[Tutor] Adding network play to an open source game.

[Tiger12506]

I wish to warn you that I've never done anything like this before, but I 
have a couple of thoughts here. First thought is, network games tend to be 
slow because sending state information to everyone with enough frames per 
second to make it decent game play is a lot of information to send... So the 
least information you have to send the better. Fortunately, now that I read 
a little more closely... A board game is not going to be bad about this...

Second thought is... start with simple sockets, work with the server model 
and the clients, do not mess with the game at first. Get dummy data to 
behave properly first before you ever try anything with the game itself.

Third thought. C++ is a different language from python. This will further 
intensify your trouble. In fact, depending on your knowledge of C++, this 
could greatly intensify your trouble. You could have step two there going 
just perfectly, but getting python and C++ to talk could throw you in loops.

I would say that generally for a programmer of a year, this seems like a 
very significant goal. Not only do you have to understand quite precisely 
what the C++ program is doing, (difficult especially in a game, IMO), but 
you have sockets to deal with, client, server, and just as difficult, 
C++/Python interaction. Also, given that you didn't write konquer~ someone 
else's code is harder to read than your own. Trust me.

My suggestion is, if you are going to tackle this, very definitely take it 
in very defined steps. Work on sockets here, then C++/Python here, etc. I 
don't wish to discourage you, but I wouldn't try this yet. (Of course, I've 
never taken classes...)  ;-)


> Hi.  First of all, I'm not an amazing programmer. But, I do have large 
> goals, somtimes too large.  There is an open source game, konquer, (it's 
> on the ubuntu repos.) that I would like to extend with python to include a 
> network based game.  But, I only know how to do simple sockets....  Is 
> this too big a project for first year programmer? (I've been programing 
> for 3, but have taken classes only one year.)The program is like a board 
> game. You move your fleets to different planets, one at a time.  The game 
> is written in C++(I think).
>
> Just as a preliminary thing, I will go through how I think it will work. 
> One computer in the network will be designated as the 'server' that 
> everyone will send information to. Each turn, four pieces of data will 
> have to be sent to the 'server' that I can think of right now.: 1. how 
> many fleets have left 2. from what planet 3. going to which planet 
> 4.taking how long to get there.   From there, the server will then issue 
> those to each player, and tell which player is next, and wait for his 
> reply.
>
> I don't really know how to start,  so I guess I will start here.
>
> I appreciate your reply.
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