AeroMogul Update #10 (2023/07/21)
🕑 Added 2023-07-21 15:57:45 +0000 UTCGreetings everyone!
Quite a bit of work has gone into AeroMogul since the last update. Of the big things, I've added the ability to display other companies' routes inside the client. I've also added the ability to transfer the data grid information to the client as heatmaps. Meaning you can now visualize airport/data grid demand on the globe.
I'm still working out the heatmap colors. So the picture isn't finalized. I have some extra time next week. So I will make a new video for that feature and explain the details.
I've also ported the server code to Windows, and the game can now launch the server code directly from the client. This work took up the bulk of the time since the last update. It was an important task because most of you are using Windows, and you'll likely want to play Single Player.
The good news is that Windows, Linux, and NetBSD share the same build tools. This means portability between the three operating systems will be very easy, thus resulting in less work. With GearCity, we support 6 completely different compilers and 3 different language standards.
I will still need to port to FreeBSD and MacOS. The latter is the only one I concern about.
Finally, I've road mapped many tickets to get us to our first internal Alpha build. There is a long way to go, but we're making progress.
On another note, I've considered starting a mailing list for these updates, primarily because I need to increase my domain and IP reputation at big tech email providers. The only way to do that is to send more mail. I've set up a poll: https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4439
I'll put it together if enough users are interested.
So stay tuned for next week's video. I'll throw out some eye candy and explain how some of the stuff is working behind the scenes.
Comments
Eric Jones
You are correct, I have not ported GearCity to any of the BSDs, but it's possible, and there are bounties for it: https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4330 https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4331 https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4332 https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4333 The only hangup with GearCity's portability is Chromium Embedded Framework. Google rejected BSD communities patches to make Chromium work better on their OSs. So CEF does not officially support them. So I would have to build a BSD-patched Chromium, then build a BSD-patched CEF, and finally fix any issues that pop up with that since CEF BSD patches are sporadic and rare. So that brings us to AeroMogul and NetBSD support. AeroMogul, the game, will not run on any BSDs. (Except maybe Playstation 4 & 5.) However, the logic engine/server code is currently pretty portable. It may or may not be known, but my preferred OS is FreeBSD. I use it for everything but work (GearCity/AeroMogul) and Widevine (Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.) I'll probably use it for work when bhyve gpu passthrough is stabalized. All of VENT's infrastructure is running on FreeBSD. If the game supports a VENT-hosted persistent multiplayer experience (not to be confused with self-hosted options: Singleplayer, Hotseat, LAN, and online multiplayer), I need my own infrastructure. This means needing the server to run on FreeBSD*. However, the game is currently very core count dependent. That opens the door to more obscure hardware like an ARM server. And if I am running the server code on non-AMD64 chips, NetBSD is the top choice. I was using my ARM laptop to work on the server code until the ram requirements got too high. My ARM laptop dual boots Debian and NetBSD. (*DragonflyBSD is also a possibility if we're on AMD64. FreeBSD has the edge, but I will benchmark the two OSs'.) Currently, none of this requires any additional work. If it becomes more work, I will probably drop the BSD server support.
Andrew
Interesting about BSD, if I'm reading gearcity.info correctly, that's a platform that Gear City doesn't support? I'm not aware of a lot of games supporting BSD, so hearing about one that does is interesting, even if I'm not particularly likely to play it there.
