Important news. The project has temporarily lost some visual polish and features, but it has moved fully onto a networked architecture.
Today I did what I was very afraid to do: I split the project into client and server parts. I was afraid because I had no practical experience with networking. I seem to understand some of the theory, but practice and theory usually... well, you know. ))))
This is another very important milestone, one of the main ones. In fact, the main one. Until now I'd been building mechanics and visuals in single-player mode, planning to adapt them for multiplayer later. Having overcome most of the difficult parts, I reached the point where the project should begin gaining features and interfaces rapidly. But the more I built, the more I would have to revise later. So I decided to tackle the frightening but inevitable task: adapting the code and algorithms for multiplayer.
Today I got the server to calculate the ships, planets, and other objects, while the client receives only their states. That's a major victory.
In the screenshot you can see early tests of the right-hand section of the ship's quick-control interface. The logs also show many messages from the network system. On the right is the SpatialOS panel, a visualization of the network system responsible for client-server communication and cluster scaling. The map shows planets, a little ship, and the positions of two clients.
