[CF-Devel] Performance

[pc-crossfire at crowcastle.net]

I haven't looked at the current protocol, so I don't know how much work it
would be, but here are some thoughts for how we should do it to maximize
efficiency:

Messages should be binary, not ASCII.  It makes reading the stream more
difficult, but saves lots of bandwidth.

Each message should start with a 32-bit message type code.  We can then
define a range of messages that are frequent messages.  For example, there
could be message types that indicate the presence of a spell effect on the
same square as the player.  Hence, if 7 fears, 3 icestorms, and 9 slows
show up on your square, you only have to receive 19 words.  So we can
define a standard set of objects that can be sent with just a single code.
Special objects will take multi-part messages to send name and weight
information, but that's not a problem as long as we get all the spell
effects and other really common items.

--PC