Another quick update

 # 29.01.2024 mon

NPC station time depends now on time acceleration ( as it should)

TODO next:

Station manage screen must be sketched..It must be nice :)

Also, planning on doing point'n'click graphical interface also to the bottom of

game main screen (now blue bar with text).  So you could select between views

using mouse (of course old function keys would still work ). But thats after

station manage interface is done.

# 31.01.2024 wed

Station Managing screen added now. Only statistics so far. Also some tweaking

with statistics information done. Also chased some weird bug related to text input

widget being displayed always after saved game was continued. Got rid of it, but

root cause still a bit mystery :-O I think accelerated time need to be even more

faster, so that things progress more faster when you are managing the station.

Need to address that...Now it is approximately so that one second is one hour

when time acceleration is on.

quick update

# 25.01.2024 thu

Planning station managing screen... Now listing all attributes that need to

be adjustable by station manager.

# 27.01.2024 sat

Station statistics implementing. added some counters related to income

and expenses. Need to think about economy next a bit more detail.

e.g. raw materials, production rates vs. human resources etc..

For inspiration, watched the Story of SimCity and its author Will Wright

from Youtube. Very interesting to watch!

Station buying and new youtube video

 Stations can be bought now. Still TODO is "station management screen". Put a quick youtube video on buying the station. It is not so quick in real scenario, credits must be earned first... 

Link to video: https://youtu.be/vJz2R7V8mMc?feature=shared

And, some latest "raw notes" from my dev diary added, below:

Added algorithm for determining the station value. It is determined based
on station credits, stock value and tech level.

( Station::determine_station_value() )

TODO next: buy option to station in station info screen. => maybe just can leave

offer to owner and owner responds in bbs message ?

If owner is short on quick cash, he may sell station under-prized ... maybe there

could be hints on bulletin board on this ?

Update: Bid for station can be now set from info view of a station. Build some

generic(ish) numeric input routines and callback system in the process.

Bid not yet handled by owner, thats next.

# 19.01.2024 fri

Now stations can be bought. some tweaking needs to be done still, but anyway.

# 20.01.2024 sat

## Status

NPCs now arrive & dock to destination station almost immediately, when accelerated

time is on as otherwise they would float in space foreva.

## Some Raw materials and producing planning.

Raw Materials are used to build stuff..

If they run out, nothing can be manufactured.

They are obtained from: Traders, and own operations (e.g. mining asteroids)

TODO FIXES:

- station owner must not be able to buy the station again :) => FIXED

- BUG still with NPC ship Particle System being affected by player movement...

TODO next: station managing screen usable

Linux test

 18.01.2024 thu

==============

Smoke tested DeFinibus on Linux, only few changes  related to file system

paths being handled differently between Win and Linux need to be made.

Performance, however, was horrible on Linux running on VirtualBox.

Hopefully performance on native Linux is better. Don't have now native

Linux available for testing.

Station Managment, part 1

 16.01.2024 thu
===============

Station and NPC "AI" general improvements. Workers now do station maintenance by daily

basis and get even payed for it :)

Station condition decreases over time and doing maintenance then increases it, obviously.

Next in the tasklist is the station "control menu" for the station owner.

Oh, and option for to buy the stations fron the owners is also needed, of course.

Im pondering whether station management would be behind password/credentials,

so that anyone knowing the credentials would be able to log on the management system.

That would open some possibilities, of coursee...like stealing credentials.. :)

NPC flight and other

I have been implementing NPC flight system now. Quite a struggle, but got it to work now somehow. Next up in the endless task list will be Station Management, meaning that player will be able to buy a station and follow and (micro)manage station issues and also hopefully earn cash in the progress, when things go well.

I though it could be fun to show my raw dev notes from my VS code project. So these notes are for myself to remember and organize things. The content is really "raw"/unedited :)  So here they are

01.01.2024

==========

BUGS:

- Every sound sample is played twice,WTF!?!?! => FIXED

4.1.2024 thu

============

TODO

- First ship maintenance service and hull repair service => DONE

- Then start NPC ship stuff...needs design first

Update: NPCs now buy ships, does not fly with them yet...

- BUG: If player has no ship, player pos is not updated according to station pos

=> station drifts away...

Update:

NPCs now taking of, everything is screwed up... does not work.. particle effects ws.

ships...ships does not move...

Issues:

-ParticleSystem uses always Vertex::transform => transform_other should be used in

case of other Ship...

-For some reason, NPC ships do not move even if thrust is applied -OK... needed to

modify thrust as NPCs not handled every frame...

 TODO BUG still with NPC ship Particle System being affected by player movement...

10.1.2024 wed

=============

NPCs now flying..but something severely wrong with either coordinate system or

updating of them or both..

Sometimes NPCs stop without no apparent reason even if thrusting seems to be on.

And sometimes their movements are badly screwed up, some hyperjumps seems to appear...

=> fixed now...

11.01.2024 thursday

===================

NPCs now dock. Some shortcuts had to be made, so that they can eventually dock.

They dock if they are on station and it is set as waypoint, regardless of speed.

Will address/refine that "later"..

Still issues, with NPCs getting stuck on longer journeys...

I have now debug settings all over the place in the code...damn. Those should be

zeroed back when everything works(tm)

Update: Stuck problem solved, ship thrust was growing too big => velocity didnt

get updated any more..

There IS light at the end of the tunnel, is seems :)

 TODO: BUG still with NPC ship Particle System being affected by player movement...

12.1.2024 friday

================

TBD what to do next (apart from general fixes/enhancements)...

- Maybe station management first?

- Maybe hyperspace to other system?

13.1.2024

=========

Bug fix: planet position was not updated when it is rotating around star =>

NPCs got confused when accelereated time is on and planet rotates fast...fixed now.

NPC development

 Christmas break over now and works to be started (both day-job and this hobby-project ) :)

Some random ramblings about things done and to be done.

Already started to implement NPC flying mechanism. Firstly, NPCs must buy ships and related stuff, like fuel for ships. Some randomness had to be added to the procedures so that not every NPC goes to buy ships and start to fly around at the same time. Actual travel destination selection need to be done based on what NPC is doing (trading or completing other missions).  Flying logic need to include some kind of smooting / filtering algorhitm for direction selection, so that ship movement does not appear to be "jerky" when direction is applied continuously based on calculated heading.