Xconq Netwoking Test Tonight

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald at phy dot cmich dot edu>]

Hello Xconquerors,

  Those who wish to help me test out the Xconq networking tonight, 
please send me an email in the next half an hour or so.

  By "test", I really do mean test. It may be that we don't make it 
beyond a few rounds before sync errors crop up, so have too high of 
expectations. It may be that I will find it necessary to partially 
rewrite Xconq's network data pumps before we achieve true stability.

  Some thoughts:
(1) If we have 4 people, then we can try a 4-person game. I pretty much 
expect such a game to fall out of sync. However, it should make it past 
the setup stage, which is more than could be said before.
(2) If a 4-person game falls out of sync, I would like to compare it to 
2 2-person games in terms of how long it lasts before falling out of sync.
(3) I would like feedback from folks, such as what they were doing 
around the time the game fell out of sync. Were you moving lots of 
aircraft, and using the 'r' (return) command. Were you setting up units 
to automatically move long distances. Were you switching to survey mode? 
Stuff like that....
(4) I would ask that no one attempt to turn an AI on for the side. 
Toggling the AI during setup seems to be okay, but toggling it while a 
game is known to cause problems.
(5) Setting things such as doctrines, formations, and standing orders 
have not been tested in a networked game, yet. If you do attempt to any 
these things, or anything else that might be construed as "out of 
ordinary", then please let me know (especially, if a game desyncs around 
such a time).
(6) Let's refrain from entering designer mode. I say this not out of 
concern for the cheating aspect, but as a similar concern to (5).

  Regards,
     Eric