Hi everybody,

We're working on a real-time simulation game in Java, as I'm the only programmer in the group, it would be interesting to work with someone else :).
Don't worry about the animations or network protocol, it is *almost* ;) everything planned, but we still need people to turn all those wonderful ideas into, well, a program and some profit hehehe.

Regards,
Martin Zulliger
exe@kewl.net

What langguage do you code in ( the main part[ excludin. DLL's]) and what is the game abour?

Well you might say I'm crazy, but it's all in Java and in fact, it should run online :).
The game's a mixture between Sim City and Settlers (with its own improvements however). The big difference is that you build your colonies in the Moon, in the "near future" (year 2050-2100). Plus, we want it to be as realistic as possible :).

OK , most importantly for such a game how is the AI gonna work ? All the other stuff is easy.

Simple, there's no AI, it's fully multiplayer :)

Think of it as a "virtual Moon", that would be the idea, users log in and literally live together in this place... It's however divided in zones to avoid speed problems, but many users could be in the same zone and they'd see each other in real time.

It's been done, ever heard of active worlds? They've got more than 1 billion square (scale) miles of land owned by people (Yes they pay REAL money for it). Then they can impory 3D objects and textures to produce whatever they want, there is some really freaky stuff when you get out about 1000 miles from the center of the world. There are hundreds of different worlds as well. It's pretty cool for wasting time, or chatting with psychos.

Yeah but here you wont *only* waste your time or chat with psychos, you mine minerals, export things to Earth, train soldiers and bug your "neighbors", plus, isnt 3D first person, its an strategy game, like Sim City, Settlers 2, Anno 1602, Caesar 2, etc.
There are hundreds of 3D chattin' stuff like ActiveWorlds but what I have in mind is something where you really have to work. There isnt something like this in internet that I know, however if you know something like this tell me :).

Without an AI it would b easier for you , suppose maing it on Java has its good and bad points. How are you gonna organise multiplayer ? THrought what sort of server.

In the beginning the server could be implemented in Java as well, but perhaps later it would be convenient to implement it in C, because Java's performance is not as good as C's one.
It's however easier to implement the server in Java because it reuses much of the client's network code.
And about the multiplayer, I've been thinking of a frame-oriented protocol, something rather usual in these kind protocols.
Basically, the server sends "paint" packets every say 100ms - 500ms, which allows the client to paint a group of frames, making the animations and movements smooth. When another client produces some event (eg moves a soldier) the server notifies the rest of the users in the next paint packet, telling them in which frame the event was produced, so the other clients determine the actual position of that unit/building/etc.
I've been also thinking in compressing the stream (which could save bandwidth), but I guess that would kill the CPU. On the other hand, perhaps not because there arent so many packets to compress/decompress... anyway I'll test that later :)

It seems like a good project , anyything I could help with , just ask !

I'd help if I knew Java :) Sounds like a good project though; reminds me a bit of StarCraft. If you need testers or something, I'd be willing. And, I think you SHOULD have testers, at least one on each platform that you expect to run the game: Windows 95 with IE, Win95 with Netscape, Win98, WinME, Win 2000, MacOS, etc etc.

It's not only programming, we need first to finish the game ruleset, screens and all, so if you are willing to help, well just email me and I'll send you all the information we have, any suggestion, idea, etc will be welcome :).