Pacific.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">My Swift server is open source at <a href="https://github.com/darrellroot/netrek-server-swift" class="">https://github.com/darrellroot/netrek-server-swift</a></div><div class="">The server also supports bronco mode with a command-line argument (not yet feature complete)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Major known server issues:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Still no user database / ranks.</div><div class="">Server does not yet implement proper “visibility” rules for distant or cloaked ships.</div><div class="">Missing some starbase features/restrictions</div><div class="">Bronco mode does not have game timers.</div><div class="">Robots are ok dogfighters, but do not currently bomb or capture planets.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><b class="">Metaserver</b>: For now my server is still reporting server type “B” for bronco. I will change it to “E” at some point, but I need to push a new MacOS client before I do so. I might look at COW source and see if I can generate a pull request to handle the E in the metaserver report. Right now other clients report the server type as “unknown” if it sees an E in the metaserver report.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Darrell</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></body></html>