Nu Replayer returns

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2442 days, 18 hours, 33 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply

After nearly a year of downtime, Nu Replayer returns with some much needed progress to indicate that it is not dead. Granted, it is still not finished even after all this downtime, but last month, I had written a parser that could reliably parse nearly any turn.

As a result, I've promoted the project to the status of Alpha. As of this post, I am currently sitting on Alpha Build 2.

2441 days, 19 hours, 58 minutes ago
View mjs68508's profile
mjs68508
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply
Is there a link?

This should be really interesting with a Giant Melee game with all the little empires flaring up and then dying.

2441 days, 19 hours, 14 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply

Although an Alpha build is available for download on the Challenger Planets site for Windows, it currently has only an historical game, Beta 2, viewable. Even then, many turns are missing, although I am gradually adding in new turns.

2440 days, 22 hours, 49 minutes ago
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kedalion
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Subscribe.

Are you automatically loading the turns? It sounds like you are doing it by hand.
Kwesy and I were working on something like this a while ago, but got distracted.
2440 days, 22 hours, 43 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
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Right now, it is semi-automated. I download the API turn files manually, and then feed them to a parser I've written to create the output data for me.
2440 days, 22 hours, 36 minutes ago
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kedalion
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What information are you including in your animation? Does it create a video? Animated gif? Or run only inside a player program?
2440 days, 22 hours, 35 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
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The information is handled by a standalone program.
2440 days, 22 hours, 23 minutes ago
View mjs68508's profile
mjs68508
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Where do you get the turn files?
2440 days, 22 hours, 17 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
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I download them off of Nu's servers, using API calls
2440 days, 22 hours, 6 minutes ago
View mjs68508's profile
mjs68508
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What is a sample URL?
2440 days, 22 hours, 3 minutes ago
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kedalion
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For example:
2440 days, 21 hours, 58 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
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Here's a sample URL, utilizing the load turn call: http://api.planets.nu/game/loadturn?gameid=33876&playerid=28&turn=122

Not exactly the most efficient way to handle it, but as long as Nu does not give me a more efficient way to handle all the planetary information, including ownership, resources, and population) in a single API call, then I'm stuck using the horribly inefficient load turn call.

Having a dedicated starmap API with all that information would also cut down on processing times. Right now, processing a 11-12 player turn takes about 2.5 minutes, whereas processing a 30-player turn takes about 7 minutes. If it's the first time a game has been parsed and it utilizes a custom map (which nearly every game does nowadays), then another minute is necessary to create the territorial mapping.

Edit: Kedalion beat me to it. Never hurts to have an extra example, however

2440 days, 21 hours, 52 minutes ago
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kedalion
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I agree. It would be so nice to have a API call with the complete (aggregated) data for every turn. Lots of redundant data and especially the messages are taken a lot of space. Also right now we have to do post processing to merge all that data... brrr...


2440 days, 21 hours, 14 minutes ago
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kedalion
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Oh, btw. I just ran your program on Linux... works out of the box using windows emulator 'wine'. :)

Looks very nice and nostalgic... :D
2440 days, 20 hours, 50 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply
Very impressive work with Wine. Also, another reason for an aggregate API is that some people have opted to hide their turns from the public, causing huge hole(s) to be created when the turns are parsed.
2429 days, 19 hours, 10 minutes ago
View dungeonmaster's profile
dungeonmaster
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply
Very cool! Will you do a Replay of Taurus?
You've been chronicling the game and have cumulative statistics even!
2429 days, 14 hours, 45 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply

I can start building a replay of the Taurus War (as soon as it finishes, of course) based on what I currently have at my disposal. As per above, I still have to manually download turn files, but I have a processor that can take care of the files I download (albeit not very efficiently).

If it wasn't for what I can do, this program would still be in Pre-Alpha. Furthermore, the generally favorable feedback encourages me to try to beat the odds and get it out of Alpha and into Beta. Still need to do some more research on zlib, however.

2429 days, 14 hours, 3 minutes ago
View dungeonmaster's profile
dungeonmaster
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply
That would be grand!
I program a fair amount myself though almost all C++primarily for data analysis, and under linux environment to boot so I'm of little help in that regard.
Why do you separately chart the statistics of the championship games? Just for kicks?
2429 days, 13 hours, 30 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply

It doesn't help that my first language was BASIC. Learning the relative compatibility, and free and libre, with FreeBASIC (and it's supreme support for QBasic), I switched to using FreeBASIC as my main language.

In the past, I successfully compiled a few of my other FreeBASIC programs in GNU/Linux using Trisquel 4.0, but it appears that using an older version may be required to get this one to work.

FB 0.20 had been the best for me for quite a while, especially considering that 0.21 disrupted my abilities to work on more complex programs (causing end-of-program crashes or freezes notably).

Edit: Oh. I had significant interest in the Scorpius War, so I started composing a full story and statistics for that, and to further improve my story-telling for when I need it in the future, I'm also composing a story for the Taurus as well. I probably won't do a story for Sagittarius, however, although I may still track stats

2419 days, 3 hours, 22 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
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I've noticed, according to Cheeseball 0014, that players who have opted to hide their turns (which is understandable) or delete their accounts (very easy to accidentally pull off) create holes in the Nu Replayer's starmap.

Whenever I try to download and parse turns for Orkney World 0014, the first two slots give this output, despite being dead: {"success":false,"error":"Player account does not exist."}.

2417 days, 2 hours, 13 minutes ago
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kedalion
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The problem is also reproducible with any game that ended with player slots being open. You'll get the same error message. 

I have pinged Joshua about it and he said it was a bug. He didn't say anything about plans/time when this would be fixed though. 
2416 days, 19 hours, 13 minutes ago
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challengespaceyard
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Oh... I didn't realize a bug was involved.
2416 days, 13 hours, 55 minutes ago
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kedalion
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At least with regards to open player slots. But I'd guess it's the same for your case of the dead player. 

It's really a pity that we won't get a full data set when people opt out to hide their turns. For what we are doing here, a mere list of planets and maybe even ships would suffice. I don't need to see their secret details...
2384 days, 3 hours, 49 minutes ago
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kedalion
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply
Btw. I opened a bug report for this: http://planets.uservoice.com/forums/136520-general/suggestions/3623369-fix-player-account-does-not-exist-bug-when-tryi
2053 days, 0 hours, 28 minutes ago
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dtolman
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply
This work for private games? Just finished a game, would love to load the turns into this before they're deleted from the server...
2053 days, 0 hours, 1 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply
Technically, processing support is already available. Custom game support otherwise isn't yet in Nu Replayer. It is possible to workaround this by adding a line to games/List.csv containing your information, but this is lost upon downloading a new raw list.

Due to lack of understanding of zlib, this process is still semi-automated. I currently have a script that allows you to generate a series of links to download with.
2052 days, 22 hours, 23 minutes ago
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dtolman
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Tried that - generated 10 files for the 10 races in the game. Looks like if I'm on turn 92,  I have to run these 920 times to get the full history??
2052 days, 22 hours, 12 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
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Yes. I know that it is extremely inefficient, given that I did complete runs through each of the first three championships (totaling 4653 raw files). As long as Planets Nu does not provide a more efficient way, this is the only way to get things working.
2052 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes ago
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kedalion
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2 out of 3 games also still have the 'player account does not exist' error which isn't necessarily visible when you start loading turns. Can be just a couple turns in the middle and you end up with incomplete data after loading lots of files. (http://planets.uservoice.com/forums/136520-general/suggestions/3623369-fix-player-account-does-not-exist-bug-when-tryi)
2052 days, 18 hours, 13 minutes ago
View capt chaos's profile
capt chaos
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Y'all are making my brain leak out my ears.

But that's COOOOOL!

2052 days, 18 hours, 11 minutes ago
View capt chaos's profile
capt chaos
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WoW!

That's the original map too.....

1782 days, 16 hours, 7 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
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Since there has been requests for a status update, I figured I would bump this topic to let everyone know that version 0.23 has been released, with a significant overhaul in the interface!

It is worth pointing out that version 0.23 breaks backward compatibility with previous version's converted files. So a re-conversion will be required to get your replays working again.
1782 days, 15 hours, 40 minutes ago
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lordlancelot
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Added to

http://vgaplanets.org/index.php/Planets_Nu_Tools
1782 days, 14 hours, 58 minutes ago
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ace rimmer
RE: Nu Replayer returnsWrite Reply
Will it ever work on OS X? I am not a programmer so any info on how to get it to work on a Mac would be helpful.

Ace
1782 days, 13 hours, 57 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
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After looking around, I have seen an Intel OS X build of FreeBASIC, but it has not been updated since 2010, and I have also heard that it can produce buggy binaries. Simply speaking, FreeBASIC does not currently officially support OS X, so native binaries of Nu Replayer are very unlikely anytime soon.

In addition to concerns regarding an OS X build of FreeBASIC, I also do not have a Mac either, so even if this was supplied, I would not be able to compile (assuming I can't cross-compile) or test OS X binaries.

I have heard that Mac and GNU/Linux users can get Windows binaries like this working under Wine, but I have no experience with Wine at this time.

Unofficial build reference: http://rpg.hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/Compiling_in_Mac_OS_X
1782 days, 12 hours, 37 minutes ago
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ace rimmer
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:( oh well

Ace
1782 days, 12 hours, 36 minutes ago
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ace rimmer
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Wish we could make Nu replayed just part of the Nu Web browser. I hope that is the end goal.

Ace
1782 days, 8 hours, 31 minutes ago
View ville kauppinen's profile
ville kauppinen
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We already have the capability of going back and forth some previous turns with keyboard shortcuts; I guess it would not be too much for NU team (at some point when there is nothing more important to do) to remove race restrictions, fit map to screen and then timelapse turns through and mark battles with big X and whatever.

You get the idea. Would be current-UI based replayer.
1782 days, 1 hours, 23 minutes ago
View challengespaceyard's profile
challengespaceyard
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If I knew at least as much about graphical programming in another language as I do in FreeBASIC, I could re-write it in another language.

Really, though, the easiness of a QB-styled GUI does not help me much.
1743 days, 18 hours, 23 minutes ago
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challengespaceyard
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Nu Replayer has been updated to version 0.24. This build has many more enhancements given to the data structure, especially in the starbase department. This allows much more data to be read from each turn, but this also results in longer conversion times.

Despite these enhancements, version 0.24 is compatible with data made in 0.23.
1687 days, 20 hours, 33 minutes ago
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challengespaceyard
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Nu Replayer has been updated to version 0.25. This is the first build to remotely support networking, but it is limited to just updating the game list at this time. It also comes with a simple menu to support further expansions.

Despite these changes, the data structure remains unchanged from version 0.24.
1524 days, 4 hours, 35 minutes ago
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challengespaceyard
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Nu Replayer has been updated to version 0.26, refitted with the ability to read Base storage data as one navigates through the Planet list in 'Starbase mode'.

That being said, numerous changes and bug fixes were made to the data structure, breaking backward compatibility with data from older versions of Nu Replayer.