[CF-Devel] Future crossfire changes/projects

[Mark Wedel]

Mike Ponicki wrote:
>
     
      Is there a way we could simplify the handling of objects, like how you
     
     >
     
      said commercial games would handle it, or would that be really tough to
     
     >
     
      implement?
     
     
 It'd be fairly tough.  The biggest savings would be to not send naming
information every time.  In some sense, have a shorthand like '125 =
arrow/arrows', 432 = ruby/rubies, etc.  This is basically what is done for
images (they are referenced by number, not name unless the client is caching, in
which case the name is only sent once).  This is also safer than sending object
information - (ie, object 125 is an arrow object, and 126 is an arrow of death,
etc).

 The problem is there is no record of all the different names with assigned
numbers.  This could perhaps be created without too much difficulty.

 The other complication is that object names are much more mutable than face
information.  You have +1 arrows, helms of gorokh, etc.  Realistically, these
are probably significantly rarer such that just reducing name for normal objects
would be a pretty big savings.

 the biggest thing would be to try and minimize the number of objects sent - it
just starts to get pretty costly.  The big problem is typically big piles after
you kill some monster - the small individual treasure are usually noot a big
deal.