Development update

[jamespetts]

As regular contributors to the forum will be aware, I have not been active in development recently, as the computer that I had been using had deteriorated into a poor state and the parts for the computer with which I wanted to replace it had not yet become available. I decided to concentrate on other hobbies/activities beside Simutrans while waiting for the availability of the better parts to improve rather than settle for a mediocre upgrade.

In the last two weeks, I have finally been able to build the replacement system (as discussed in more detail [urhttps://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,19048.msg182785.html#msg182785]here). This evening, I have got as far as setting up the Simutrans-Extended development environment (albeit I have not yet installed Blender for pakset work). I have been able to build Simutrans-Extended successfully and also run the downloaded release build from the Bridgewater-Brunel server successfully. I have not yet been able to connect successfully to the Bridgewater-Brunel server, but it appears that that may because somebody else is in the process of connecting at the same time as I attempted this; it is difficult to tell whether this is the case without further investigation for which I do not have time this evening. For more details on my initial findings with respect to performance, see the thread linked above.
I am aware that a large backlog of bug reports has accumulated during the time that I have been unable to work on this. I also have a large backlog of other things (e.g. post-processing photographs, including several thousand from a holiday in September which I am gradually uploading to Flickr). Also, my ~3 week Christmas holiday, which I spend away from home (and thus the new computer) is fast approaching, although I traditionally undertake extensive pakset work over the Christmas period, which I plan to continue this year, using my secondary computer.
It is thus likely to be some time before I am able to deal with the various bug reports and other matters that have arisen during the time that I have been away from regular development. Prioritising them will be a substantial task in itself. I am aware that there are other issues, such as testing some modifications to city building code to work on (and which I had hoped to be able to do before I had the new computer, but using the old computer for anything other than very basic work was too painful to contemplate when it would become unresponsive for minutes at a time with no warning).

One of the things that I will need to look into is the online server: that game has grown to be so large that it seems to be placing too much of a strain on either the server itself, players' computers or both such that it appears that availability is low at present. That issue will need some investigation. I have experimentally altered some settings on the server (on which more details in the server's own thread), but this will not affect load/save times. I will have to investigate this in some detail to improve long-term playability: possible solutions might include using maps with fewer towns and/or slowing town growth in the future with the aim of having a less highly populated map.

Once I have made sufficient progress with the bug reports and performance issues, as well as making some furhter progress with the signalling tutorial videos, I can turn my attention again to the proposed major feature upgrades necessary for balance, discussion of and work on which will need to restart in earnest in due course.

Thank you all for your patience whilst I have been away. It would be interesting to know whether any consensus has emerged as to priorities for bug fixes in the short term.