I have been working on everything, and making pretty good all around progress. I'm looking to have a solid cross platform release of the planet viewer with login and maybe chat built in done by the end of the year. The server is far enough for this, but needs to be a bit more stable. The client can already login, so its mainly a matter of getting the user interface done, and getting a release put together. Once thats done, I'll work toward getting ground combat designed and implemented.

Here is a Large Screen Shot

There are also lots more new screen shots.

Edit: I also got chat working, though again, the new client has no GUI for it.

I'm going to fix up a few things, then see if I can actually install the new server software on the server and get it all running. I leave it up to check stability and processor load, and get the new client to talk to it.

With the client socket working in python, that would mean that the new client mainly needs a basic GUI, and not much else to get it usable with accounts and such.

Once it has accounts, and database access, the server side of the ground combat UI (applying players' actions) should be very easy.

Getting the (not yet finished) ground combat algorithm into the new database system will be an interesting project. I can't really say how long that will take, but once that, and the client ground combat GUI are done (another project of unknown difficulty), there will be a game to play, and it will be fully on the new client and server.

Along with the new client, I designed a new server architecture, which I think will work much better. I have finished the basic architecture, and done some basic testing of it. Everything seems to work well, though there are some features missing as far as automatic crash recovery and distributed processing across multiple servers (basic multi-core support should already work, and the database server can be on another machine), but I think everything else major is solid.

Along with the basic architecture changes, I have now implicated a new networking protocol. It has basic error detection, and should be a solid base for the networking. There are a few details that are currently in need of optimization for high loads, but I will get that fixed soon. I still need to implement it on the client side in python too. (Edit After some testing, for small messages, my code is more than twice as fast as RealBasic's built in alternative, and about 11% faster for much larger messages. I also got it about half implemented on the python side)

Also, I should note that several developers other than me have been active recently working on various design and documentation tasks, as well as the ground combat system which will be ported to the new server, client and networking once finished.

I think that is it for now. No pretty new pretty pictures. I need to rig up a PHP script so I can easily update a gallery of new screen shots for all you (not very numerous) fans :)

I could worry about it. Which utility are you referring to?

First, you will need to actually get the client to run. I can help you with that. Then you need to figure out how to make a redistributable package out of it. PackPanda is built into Panda3D, but only supports Windows and Linux. I don't currently have a linux or windows rig that can run the game, and can't make mac packages.

Btw, you have dev permissions: if you have good enough hardware, and you want to go to the effort, you could run it now.

Thanks :)
I'll ask on AIM if I can't run it.

I'm just not going to worry about that now (any one want to worry about that for me?)

I could worry about it. Which utility are you referring to?

There are clouds and huge ice caps. No storm clouds per say though. I gotta get weather and climate modeling done first. Then we can have rain storms with lightning, and lots of other fancy things. Ha, those pictures are so out of date. That sun set has no fancy red glow, the land is all low rez mesh. Lame. I should put up a new pic:

There is a while pile of screen shots in my servers FG screen shot folder

Anyway, probably the next thing appearance wise is proper 3D clouds (thats going to be fun!) with shadows on the ground (cuz we are cool like that). Eventually I want to do automatic exposure adjustments, but that is actually kinda hard.

Currently it requires shader model 3 (directX 9 level stuff) for it's fancy mesh solution (fancy meaning it works ok and was easy to do).

Btw, you have dev permissions: if you have good enough hardware, and you want to go to the effort, you could run it now.

I also have been playing with planet appearance a bit. Nothing major though. Maybe I'll put up a new image and/or video soon.

Edit: Have a sunset! Ya, pretty crummy without atmospheric scattering, but at least the water looks somewhat nice.

You have access to the source repository, so you should be able to view it. We can discuss that on the dev forums. For everyone else, I would like to offer nice packages for mac windows and Linux, but there are some issues. The utility I have for making such packages does not support mac yet (even through panda3D works great on mac). Thus I might have a windows and maybe Linux download on the site soon (weeks?), but not Mac which is pretty lame considering that I'm developing it on a Mac (well, 2 actually). I'm sure there is a way to manually make mac releases, but I'm just not going to worry about that now (any one want to worry about that for me?)

Stars, and stars from planets, really require both atmospheric scattering and high dynamic range lighting. Both of these are quite complicated (but supper awesome looking). It will happen in due time, but for now if anyone wants to provide a star model or a replacement sky sphere, I would be happy to use them. We can discuss format details elsewhere.

On that note, I have made great progress the new server. I actually have the architecture working. The scheduler now properly runs tasks that access the database. Pretty basic, but it is a solid start to build upon, and also I can start bringing in major parts of the old server now.