SE5 MultiMeister

Yesterday I got a burst of inspiration and got a lot of coding done on a new Space Empires V utility program - I call it the "SE5 MultiMeister"! It's not quite ready for public consumption, seeing as none of the network functionality is there yet, but you can at least see a screenshot here:

http://kolis.dyndns.org/se

It's a .NET 2.0 client/server app (well, it WILL be client/server if I ever get it finished ) which is intended as sort of an alternative to PBW. The idea is, some players get together and set up a game of SE5, and one of them decides to be the host. Everyone uses a copy of the MultiMeister app to enter in some details about themselves (name, email, etc.) and their empire (flag, race portrait, etc.) The players' copies of the app submit this information to the host's copy of the app, and the host is notified of everyone's setup. The host can then set up the game (the app should also be able to transfer the empire files and shipsets in case the host is missing any shipsets) and when the players connect again, they can download the .gam file, as well as any shipsets they might be missing. From then on, the app will behave pretty much like PBW - players submit turns, download .gam files, until the game ends.

I've gotten pretty far on this yesterday in terms of user interface and data representation but there's still quite a bit ahead in terms of network code - hopefully I'll have time to finish it, because it would be pretty handy to have around!