[comp.sys.mac.games] Spaceward Ho! 1.1 crashing

gt4586c@prism.gatech.EDU (WILLETT,THOMAS CARTER) (02/21/91)

I've been playing Spaceward Ho! (how about SHo! for short?) for about a
week now and i've been experiencing crashes when i have too many players
in the game.  there's alot of disk accessing as the machine updates each
of the computer players and after a while it will just lock up and freeze
and i have to reboot.  has anybody else had problems like this?  i have
800K of free disk space so i don't think its running out of room.


-- 
thomas willett 
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta  
gt4586c@prism.gatech.edu
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Salvor Hardin (Foundation)

cem@cs.brown.edu (Charles E. Moylan) (02/21/91)

In article <22473@hydra.gatech.EDU>, gt4586c@prism.gatech.EDU (WILLETT,THOMAS CARTER) writes:
|> I've been playing Spaceward Ho! (how about SHo! for short?) for about a
|> week now and i've been experiencing crashes when i have too many players
|> in the game.  there's alot of disk accessing as the machine updates each
|> of the computer players and after a while it will just lock up and freeze
|> and i have to reboot.  has anybody else had problems like this?  i have
|> 800K of free disk space so i don't think its running out of room.

Yes, I've encountered this same problem, but I waited out the freeze.  After
about five minutes the game continued!  From then on each and every time the
program went through the calculations for the computer players' moves it
looked like the machine was frozen but after five minutes it would finish.
Needless to say, it was pure hell sitting there idle.  Of course, I was
put out of my misery when I encountered another bug that caused my stockpile
of 100,000 metal to become zero for no apparent reason and my money
to become negative 3 million.

-- 
Charlie Moylan (cem@cs.brown.edu)

commons@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Peter Commons) (02/21/91)

In past versions (before 1.1), the computer would occasionally take a very
long time to think about its move. The game didn't really crash; if you 
waited for a couple minutes, it would continue. This was at least greatly
repaired in 1.1, although it may still be there. The slowdown occurs when one
computer player controls a very large area of the galaxy.

The "negative money bug" - where your money goes negative- is definitely gone
in version 1.1.

A limited amount of free disk space will cause Spaceward Ho! to lose turn 
update information. 800K should be plenty.

All Version 1.0x uses will be receiving a free 1.1 upgrade in the next week or
so.



--
Peter Commons		
commons@cs.stanford.edu	
Computer Science Department, Stanford University

jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) (02/22/91)

Some questions for other players:

1.  Does having a higher population speed up the teeraforming or
mining process at all?

2.  What about tech development?

3.  Is there a limit to tech levels?

4.  Bleargh!

jas
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey A. Sullivan		| Senior Systems Programmer
jas@venera.isi.edu		| Information Sciences Institute
jas@isi.edu                    	| University of Southern California

saaf@joker.optics.rochester.edu (Lennart Saaf) (02/22/91)

In article <16852@venera.isi.edu> jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes:

> 
> 3.  Is there a limit to tech levels?

Hmmm... I'm not sure, but there is a limit to the appearance of the
ships as you might expect. A little snooping with ResEdit will show
the full range of possible ship types. It looks like there are about
25 different levels of weapons available.

> 
> 4.  Bleargh!
> 

Speaking of which, you can also use ResEdit to replace the sounds. The
ones provided are OK, I guess, but I like having James Brown say
"fellas, I'm ready to get up and do MY thang," when I set out out on a
mission better than "Hyaaaa."

Len



--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Len Saaf, The Institute of Optics, Univ. of Rochester, Rochester, NY |
| Internet: saaf@joker.optics.rochester.edu        Bitnet: SAAF@UOROPT |
------------------------------------------------------------------------

duga@merlin.cvs.rochester.edu (Brady Duga) (02/22/91)

In article <SAAF.91Feb21154705@joker.optics.rochester.edu> saaf@joker.optics.rochester.edu (Lennart Saaf) writes:
>In article <16852@venera.isi.edu> jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes:
>
>> 
>> 3.  Is there a limit to tech levels?
>
>Hmmm... I'm not sure, but there is a limit to the appearance of the
>ships as you might expect. A little snooping with ResEdit will show
>the full range of possible ship types. It looks like there are about
>25 different levels of weapons available.
>

In an attempt to see if there were limits for tech levels, I set up a fast
game with only one player. I managed to get range > 20 and speed at
about 19. After this point, the picture of the engines ceased to change,
but my tech levels contiued to increase. I assume this means that the
limit is only for the number of pictures, but tech levels can still continue
(or be infinite, for intents and purposes).

--Brady (duga@cvs.rochester.edu)

ack@wings.dartmouth.edu (Andy J. Williams) (02/23/91)

SHo! Confusion:

When playing a multi-player game, set to 5 minute turns, how do you signal
end of turn?

I was done so I hit End of Turn.

After a minute I was told either that the game could not be updated, that
we are waiting for another player, or that the turn is over and here we go.

Ok. When I got the first two, I tried hitting it again. I did this until
I got the turn over message.

When I hit it once and just let it go (thinking that polling would do it)
it was checking for turn completion and even when the guy I was playing
was done and had signalled End of Turn, it still kept polling every 15
seconds and never ended the turn.

What gives?

How should I be doing this?

The manual is vague. It says to put the game file on a server and go...

Oh, I'm using version 1.1

Tanks.

-A

--
Andy J. Williams     sNail: RFD 1 #268               echo "Hello."
Consultant Guy              Lebanon NH, 03766        setenv NAME 'Inigo Montoya'
Kiewit Computation   eMail: ack@wings.dartmouth.edu  user>kill -9 my ppid
Dartmouth College    pHone: 603-646-3417             Prepare to vi.