As discussed last week the adding of the new invite system has revealed some shortcomings in the game. Some of those shortcoming were related to usability, but some of then were fundamental problems. These were revealed when there is more than one plane for each faction (the game continues with destroyed planes on the board) and when observers started shooting…

Observers? Shooting?

Yep, that’s right. I have added the first plane with an observer to the game – the Bristol F.2B. Observers can shoot into the rear arc of the plane, though not the hex directly behind the tail.

I have coded up the observer shooting. It was pretty straight forward, but in testing it  I have notice other errors in the shooting code. When I have perfected the code I will unleash the Bristol F.2B’s rear firing.

With more than one plane of each faction on the board at the time it revealed an error with planes of the same faction shooting each other. The game can also continue with a plane shoot down. With only one plane on each side this used to end the game. Now the game can continue but it has shown that dead planes can stay on the board accepting maneuvers. Somehow I had also missed that I was not extinguishing fire and smoke. All these have been fixed.

The user can now turn the server polling on and off. It would be appropriate to turn off polling when playing turn-a-day. The polling is really only needed when you play in realtime (you did know you could play in realtime, yes?)

I have also added a marker to each plane tab marking if the plane’s turn has been locked in. This will tell you which of your possibly multiple planes you have locked a maneuver for. It  also will tell you which of the other player’s maneuvers you are waiting for.

Speaking of waiting for players I am also testing a daily email reminder of games that are waiting your input. When this is done I will allow users to turn on reminders for themselves.