still havent made any network changes, but did test logging in from my office over a 64k line and it ran pretty well. Trades were instantaneous, movement, though it had some jerks, was pretty good. Chat was instantaneous as well as teh initial space station load, which is sent in its entirety from the server when you press d. weird.
Some new network code, applying a few things learned on another great thread here.
and…dip dip dip dah! All trade and banking functions are now mouse driven!! Food is really the only decent trade item as I flesh out some trade ports but that is later on. You should experience very little lag when using the arrow keys to fly your ship. As always, all comments/critiques welcome!
Just a note…will be adding a secondary navigation style to the game this week, so those of you returning over and over, keep it up and thanks!! Still not as lucky as kevglass 
, have 54 user profiles in my system, but have only seen a simultaneous usage of 2 at a time. :-/
Thanks again.
A few new things…you can now travel thru the first jumpgate to another sector and back again. Trade ports better stocked.
Help has been added for the F1 key.
I apologize for the continual post about little changes, but you know how it is when you build something one way, play with it, test it and it either doesnt do what you want it to do or you just don’t like it…well that happens a lot here… ;D
Anyway, a few more things in the game…all mouse driven except flight (arrow keys) and when you need to type chat or numbers…
Help fleshed out a little more too…
Update to client and server. Simple experience has begun for trades. Travel through the jumpgate is different. Fly over and stop inside gate. Click mouse on gate then click the highlighted yellow button in the lower left. Then click a destination.
Just tried the latest version. Coming along nicely.
[] no lag problems; perfectly responsive 
(maybe this is just luck, or maybe you fixed the net code?)
[] The help is great
[] Pressing Esc should either be ignored in help or quit the help - people are used to hitting esc to get out of help screens, but in GT6 it just quits the game! This could easily be mistaken for a crash
[] Text is all a bit too small on high-res monitors :(. Suggest you eventually add a “choose resolution” or similar which just scales all text, graphics etc (e.g. on my monitor, the current game only takes up 1/4 of the screen)
[*] For stats, suggest you do something elite never did - automatically record how much money you paid for each of the things in your hold! Otherwise, the player has to get out pen and paper and write it down :(. Stupid (elite). Also lets you do funky stuff like in the trade screen have an extra column “Profit” which is +ve, 0, or -ve depending on what you paid for the items originally. Note: if you want to preserve some of the reward for people who are careful, you only need to record the total amount paid for the cargo, so if someone bought 1t for 10, and 1t for 90, it would record 100 for 2t, and in the display this would show up as “50 per 1t”.
thanks!
[*]Network code was reworked, have just a few more components of the dead reckoning to tweek.
[*]Glad Help was helpful I have added the esc button closes help suggestion.
[]I went from fullscreen to 800600. May add a 1024 by 768 down the road.
[*]Trade…this is always a strange and unique area. At first I considered the, pick a product, make an offer, haggle, then settle on a price and award exp based on success. Settled on the buy one item at a time. It is faster, allows for quick in and out of station to move on to next. Interface was better geared for mouse driven usage so you didnt have to go back to keyboard so often. My eventually do a blend. When you enter station, you choose whether to buy outright(pay asking price) or haglle mode.?!
Going to try and flesh our player and ship in the next few days, then add shipyards for modifying ship or updgrading(for a price, of course). Then asteroid interface for mining. Then planet and moon interfaces…these will be extensive.
Political system has changed 8 times already, so it is not even in code yet, as have the races.
Another update. You can land on the Moons and mine for ore, planets coming soon along with more Moon functionality.
Reworked the main game loop with some of the Space Invaders tutorial in mind (thanks kev).
Login should be cleaner as well.
as always, feedback is priceless!
Scary, the jar is now 666k in size! Fear the demons!
GT6 is really starting to come together now, I’m finding myself actually understanding whats going on
Couldn’t find another space station to get to, but did have alot of fun flying round making trails.
Trading is looking good, still a little unintuitive but I did at least (after a short while) work out how to buy some stuff
Some sort of mini-map would be good. For my taste at least some of the stars in the background could move…
Still, its looking good, want to start making more fortune now! At the risk of turning into B^3, have you got an entry on Java Games Factory yet? If not, why not?, the visitors will want to see this one! And its even webstarted! (http://grexengine.com/sections/externalgames/)
Nice Job!
Kev
Thanks!! Comments like that truly drive the creative effort!!
Ask and you shall receive…a minimap, though I call it a sector scan, is now up. It is stationary of the entire “known” sector and your ship moves around in it.
more to come soon!
M
Looking good. Works nice on the Mac, but you should use a NumberFormatter for the velocity reading. sometimes it goes to a zillion digits 4.0000000000000002
Thanks, been meaning to do the formatting. Originally it was only so I cousl see acceleration, but I may leave it, as other ship will be slower or faster.
Thanks for the Mac note…I have no way of testing on a Mac.
M