Development:Network:Todo

Network TODO

• Clean up server-client-authserver communication
  • I would really like if the messages sent and received could be done in a more uniform way.
  • Clean up some unused messages.
• Login:
  • Encrypted authentication, possibly using a random server token.
    • This means that login data cannot be the first packet sent -- it must first negotiate a key.
  • Would SSL be a good idea here. I think we currently link with a Crypto++ library... but I'm not sure how it is currently used or how to use it.
  • Make sure authserver-server-client time synchronization works correctly. Maybe every few minutes (or even hours) A,S,C should sync in case a clock gets off somehow.
• Exiting:
  • VSExit(1) is somewhat brutal way of quitting the game. It often doesn't even nicely inform the server until it closes the connection.
  • Other clients sometimes still see a ghost of the player who left. I'm not sure if this is fixed yet.
  • Games should be saved? (see below)
    • How much data should actually be saved? What if you have died?
• Damage:
  • Theoretically implented, but I have yet to see collisions and weapons actually do damage client-side.
  • Figure out how to gracefully detect dead units (Crashing because the unit is NULL is not the right way to do this).
  • Not sure what CMD_SCAN is to be used for... it's used in one place -- that is in NetClient::scanRequest.
  • I don't know yet how the game will implement dying...
    • It would be bad to have to start from scratch every time you crash into something.
    • Have the respawn key re-join?
    • How do we implement saving? Respawn doesn't work without a way to save... or should you keep everything the same as when you died, and then start from a random "spawn point".
      • I believe most FPS games make you lose all upgrades, but this is not an option in Vega Strike, or things will get boring quickly.
      • How do games like Ultima or WoW behave when you die? Do you lose everything (obviously you can't lose all your experience)?
• Weapons:
  • Energy needs to recharge client-side (interpolate between CMD_SNAPSHOTs) -- this is one (if(Network==NULL))'ed out statement in some updatePhysics-related function in unit_generic.cpp -- Really easy to fix.
  • Clients with NULL targets constantly send out streams of CMD_TARGET to the server (from withing FireKeyboard::ForceTarget. We sohuld either disable it client-side (but then people will have to manually re-target when their target dies), or else have the server instead check for any nearby targets, and then broadcast a CMD_TARGET only once it becomes non-NULL. This way we avoid the flooding.
• Jumping, Docking, multiple systems:
  • Server switching???
  • Having the server load a new system may not be a good idea. The server should always have all systems it will handle running at once.
  • This also means that the universe must be limited.