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Help Wanted Mon, 05 January 2009 20:55 Go to next message
Hilton is currently offline Hilton

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 28
Registered: February 2005
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
Don't want to share too much unless/until I get a presentable project, but are there one or two individuals out there with extensive Javascript or any other web technology experience? (xhtml/css/graphics, javascript, php, mysql, advanced flash, etc)

I have a lot of my back-end done, but I'm looking for some help to speed things along, particularly with javascript.

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Re: Help Wanted Wed, 07 January 2009 14:26 Go to previous messageGo to next message
m.a@stars is currently offline m.a@stars

 
Commander

Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left
Great to hear! Cool

I know a little javascript, but unfortunately I don't have enough free time... Sad



So many Stars, so few Missiles!

In space no one can hear you scheme! Deal

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Re: Help Wanted Tue, 13 January 2009 21:46 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hilton is currently offline Hilton

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 28
Registered: February 2005
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
Alright, screw it, more information. Smile

I've been working off and on for a year on a project which I think has some promise... but maybe I should solicit some opinions before I continue.

The project is a completely web-based game based on Stars, powered completely by PHP (with an SQL backend, although game data is stored in PHP-serialized files for speed).

I have a lot of the backend code for both the site and the game done, I've made some simple test apps to generate universes and generate turns. Everything works and can work quite well.

The only hitch I have is the heavy JavaScript required to recreate the play area, or a Flash app to do the same thing.

Can anyone provide any thoughts?

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Re: Help Wanted Tue, 13 January 2009 22:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
gible

 
Commander

Messages: 1343
Registered: November 2002
Location: Wellington, New Zealand

Depending on how Stars-like it is, you might want to have a chat with Pascal Wassong. He has written the Étoiles client for freestars which iirc supports rulesets. Its Java rather than javascript but runs via webstart so is similar.

afaik freestars is vapourware atm, so having a backend to plug Étoiles into may help Pascal too.


also fwiw, I'd probably vote against flash every time.

also also...this is quite different to that yes?


[Updated on: Tue, 13 January 2009 22:20]

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Re: Help Wanted Tue, 13 January 2009 22:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hilton is currently offline Hilton

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 28
Registered: February 2005
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
I realize FreeStars is dead. I expected that long ago

Yes, very. I began to realize that I had too many of my own ideas to stick within the FreeStars scope, just like most programmers. Too individualistic. Smile So I started on my own, which I still have semi-working copies of, which also happened to use Lua to define everything about the game including the rulesets. That project evolved into this one. I'm moving along, albeit slowly, but am stymied about the interface.

I have also been quietly contemplating skipping the play interface and creating the host code only; the portion that allows game creation, modification and management, and generates turns. But I wasn't aware of any clients that were complete enough to be usable.

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Re: Help Wanted Thu, 15 January 2009 05:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
m.a@stars is currently offline m.a@stars

 
Commander

Messages: 2765
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left
You seem to be actually doing what I've been wanting to do for many years (and the SQL part would be my favorite idea). I'm still stuck at the Univ generation phase, though. So more power to you! Cool

Here's a suggestion: Can you build an "interface" that just lets players download their game data (planets, fleets, minefields, packets...) and then they could load it into the client of their choice?

Conversely, it would be very convenient for these clients to have a way to upload their orders to the game server.

In other words, I suggest you provide some kind of standard interface that others can plug into. An Excel-like datatable could be a start. Teleport

Good luck!



So many Stars, so few Missiles!

In space no one can hear you scheme! Deal

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Re: Help Wanted Fri, 16 January 2009 00:07 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hilton is currently offline Hilton

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 28
Registered: February 2005
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
Care to e-mail me to bounce ideas and perhaps help? Smile
Anybody, feel free - hjanfield@gmail.com please, so I can keep it all in one place.

I think you guys are right though, especially if someone has nearly completed a client, or perhaps my completion will spur one to be finished.

So, I am going to move hard on my backend. I already had universe generation working on a previous project, I merely need to translate and fill in some minor blanks to have generation similar to classic Stars.

I could use volunteers to handle some minor tasks; one of the biggest tasks is finishing the ruleset. Experience in PHP or any language is an asset, but not necessary - the syntax for the files I'm working with is fairly simple. Just need someone with some time to do some typing and testing.

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Re: Help Wanted Fri, 16 January 2009 00:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Hilton is currently offline Hilton

 
Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 28
Registered: February 2005
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
Has anybody looked at any of the other divergent clones such as Stellar Legacy, Nova, or Thousand Parsec? TP seems to be quite on-its-way, and Nova looks to be in good shape too... anybody know more?

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Re: Help Wanted Fri, 16 January 2009 19:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
ck_drknes is currently offline ck_drknes

 
Crewman 2nd Class

Messages: 17
Registered: May 2007
Location: Why do you want to know?
Hi, I'm the creator of the hxnova clone (http://code.google.com/p/hxnova/). I'm using a flash-based client so some collaboration might be possible. It uses some compressed xml files to talk to the hxnova-server but if you use a relatively simple file format, I could probably write a reader/writer.

chase.kernan at gmail

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Re: Help Wanted Fri, 23 January 2009 15:47 Go to previous message
Beowulf is currently offline Beowulf

 
Crewman 2nd Class
Stars! Nova developer
Stars! Nova developer

Messages: 13
Registered: November 2003
It's a long time since anything happened with Stellar Legacy (so once a year I try to port it to Java Laughing).

I didn't do much with JavaScript and less with Perl (and I do not really like GUI-Work), but I worked with GWT and much more with XML, SQL, CSS, Java and some other things, so if you need someone to code a xml-transformer/interface, to review some code or to fix some bugs, just ask.

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