[netPanzer-Devel] Status of the network code and next plans

[Matze Braun]

Hi,

I just wrote a new network layer for netpanzer in SDL_net. Unfortunately I 
can't test it at the moment, because on mingw not even the original 
winsock port is working. So now I'm wondering if opening a server and 
connecting to it works if you compile the code with msvc? (Or is this code 
in a nonworking state?)

Next steps from my side:
-First I'll have to learn for exams at 12. Sep, so you can't expect 
big updates from my side.
-When looking at the current network code, it works by opening a TCP 
stream and a UDP connection between server and client. The UDP connection 
is only used for keepalive packets, so I assume we can drop that for 
simplicity (after all TCP has a keepalive mechanism builtin).
-When I find more time then we could rewrite the whole network code to 
use UDP. this will give a good speed boost and should make playing 
over internet alot more reliable. The problem is that this requires lots 
of work and algorithms for reordering and detecting lost packets (though I 
wanted to write a library for that someday anyway, so this would be a good 
chance :)

Greetings,
        Matze

PS: I wonder what happened to all the other people that wanted to start 
hacking in the project? Already found something you wanna work on? I could 
eventually help getting started with the code. If you search for stuff 
that needs fixing the look at the TODO text or simply search the 
sourcecode for XXX (I added XXX to places where we need smaller fixes).