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autonav: Remove the feature

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The autonavigation feature has issues:

* Autonavigation orders are executed at the update.  Crafty players
  can use them to get around the update window.

* Usability is poor:

  - The order command is overly complex, not least because it can do
    five different things: clear, suspend, resume, declare route, set
    cargo levels.

  - Unlike every other command involving movement, order does not let
    you specify routes, only destination sectors.

  - Setting cargo levels can silently swap start and end point of a
    circular route, because "this keeps the load_it() procedure
    happy".  Maybe it does, but it surely keeps players confused.

  - Setting "start" cargo levels actually sets the "end" levels, and
    vice versa.  Has always been broken that way.

  - Predicting what exactly autonavigation will do at the update isn't
    easy.

* The info pages documenting it amount to almost 400 non-blank lines
  formatted.  They claim only merchant ships can be given orders.
  This is wrong.  Unlikely to be the only error.

* Few players use it, and its workings at the update a fairly opaque.
  Makes it a nice hidey-hole for bugs.  Here are two:

  - Unlike the scuttle command, autonavigation happily scuttles trade
    ships while they're on the trading block.

  - Unlike the load command, autonavigation can load in friendly and
    allied sectors.

* It's more than 700 lines of rather crufty code nobody wants to
  touch.  Thanks to a big effort in Empire 2, it shares code with the
  navigation command.  It still duplicates load code.  The sharing
  complicates fixing the bugs demonstrated by navi-march-test.

Reviewing, fixing and testing this mess isn't worth the opportunity
cost.  Remove it instead.  Drop commands order, qorder and sorder.
Drop ship selectors xstart, xend, ystart, yend, cargostart, cargoend,
amtstart, amtend, autonav.

xdump ship sheds almost half its columns.  struct shpstr shrinks, on
my system from 200 to 160 bytes.

Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@pond.sub.org>
This commit is contained in:
Markus Armbruster 2014-12-24 16:33:51 +01:00
parent a4e519c377
commit 48e656c057
37 changed files with 306 additions and 1764 deletions
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18
include/ship.h
View file

@ -45,17 +45,6 @@
#define SHP_TYPE_MAX 46
#define SHIP_MINEFF 20
/* bit masks for the autonav mode flags */
#define AN_AUTONAV bit(2)
#define AN_STANDBY bit(3)
#define AN_LOADING bit(4)
#define AN_SCUTTLE bit(5) /* Auto-scuttle of trade ships */
/* TMAX is the number of cargo holds a ship use in the autonav code. */
#define TMAX 6
#define MAXSHPPATH 28
#define MAXSHPNAMLEN 24
@ -79,13 +68,6 @@ struct shpstr {
short shp_mission; /* mission code */
short shp_radius; /* mission radius */
/* end of part matching struct empobj */
coord shp_destx[2]; /* location for ship destination */
coord shp_desty[2];
i_type shp_tstart[TMAX]; /* what goods to pick up at start point */
i_type shp_tend[TMAX]; /* what goods to pick up at end point */
short shp_lstart[TMAX]; /* How much do we pick up at the start */
short shp_lend[TMAX]; /* How much do we pick up at the end */
unsigned char shp_autonav; /* autonavigation flags */
short shp_item[I_MAX+1]; /* amount of items on board */
short shp_pstage; /* plague stage */
short shp_ptime; /* how many etus remain in this stage */