BloodsPilot @ XPilot.ktd.krakow.pl

There is no point in releasing a new version before both
* a real newbie-help and
* in-client key-configuration
are integrated. All other improvements are of little importance for newbies.
If you don't share this view I suggest that you try out some other (multiplayer
action) games which are new to you. First things you'll probably want to know
are how to control the game (i.e. keys) and what to do. Therefore games have
keyboard setup functions and often tutorial levels or in-game teaching comments.

It would not hurt either to set up (more) useful client default options. I am
aware that different players want different settings, but some things can
certainly be improved. For example having turn and thrust on arrow left/right
and up may be a good idea to get people playing, but fire shot must not be on
arrow down in that case (or you could hardly shoot and thrust at the same time).


A more longterm aim would be to merge the bloodspilot-x11 client and the
xpilot-ng-x11 client (on which the former is based). The bloodspilot-x11
client has got numerous improvements over the ng-x11 client (e.g. record buffer,
speedzoom, hud radar walls/base warning, etc).
The main feature which was removed from the bloodspilot-x11 client is the radar.
Because it can be useful on certain (e.g. unknown) maps, it should be reintegrated.
Perhaps also a few removed client options should be reintegrated (I think some were
useful).

There are two reasons why I call for a merge. First there are no (active)
developers left, so it doesn't make sense to keep several seperate unfinished
projects. Instead focus on one project (xpilot-ng).
Secondly and also very important is the fact that xpilot-ng is maintained as
a debian package. Thus it is easily accessible to more players (guess how many
people click on xpilot-ng in their package application and how many download,
build and install the bloodspilot clients from source).

Talking about "click-and-go", xpilot-ng comes with some frontend `xpngcc'
(xpilot-ng-control-center). That's a python application which is added to
the system-wide applications->games menu on installation of xpilot-ng.
While I start XPilot from a shell, it is certainly easier to get into the
game via xpngcc. Xpngcc allows client and server setup, viewing recordings,
editing maps and more (chatting on the #xpilot channel on irc ...).
Btw. who coded xpngcc? Good job!

I fully agree with the first steps of this roadmap, i.e. newbie help and better in-client configuration. The third step is IMO figuring out how to build the package for multiple systems. Nobody has done that for a long time.

I'm not sure about the merge yet, but backporting the innovations from BP X11 to NG are certainly worthwhile. BP X11 was meant to be an optimized distribution for two maps: Blood's Music and Aimers. We would have to see the different in performance between NG X11 and BP X11 on these maps. Perhaps is it negligible on modern computers. If not, we would have to see how the functionality of NG can be divided into modules and built selectively, to get something like BP X11 or the full build.

Ok, I have almost succeeded in building the current CVS version of the NG distribution for Windows and Mac OS X. Still cannot get the Control Center to work fully. I will publish binaries for testing as soon as I have them. It would be also useful for other developers to get instructions on putting together the build environment, so I am working on that too.