Integration of JCGNetwork is complete! Quick discussion, and then quick dev roadmap.

The integration of the new JCGNetwork API, completely replacing the Unet networking API, has been completed.  Problems appeared with the design of the smooth syncing code regarding the turning of objects, so that has been disabled for now for a future redesign.  Overall though the process was time consuming, stressful, but was relatively free of issues.  I'm still looking for issues, significantly fewer bugs were found in the conversion and the new networking API. 

So in the immediate term, I'm still looking for new issues that have appeared as a result of the switch, but then returning to working on new feature development.  Specifically back to working on the market trading system, and AI ships.  The market trading system is already 2/3 done.  It is core to making money in the game, so very important.  The AI control of ships is core to a lot of the fun in the game outside of player vs player combat, so is also very important. 

Currently with market trading players can make purchases from cities, but the supply and demand system is not fully implemented, and players can not yet sell.  You also cannot yet place your own persistent market orders (either buy or sell) yet.  With AI, right now it will follow the closest player, but has not yet implemented more advanced behavior such as pulling alongside for a broadside, and does not yet know how to fire cannons.  Once that part is implemented there will be a bit more fun to be had. 

After those are implemented, then implementing the scooping of loot from item drops will be next, which ties in with both having fun fighting AI ships (which already produce item drops when destroyed, just as player ships already do), and ties in with the sale of that loot on the various city markets. 

The next feature after that will be completing the randomized map spawn points feature, which will be the semi-random appears of things like AI spawn points, free loot drops, resources such as schools of fish, etc.  This is about 1/3 implemented already.  This was held back partly by Unet due to the inefficiency of spawning a high number of AI ships in a zone even at large distance to any players.  All players would get the full set of updates for these AI ships.  Unet did have a feature to handle this, the network proximity checker, but was not a good fit for the game's design.  I believe this should be solved with JCGNetwork's subscription system. 

At that point the game will be in a good place to finish implementation of the zone transfer system, where when the player reaches the edge of a zone they are automatically transferred to the adjacent zone server.  This will then allow for very long distance travel, differences in the difficulty of AI between zones, and the leveraging of the market trade system for the player to make money in game.  Then I can begin the work of building out new zones for the player to enter and explore, eventually covering the entire world.  The focus initially will be on the British isles, followed by Europe as a whole, then Africa and on to India. 

Further in the future will then be resource gathering, manufacturing, player skill training and skill trees, and player owned trading companies.  At that point the game will be possibly in a state to start getting some public feedback through a private or even public beta.