Wolfpack 4.3.11 Server Release
- From: Wolfpack <wolfpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 08:22:10 +0100
We are happy to announce that Empire 4.3.11 is now available. You can
download it from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/empserver/
More information on Empire can be found on our home page
http://www.wolfpackempire.com
This release fixes serious bugs. One of them can be abused to crash
the game on some hosts.
We recommend deities use it for new games. Upgrading mid-game is not
supported. We are not aware of any specific reason why upgrading from
4.3.10 should fail, so you might wish to push your luck.
We recommend players upgrade the client immediately.
Change log:
Changes to Empire 4.3.11 - Tue Jan 1 18:57:38 UTC 2008
* New sector selector elev. It's set by fairland, but has no effect
on the game. It can be useful for deities to customize a world
created by fairland.
* The client now copes with ids greater than 15. The Empire
protocol currently uses 14 ids.
* Rewrite the client's code to read server output during login. The
old code could write one byte beyond the end of the buffer
(theoretically a remote hole), got confused by long lines, and
lines that didn't arrive in one piece.
* Long country name, password or user name crashed the client.
* Fix xdump not to deny access to game state tables when maximum
minutes per day are exceeded.
* The server considers a country bankrupt when its treasury is
negative. Except when it doesn't. Fix that:
- report misreported countries with $0 as broke.
- If a command spent a few cents more than you had, commands requiring
money became unavailable even when rounding brought you back to
$0. But logging out and back in then bankrupted you.
- If your treasury rose to exactly $0, commands requiring money
remained unavailable.
- If you had $0, sectors didn't build and sectors and ships didn't
produce at the update.
* Fix a bug in trade that made your money evaporate when a trade fell
through because you couldn't fully pay. This bug was there since
the introduction of the market in 4.0.0. It got aggravated by the
removal of forced loans in 4.3.0.
* Fix printing of the new group in army, fleet and wing. Broken in
4.3.5.
* Fix flash not to screw up the message when the first argument
contains white-space.
* Don't let planes intercept when they are stuck in foreign bases, on
inefficient ships or land units, or on land units loaded on ships
or land units.
* Fix a bug that made interception require petrol to be present even
for planes that don't use fuel (SAMs). Broken in 4.3.3. Air
defense missions weren't affected.
* fairland and setsector now limit fertility to 100 instead of 120,
like the other resources.
* Generalize the autonav hack for fishing boats so it covers oil
derricks as well.
* Fix bug in path command that made it swallow every other step.
Broken in 4.2.22.
* The execute command no longer supports redirections and execute in
batch files. Flaws in the Empire protocol make it next to
impossible for clients to implement that correctly. See
doc/clients-howto for an explanation.
* Rewrite much of the client's code for sending commands and
receiving server output:
- No longer blocks on sending commands. which could deadlock the
session.
- Fix race condition that could cause server output to be discarded
on EOF on standard input.
- Don't discard server output when reading standard input fails.
- Fix error handling for execute and other, more obscure cases.
- More rigorous error checking for redirections and execute.
Clearer error messages, too.
- Fix execute redirected to file or pipe. Believed to be broken in
4.2.0.
- The client now creates files for redirections with the same
permissions whether the redirection is in a pipe or not. Before,
redirections without a pipe created files with no permissions for
group and others. This change may make your redirected output
visible to other users on your system. Use the usual controls,
like umask, to restrict permissions to your liking.
- Reject unexpected redirections (violating the protocol). Before,
they silently replaced the current one, and in the case of pipes
leaked file descriptors and memory.
- Redirections in batch files are not implemented. They didn't
quite work before, and could leak memory and file descriptors. A
flaw in the Empire protocol makes them next to impossible to
implement correctly.
- The execute command in batch files is not implemented. A flaw in
the Empire protocol makes this practically useless anyway.
- Old code leaked memory in various places.
- Unfortunate incompatibility with older servers: if you type the
EOF character (normally ^D) at an argument prompt, the session
hangs. Use the interrupt character (normally ^C) to get out.
* The client now supports options -h and -v.
* The client no longer zaps its command line in a lame attempt at
protecting users who foolishly specify passwords on the command
line. Zapping annoys system administrators and creates a false
sense of security.
* Journal entries are now flushed to disk right away when the server
is running in debug mode.
* Fix bugs in load that could make loading operations fail noisily
instead of silently on some systems.
* Server now reliably shuts down session when it receives an
end-of-file condition from the client. Before, it merely failed
the current command when it got it at an argument prompt.
* Fix bug in execute that could crash the server on some systems when
it prompts for the argument.
* Fix bug that let you check whether a non-allied carrier is
efficient enough for takeoff when one of your planes got stuck
there somehow.
* Fix bug that let you attempt to escort a one-way mission to a
carrier with non-light, non-interceptor escorts. Such planes don't
fit on carriers, and the command then failed with a bogus error
message. Before 4.2.17, the planes flew, and the escorts were
teleported home.
* Change the rules for fitting planes on ships slightly, so that the
order of loading no longer matters. Choppers and x-lights can now
use plane slots even when not light. X-light choppers, which don't
exist in the stock game, can no longer use x-light slots.
* The server now keeps its log file open, just like the journal.
* New server option -R to set the PRNG seed. This is for
reproducible tests. Change the Windows-only service uninstall
options from -r/-R to -u/-U.
* Supply a real PRNG for Windows instead of the leaky water-pistol
Windows provides.
* Threads sleeping until a specified time could return early under
Windows. This could cause missed updates. Broken in 4.3.10.
* Fix missing newline in show updates.
* Power report didn't factor tech into power correctly. Broken in
4.3.3.
* Code refactoring and cleanup.
* Info file and documentation fixes and updates.
MD5 checksums:
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2cf1d30b3625f979f4538ada1ae5f934 empire-client-4.3.11.tar.gz
2a9952ca910d44768f779f9deb484db4 empire-client-4.3.11-i386-linux.gz
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371cc3c1d75f46763701f5a417072a0e empire-client-4.3.11-i386-win.zip
bd5ea460fd847a1d928bd8e36f7b93bd empire-info-html-4.3.11.tar.gz
781d2524a83cdb943ba88d0986d7e6dd empire-info-text-4.3.11.tar.gz
SHA-1 checksums:
8c240379bc89dddb90b8dbb8b58fb289dc4fdabb empire-4.3.11.tar.gz
748856ba2e8d35378405a7127a22f2e71680bdbf empire-client-4.3.11.tar.gz
410aa579e879f260e90b6b7d26bfbb09b8bfdb71 empire-client-4.3.11-i386-linux.gz
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46aee59f7b76ec27583c953d8ebd2b239c43a24a empire-client-4.3.11-i386-win.zip
dbab1a1941770e4e36f0c3b298a062862469d405 empire-info-html-4.3.11.tar.gz
6f32d4175611aea58c5184eef98ac33d5837d6ce empire-info-text-4.3.11.tar.gz
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