Feature: Setting to automatically restart server based on hours played

[2TallTyler]

Motivation / Problem

We have a setting for network games to automatically restart upon reaching a certain year. That will never happen if calendar time is frozen.

Description

Add a new setting for a timer that counts down hours played, and resets after that.

Limitations

This was originally a change before @TrueBrain suggested we have both, so blame him for more code to maintain. 😉

Checklist for review

Some things are not automated, and forgotten often. This list is a reminder for the reviewers.

• The bug fix is important enough to be backported? (label: 'backport requested')
• This PR touches english.txt or translations? Check the guidelines
• This PR affects the save game format? (label 'savegame upgrade')
• This PR affects the GS/AI API? (label 'needs review: Script API')
  • ai_changelog.hpp, gs_changelog.hpp need updating.
  • The compatibility wrappers (compat_*.nut) need updating.
• This PR affects the NewGRF API? (label 'needs review: NewGRF')
  • newgrf_debug_data.h may need updating.
  • PR must be added to API tracker

[TrueBrain]

I like this PR, but not in the way you might think. Btw, for settings conversion, see #11143. That is, if that gets accepted. I tried to work out there how to do that.

Anyway, for this PR:

I think it is the wrong approach, but accidentally shows a good improvement. Let me explain.

I think we have two types of users:

1. users that just want to restart the map every NN hours, like this PR does. Like: every 24h it is reset. That sounds like a total awesome things to do.
2. users that want to play till in-game year 2050, because there the scoreboard shows up. After that, the server restarts (or a few days after, or what-ever).

The first is more for long-term servers like reddit etc. I totally see this PR being of added value to them.
The second is more for competitive play, where people start about on the same time. This PR would make that gametype more difficult.

So ... and I know this is a big ask .. shouldn't we have both settings? With day-length patch, the setting of this PR is going to make much more sense for that first group. But there will always be people in that second group .. and they will have to understand that if you freeze the calendar, the setting will never work. But this new one does. Best of both worlds?

What do you think?

[2TallTyler]

Sure, that makes sense. This becomes a Feature: PR, to add new functionality for when frozen calendar time makes the existing setting useless.

I think I'll also change the time units to hours. Minutes is probably too much precision, given than an hour is only five years in-game. On the other hand, it doesn't really hurt to use minutes, except that users desiring a longer time have to do some math. Anyone feel strongly that it should stay minutes?

[TrueBrain]

Overall this looks nice; just a few bits and pieces :)

[TrueBrain]

Owh, and one more: title says dedicated server, but the code says it works for just server. Do we want to emphasis dedicated here, or just omit it?

[2TallTyler]

I don't see any changes to anything autoclean related? What am I missing?

You're missing my lack of reading comprehension. Indeed, this has nothing to do with autoclean. 🙄

Owh, and one more: title says dedicated server, but the code says it works for just server. Do we want to emphasis dedicated here, or just omit it?

...Hmm, I guess I don't know what difference there is between the two. I don't intend any emphasis, and have only tested on a standard client hosting a game, so I've amended the title.

[TrueBrain]

The only thing I wonder about, but I think it is fine:

• The calendar based restart works even on a loaded savegame.
• This restart counts from the moment you start the application; not from the start of the game.

An alternative would be to hook it onto the economy timer, and use that for restart. That way it would be a restart after N hours of play.

In reality, I do not think it matters at all, as I suspect only servers use this, where the owner just wants a new game every 23 hours. And they never load in a map, and expect the restart to continue counting.

[2TallTyler]

I agree that servers are probably the only users of this, since it is only accessible from the command line. And once they do restart using this function, the timer starts from 0 as expected and it's a new game, not a savegame.