Re: [Xpilot-hacks] XPilot forum project (xphacks2: message 2 of 20)

[Piotr K. <ro...@kt...>]

Hello,

> I'm not completely sure what "allow easy communication between players" means 
> - but I had similar plans for a service on chaos.
It means there will be an interface similar to phpBB. Anyone will be able 
to register and write posts there. This kind of communication will mainly 
make organizing matches easier than through email or irc. Of course one 
can discuss topics like coding or designing maps as well.

>
> Specifically, I wanted a cgi-bin script, that would allow for a
> (from my side) completely automated cup-like matches
I remember discussing that with you last year. The idea is very good. Our 
service (except for the forum) would be provided with an interface for 
planning of matches. Your cgi script would be placed on machines that host 
xpilot servers. Our interface could then invoke the cgi script and start 
the server.

The server would be stopped as requested from the site, or after some time 
or inactivity, that's a detail.

> when the system runs for a time, it must be possible to "challange" a team 
> that is ranked higher than one's own team. If the challange is not met 
> within... a month (?), the team is considered beaten by the challanger (or 
> something similar).
> --> teams can probably only challange the next better team in the ranking and 
> thus work their way up.
These probably need to be tried out in practise. I'm not sure there is a 
need to introduce that "time game". If a team plays a series of successful 
matches and falls into oblivion, it will be eventually outscored by 
other teams.

But this depends how we calculate the "global" score.

> it's not clear how matches are treated, where one of the players lose 
> connection, encounters a crash or leaves, or if one of the teams does not 
> appear at all (specially if one of the opponents registered the match)
That's why it should be possible to shut down a server from the web 
interface. Of course reasonable limits should be placed as to the 
frequency and total number of requests :)

> If this somehow complies to what you've planned, please count me in. At the 
> very least I would like to try out your system on chaos, but of course I can 
> also help writing part of the needed scripts.
You probably know best what the teamcup server code still needs improved. 
And since you've already given some thought to the cgi script, you could 
write it as well. We will then add the part responsible for invoking it 
from our interface. Since the interface and the script generally won't be 
hosted on the same machine, we will need to generate signatures for 
servers and post them in URLs.


Regards,
Rotunda