0.4.8 roadmap

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Vezzra
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0.4.8 roadmap

#1 Post by Vezzra »

I think it's time to start planning for the 0.4.8 release. Which means we should start to determine what needs to go into/is mandatory for that release, and what can wait for later. The original intention has been to get 0.4.8 done by the end of the year, to (probably) no one's surprise it will take us a bit longer (most likely).

So I've split up the "v0.4.8" milestone into three:
  • "v0.4.8 (mandatory)": for issues/PRs that absolutely need to be fixed/finalized, and are therefore release-blocking.
  • "v0.4.8 (optional)": for issues/PRs that can or mayby should go in, but are not absolutely needed, and therefore do not block the release.
  • "post v0.4.8": for issues/PRs that should be postponed until after the release, these are issues/PRs that would take too much time and effort and would delay the release too much.
I've done a first pass and went over all the open issues and PRs, and and tried to assign them to one of these milestones as best as I could. As your assessment might be different, please, everyone, take a look at these milestones and the issues/PRs assigned to them and post your feedback here. If you think an issue/PR should be reassigned, make a proposal and state your reasons, so we can discuss it.

As you can see, I've considered only a few issues/PRs as mandatory, consequently it looks like 0.4.8 is almost done (97%). This of course is misleading, because there are actually two major items which will take quite some time and effort to fix/complete: the major feature of this release, the Imperial Stockpile, and the logging issues on OSX (the latter being a big headache IMO).

The implementation of the Imperial Stockpile feature itself seems close to completion (thanks to Geoff picking it up after there hasn't been any progress for a while now). However, the new feature needs some serious playtesting and refinement before it can be considered ready for release. I suspect the intial content in particular will probably need some serious adjustments. Furthermore, the AI needs to be able to have at least basic capability to handle the new feature. @AI team, any idea/estimations how much work this is going to be?

The issues with the broken logging on OSX is a major problem: Apparently the solution to that requires changes to the build setup (the boost libraries need to be shared instead of static libraries), which require changes to the OSX SDK that are blocked by an issue we haven't been able to resolve so far. Although a solution has been proposed, apparently it's not a very good one (a temporary hack at best), and adrian_broher raised serious objections. However, the logging issues on OSX need to be fixed for the release, so we need to reach an agreement there, I think this might become the major holdup for 0.4.8. If anyone has an idea how to solve that mess, that would be appreciated very much...

Comments, opinions, suggestions, etc.?

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Dilvish
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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#2 Post by Dilvish »

Vezzra wrote:Furthermore, the AI needs to be able to have at least basic capability to handle the new feature. @AI team, any idea/estimations how much work this is going to be?
Very basic handling of the feature should be pretty easy/quick to implement-- the AI could simply always enable the first item in its queue to draw from the stockpile. As far as something more advanced goes, I haven't looked at the stockpile in a while, but the expectation was that there would be some techs for expanding the stockpile size and efficiency, we should probably be able get them worked into the AI research planning someplace at least, even if it might be at a lower priority than a human player would use for them. The best use from my recollection of stockpile planning would be for the AI to consider any resource groups it has that are separated from its main resource group, and figure out if any items in those are critical enough that they should be given stockpile privilege. Doing that really well might be quite tricky, but it could be that figuring out some sort of reasonable-and-better-then-nothing rule might not be too bad. I am likely still pretty swamped for most of November, but will try to squeeze in some stockpile review.
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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#3 Post by Vezzra »

As there hasn't been much feedback, I assume you guys more or less agree with what I've considered mandatory for the release and what not. The broken logging on OSX has been resolved, and the major feature of this release (Imperial Stockpile) has been merged, which means we should be able to wrap things up in the foreseeable future. ;)

What remains to be done:

First of all, it would be good if as many of you as possible would playtest the new mechanic in particular now, and give your feedback. I consider what went in as still very rough around the edges and in need of polishing before we can deem this ready for release. In particular the content provided needs a major overhaul, IMO. What we have is perfectly fine for playtesting, as it gives you easy access to the new feature in test games. But the Imperial Stockpile techs/tech tree and the fluff explanations can certainly be improved, and being able to use the stockpile definitely shouldn't be something available right from game start.

Second, there are the issues and PRs mandatory for 0.4.8. I urge all our (active) devs to give those priority now, so we can clear that list. We can't proceed with the release until every item on that list has been finished.

It would be great if we could get 0.4.8 out by the end of January. If that's not possible, then by the end of February at the latest. Hopefully. ;)

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#4 Post by Dilvish »

Vezzra wrote:It would be great if we could get 0.4.8 out by the end of January. If that's not possible, then by the end of February at the latest. Hopefully. ;)
There is a lot that I'd still like to do, not all really bugfixes, but won't have much time for until the end of this month, so end of January seems a bit a bit tight on time-- I'd like to be able to introduce some non-bugfix code at least up through the middle of January.
being able to use the stockpile definitely shouldn't be something available right from game start.
I've followed up in Oberlus' feedback thread...
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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#5 Post by LGM-Doyle »

I have two questions: Is hostless an essential feature for v0.4.8?

If it is not, then bugs Heap-buffer-overflow in creating universe in the second game session. and Segfault on second session in hostless mode should not be on the mandatory list.

If hostless is an essential feature for v0.4.8, then I think that there are more unfound bugs because it changes a key assumption in the original design of the server, that it would be shutdown between games.


Could we change the names of the "v0.4.8(optional)" and "post 0.4.8" to something generic? When we release v0.4.8 all the timestamps on those issues will be reset when the issues are moved to the next version number. It is easier to track what issues are hot/current and what issues are not when sorting by timestamp is meaningful.

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#6 Post by Vezzra »

Dilvish wrote:There is a lot that I'd still like to do, not all really bugfixes, but won't have much time for until the end of this month, so end of January seems a bit a bit tight on time-- I'd like to be able to introduce some non-bugfix code at least up through the middle of January.
Well, if you have some stuff you want to get into 0.4.8 for which you need more time, we can certainly consider that (after all, one of the main purposes of this thread is to make such requests ;)). What are those things you want to get in?

Are the others ok with delaying 0.4.8? Guesstimating by what Dilvish said and past experiences (it always takes longer than you think), I'd expect a delay until March at the least. Geoff? Mat?

That said, a bit more time might be good anyway. Based on my own playtesting and the feedback that has been provided so far it seems the Imperial Stockpile feature needs some tweaking and balancing before it can be deemed release-ready, which I expect to take some time.

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#7 Post by Vezzra »

LGM-Doyle wrote:I have two questions: Is hostless an essential feature for v0.4.8?
Well, originally 0.4.8 has been intended as a smaller release squeezed in before 0.5 (for which the plan is to introduce Influence, which is going to be a big, major thing) for the introduction of the Imperial Stockpile feature, so no, not really. However, as it has already been merged, it should be at least basically functional and not totally broken, so we can introduce it as an experimental feature.
I'd say, it depends on how badly these bugs break hostless mode. Multiplayer and all related stuff is something I just don't have the time to look at/experiment with, so I can't make any judgement on that.
If hostless is an essential feature for v0.4.8, then I think that there are more unfound bugs because it changes a key assumption in the original design of the server, that it would be shutdown between games.
If it's really so bad that we can't get hostless mode to work at least sufficiently well to pass as experimental feature, then yes, everything related to that feature should be considered optional, not mandatory for the release.

Looks like you (and Geoff) are probably the ones who can judge that best, so I defer this decision to the both of you. Geoff?
Could we change the names of the "v0.4.8(optional)" and "post 0.4.8" to something generic? When we release v0.4.8 all the timestamps on those issues will be reset when the issues are moved to the next version number. It is easier to track what issues are hot/current and what issues are not when sorting by timestamp is meaningful.
While I understand and agree that's an issue, how is renaming those milestones to something more generic supposed to solve anything? Once the release is out, I intend to rename "0.4.8 (optional)" instead of making a new milestone and moving all the assigned issues and PRs anyway, so unless the timestamp of issues/PRs are reset when the assigned milestone is just renamed, there shouldn't be a problem with those. And the issues/PRs assigned to "post 0.4.8" will have to be reassigned to the renamed "0.4.8 (optional)", so their timestamp is going to change regardless how "post 0.4.8" has been named...?

EDIT: moved the rest of the discussion about managing milestones to a separate thread: https://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtop ... =4&t=11056

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#8 Post by Vezzra »

Status update: as those of you following the discussion in the Refining the Imperial Stockpile thread (has been the "Playtesting feedback on Imperial Stockpile" thread before, I renamed and moved it to Top Priority Game Design because it actually is far more of a full blown design discussion than merely a playtesting feedback) have most likely realized, the new Imperial Stockpile feature needs some serious refining before it can be deemed ready for release. Which means we will not be able to meet the January/February deadline. It's really hard to say how much more time this is going to take, my guess is maybe 2-3 more months, which means coming April/May.

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#9 Post by Vezzra »

Vezzra wrote:
LGM-Doyle wrote:I have two questions: Is hostless an essential feature for v0.4.8?
Well, originally 0.4.8 has been intended as a smaller release squeezed in before 0.5 (for which the plan is to introduce Influence, which is going to be a big, major thing) for the introduction of the Imperial Stockpile feature, so no, not really. However, as it has already been merged, it should be at least basically functional and not totally broken, so we can introduce it as an experimental feature.
I'd say, it depends on how badly these bugs break hostless mode. Multiplayer and all related stuff is something I just don't have the time to look at/experiment with, so I can't make any judgement on that.
If hostless is an essential feature for v0.4.8, then I think that there are more unfound bugs because it changes a key assumption in the original design of the server, that it would be shutdown between games.
If it's really so bad that we can't get hostless mode to work at least sufficiently well to pass as experimental feature, then yes, everything related to that feature should be considered optional, not mandatory for the release.

Looks like you (and Geoff) are probably the ones who can judge that best, so I defer this decision to the both of you. Geoff?
@LGM-Doyle, @Geoff, bump? #1732 has been resolved in the meantime, but #1897 is still open... so should that issue be considered release blocking, or should we consider it only optional for the release?

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#10 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Hostless mode is rather niche and entirely optional, so I don't have a problem considering it experimental and leaving it incomplete / buggy in a release.

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#11 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Hostless mode is rather niche and entirely optional, so I don't have a problem considering it experimental and leaving it incomplete / buggy in a release.
Ok, reassigned #1897 to "v0.4.7 (optional)".

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#12 Post by godel »

I made a suggestion, was told it was trivial (it was) but that taking trivial time for all trivial suggestions would put off the good stuff too long.
Cool.
It was further suggested to me that if I wanted to have that feature (in this case a slider on the bottom for the planets-race-owner screen) that I should program it myself.
I have not professionally programmed since 2002. But I could, programming cookbook in hand, make this change, I bet.
If I went to the trouble, would you accept such? Non of the stuff I would like would be anything but likely small stuff, not on your agenda.

I found this, thanks.
It seems you all will accept contributions from beginners to your language sets.
http://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtopi ... =4&t=10259

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#13 Post by Vezzra »

Slightly off-topic here, but anyway:
godel wrote:If I went to the trouble, would you accept such? Non of the stuff I would like would be anything but likely small stuff, not on your agenda.
If you're working on stuff that's already on the todo list, but just low priority, and/or have a confirmation from the devs that we plan to do the stuff in question eventually, you can probably just start working (depending what it is).

For stuff that you came up with because you think it would be a good addition/enhancement to the game, or stuff that has been floating around only as vague ideas, you should open a thread describing your idea, so we can discuss it first. Some things might seem good/reasonable to you, but there is always a chance that not everyone shares that view. ;) Or you might get suggestions for changes to your idea, that you didn't think of. Better to clear all that up in a discussion before you start implementing and potentially waste time and effort.

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#14 Post by godel »

Thanks.
Much on my mind but few that I feel confident that I could actually accomplish.
Back on this soon.

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Re: 0.4.8 roadmap

#15 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Given the recent issues with a refactoring change, is it perhaps worth making a v0.4.8 branch soon, and limiting it to release-blocking or at least reasonably well-tested non-blocking issues? I think the release is being delayed by such distractions...

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