Stareater 0.4

Five days ago version 0.4 finally got packed up and ready for download. Big changes happened between 0.3 and 0.4, space combat is implemented, ship design interface is changed to reflect redefined space combat, star system management is introduced, part of colony management is moved to star system and basic AI is implemented.

Plans for version 0.5 are not yet defined but this is a list that is currently on my mind:

• Define exactly how planets and colonies work
• Refactor whole code base
• Redo GUI
• Victory conditions

Only last item adds something tangible to the game but other items where piling up for a long time. It's time to do those things right. Every now and then something about colonies would go off. Since all game mechanics are based on non-integral arithmetic final numbers can get too low or too high than intended if parameters are  not constrained. Math behind colonies has such problems and I'd like to take some time to think about how exactly colonies should behave. There are other part that I'll address in a similar manner such as map generation.

Refactoring is also something that should be done before adding more features. I'd like to strip user interface code from all non-interface related code. That means game logic, data preparation and data conversion should be outside the GUI source code (classes). I'm aiming for model-view-controller design pattern where game logic is model, GUI is view and controller mediator between them. Also I'd split source code to two projects, one with model and controller and other with GUI. While refactoring, I'd like to redo whole GUI. There has been a number of conceptual changes that are not properly propagated to the user interface and some thing simple has to be done differently. Galaxy map is such thing. I'd like to scrap "big picture box in scrollable pane" implementation and try my luck with OpenGL.

That's enough to keep me busy until the end of the year.