Login Server
One of the login servers stopped responding, which prevented a lot of people from logging in to the game. It appears that the ethernet port for the back side network is malfunctioning on that server.

Removed the broken server from the grid. Configured a different server to replace the broken login server. Updated all servers with the latest builds and restarted them.

As title says, a harvest operation by bay/module/particles/whatever will not work if the target is an asteroid. Nothing happens, and I tried all three types of missions. Some asteroids have antiflux particles so this is an issue.

I can do it manually via the firing console, but that takes forever.



Note the absence of 'asteroid' in 'Sun, Ring, or Gas Giant'. The asteroids do not even show up as potential targets. I am guessing that's why the crew missions aren't working.

Additionally, there is presently no way to mine particle resources such as antiflux using buildings as the resource nodes do not appear. - nevermind about that last point, thanks dean

Launcher Fail
Launcher update for Windows does not work. Reports communications error.

Launcher updated, for both Windows 64 bit and 32 bit builds. It does not fail on Linux but I will build and post those platform builds as well, just to be sure everybody is on the same page.

I also added the build date to the version, per DeanTwo's suggestion.

FWIW, the launcher does have a mechanism for checking for updates to itself. It will report when a new version is available and if getting that update is required or not.

The changes from HTTP to HTTPS prevented any communications with the server at all, which meant the program could not determine the latest version of itself. The program could not know that an update would solve the problem.

HTTPS Hazeron.com
This has been a nagging topic for years. I never gave it much priority because we don't handle or store any sensitive information. However, the web has moved to the point that a regular HTTP site might as well have COVID-19.

All Hazeron.com web pages are now secured through Network Solutions LLC.

Confirmation pages when creating a new account and when changing your password now show the password.

Client should be updated but it isn't needed, due to URLs that need to be https: instead of http:. Buttons to open the web site or the wiki might not work.

The current Launcher no longer works, due to URLs that need to be https: instead of http:. You can still run the 'Shores of Hazeron.EXE' file directly. It doesn't expect anything on the command line.

New clients and launchers are building now. They will be posted as they finish.

A HUGE THANK YOU to AnrDaemon for expert help setting this up. It was a real struggle. Internet went down early last evening, leaving things dead in the water all night. Html POST transactions to send form fields to the server stopped working, which took considerable head bashing to figure out, most of today. Without AnrDaemon's assistance, this would not be working.

In preparation to discussing technology systems and progression, lets take a look at the current resources in the game and try to put them into tiers. Not necessarily to propose changes, but feedback and ideas are always nice.

In a lot of games we have three basic tiers: early-game, mid-game and late-game. This is mainly interesting to us so we can see where the game might be lacking in things to search for.


Starter - Tier 0
First of all the start of the game has a number resources found on your homeworld as part of early-game, but they are either useless or better alternatives exist in tier 1.

• Logs
  
• Stone
  

• Ore
  
• Oil
  
• Minerals
  
• Crystals
  
• Gems
  
• Coal
  
• Radioactives
  
• Ice
  
• Water
  
• Air
  
• Hydrogen
  
• Eludium
  
• Lumenite
  

• Cryozine
  
• Ioplasma
  
• Phlogiston
  
• Magmex
  

• Vulcanite
  
• Bolite
  
• Myrathane
  
• Antiflux Particles
  

• Preons
  
• Borexino Precipitate
  
• Polytaride
  
• Flomentum
  
• Adamantite
  
• Viathol
  

Rocket Training
Rocket training starts. Where is Gagarin?

Several errors were found in the story engine.

• Story engine failed to find a new rocket to start the story, unless the player was standing at the building with the rocket when the story engine checked for it.
  
• Initial placement of Gagarin was calculated incorrectly. He kept being placed exactly in the middle of the rocket, with his feet sticking out of the rocket main booster.
  
• Gagarin's story repeats until it is completed by the avatar. The story now asks at the beginning if you want the training.
  
• Some of Gagarin's comments were updated to reflect changes to the game since the script was written.
  
• Found/fixed a bug in the story engine when evaluating compound if conditions.
  

• The body took a point of bleeding damage after being de-fibrillated, which caused it to die again.
  
• The body took a point of bleeding damage after I picked it up, which caused its pose to change.
  
• The doctor did not immediately attend to the patient when dropped in the surgery unit. The patient died while the doctor just stood there.
  
• When attempting to enter the surgery unit while clothed, I got the fail message twice, which was annoying.
  

Gunfire
I hold the trigger on my AK. It fires once, PEW! Then I see the rounds counter ticking down, no more pew pew.

Fixed bug in gun fire effect.

Explosions
Vehicles vanish with no explosion at all.

Fixed bug in visibility range calculation for explosion effects.

Self Destruct Bug
When I self destruct the ship I am aboard, the ship is destroyed but it remains in my scene. I can walk around but I cannot interact with the ship, like opening a door. I am stuck until I relog then the ship is gone and everything seems fine.

Fixed bug when the ship you are aboard is destroyed.

Self destruct was not a factor. The destruction could have been caused by any means. The result would have been the same.

Refit Bug
When refitting a ship, the repair shop sends a proposal. There is no accept option on the right click menu for the proposal.

Accept option added to right click menu for refit proposals.

Hair
Hair not visible inside helmet and on female with "Close" haircut in viewer.

Fixed a bug when rendering short hair on gen 4 creatures.

OpenGL Error
Running SoH now produces an OpenGL error.

Fixed incorrect constant used in glGet call.

Geological Features
Geological features often get created exactly on top of each other. For example, one moon had three volcanoes at the exact same latitude and longitude.

Improved creation of geological features to avoid placement exactly on top of other geological features.

Existing worlds are not affected.

Flower Pots
I dropped a flower pot on the floor of my ship. It sunk half way into the floor and turned black.

Fixed an error that caused items to be treated as intangible objects.

This is the beautiful world of Cardia.

I love these clouds at sunrise.

   

It's that time again when Ubuntu posts a new long term support release. That happens every two years, in April. Sometimes the alternate flavors of Ubuntu lag that release a little, such as Xubuntu and Lubuntu and the server version.

I upgraded the OS on my personal computer, which was running Xubuntu 18. I installed Ubuntu 20, Manjaro 20, Debian 10, and finally settled on Lubuntu 20, for now. Here are some of the highlights from the various upgrades, starting with our attempt to upgrade the Mac Pro.

MacOS
Our Mac Pro failed in its attempt to upgrade to the latest version of MacOS. Physically it is a plenty capable machine by today's standards and it was very expensive when new. We even upgraded the video interface to a newer more modern one for this upgrade, because the upgrade program said it was needed. However, due to the age of our expensive Mac Pro, Apple decided that it cannot be updated. This is a lesson for anyone who plans to spend the huge amount of money that a decked-out Mac Pro costs. At some point it will become obsolete by decree from Apple and there's nothing you can do. This is the second time in my life that I have found myself cursing Apple and swearing that I will never buy another of their computers; I should have listened to myself the first time.

I read it is possible to load Linux onto the old Mac Pro. Paula currently uses it as her main work machine. If she upgrades to a new box, I might try loading Linux onto the old one, just for fun and because its a beautiful machine. My big Alienware box was bought at the same time as the Mac Pro. Comparing the two boxes, inside and outside, is like comparing a Ferrari to a mid range Ford. Don't get me wrong, I love Fords after/while owning several of them but they aren't Ferraris.

Speaking of which, and really off topic, we had the opportunity to see the movie Ford vs Ferrari. It was a great movie, kind of made the Ford guys look like a bunch of corporate asses. I highly recommend seeing the movie.

For now, I have dropped support for the MacOS build of Shores of Hazeron. That could change in the future but its not likely unless someone requests it. Then it is only a matter of building and posting the software so don't be afraid to make that request.

Notably, all the latest versions of Linux were quite happy to upgrade my vintage Alienware computer.

Ubuntu 20
Competent and stable. This would be a fine OS for most purposes. It woke up to my three monitor configuration without any trouble.

Shores of Hazeron built and ran just fine. As usual with a new version of the development system, there was a wave of new compiler warnings that needed fixing.

I was pleased to notice when running SoH that most emojis in the text were now rendered in full color, not the text color, including the ones that appear in the on-screen chat text.

I didn't care for the new Gnome desktop. I lamented to Paula that I would like to see them roll back all the stuff they've done in recent years, back to when Linux felt cooler.

I had grown to like Manjaro 18 after using it in a virtual build machine for the last couple of years. I decided now was a good time to give it a try.

Manjaro 20 Xfce
Competent and stable. This would be a fine OS for most purposes. It woke up to my three monitor configuration without any trouble.

The Xfce desktop was more traditional and likeable.

Running Shores of Hazeron produced an error message about not being able to set a custom style. Then the style of many dialog boxes was borked, particularly the system supplied dialogs such as the file browser.

Worse, the OpenGL scene was transparent through the window to the desktop below, and whatever other windows were behind the SoH window, like having a peep hole through the SoH window. I concluded this could be a bug in my own window configuration so I made some attempts to eliminate the problem. Nothing worked. This error happened when Manjaro 20 was running as the main OS of the computer and it also happened when Manjaro was running in a virtual machine under Ubuntu 20. Both were running on the same physical computer/video hardware.

For this reason, support for Manjaro was dropped for now. I can/will build a version of SoH for Manjaro if anyone requests it. Perhaps your computer won't exhibit the problem.

Debian 10
Competent and stable. This would be a fine OS for most purposes. It woke up to my three monitor configuration without any trouble.

The installer allowed me to install Gnome, KDE Plasma and Xfce desktops. There were others but I only picked those three because they were familiar. Then you could pick your desktop when logging in, a nice feature.

Shores of Hazeron built and ran just fine but the frame rate was extremely low. This is because Debian does not install any non-free software, such as custom video drivers. I probably could have located and installed the necessary video driver but I didn't want to mess with it.

Xubuntu 20
I started downloading Xubuntu 20, which is Ubuntu with the Xfce desktop. While I was waiting, I started reading about Lubuntu, which is Ubuntu with the LXQt desktop. Wait what? I love Qt. LXQt is a desktop built using Qt?

I canceled the Xubuntu download. I'm sure it would have been a fine OS for most purposes.

Lubuntu 20
Competent and stable. This would be a fine OS for most purposes. It woke up to my three monitor configuration without any trouble.

Shores of Hazeron built and ran just fine. My only disappointment was that the emojis are back to being text-colored, instead of full color. At least we know somebody is working on it, maybe next version.

Somebody was listening to my plea. The LXQt desktop is clean and simple and everything seems to work. Not only that, a few of the cool fun things are back in the distribution, silly stuff like having zillions of pointless screen savers, and a terminal window background texture.

I tried using the QtTerminal window. It was very nice but I had to give it up because I've grown too used to using Alt+number to switch screens quickly. It was easy to install the good old Gnome terminal but I miss one of the fun features in the QtTerminal. Alas, you can't have it all.

Work on Shores of Hazeron feels like I'm back to my old pace. OS version upgrades are disruptive and a bit stressful until everything is back in its place and working as intended.

I suppose I could have simply upgraded the Xubuntu I was using but where's the fun in that? Sometimes you have to live it and do it to find a better way.

The final line up of officially supported platforms is...

• Debian 10
  
• Mint 19
  
• Ubuntu 20
  
• Windows 64 bits
  
• Windows 32 bits