129 replies to this topic

[Supreme Cmdr]

While mp still has some kinks to work out, we're having a lot of fun and it really shows the power, extensibility and freeform nature of the game.

Last night, I logged on SERVER4 (which is the most populated server, probably because it has AG turned on) to run some tests and found a bunch of guys (Marvin, Kahn and Shohashi are regulars) on.

At some point, Marv got real banged up (by hostile NPCs) and all his systems were down, nuclear reactor was about to meltdown etc.

So he asked for a tow. I warped over, captured him in the tractor beam and jumped to the Paladian station. Then got close enough to the station so that when I dropped him, he could just dock, since he didn't have the power to travel to the station.

Once I did that, he docked. Lucky for him, he had the station already in his target matrix (though his radar was down) so when I dropped him, he just did ALT+D to dock.

Since (in mp) repairs at a station take 1 min per item (and 5 mins if you not docked), he launched pretty quickly after that. But sadly he had a CTD (the server was intact) which is probably caused by an issue in which when you dock at a station, your ship object remains in space, and when you relaunch, the server probably tries to re-created it. I can see how a CTD could happen, but I have not observed that yet (am looking into that today).

Anyway, when he logged back on, I had jumped to the station and then exited my craft in fp mode. As an SFM, I was flying around and inside the station.

Later Marv, Kahn and Gordon joined in. Flying, walking etc around the station all worked just like it does in sp mode.

....thats when I decided to pinch Marv's CC

That didn't work of course, so I made it back to my CC and fly past Marv who commented about how cool it would be if he could have entered my CC as part of my crew complement.

Anyway, we then decided to take on the Resilient Insurgent station in Gaulan and so off we went....knowing that we were all probably going to die trying.

So we jumped (I was leader) to Castrin, then on to Gaulan. I then cloaked, jumped to station and started pounding it with FATAL assigned missiles and laser shots.

Thats when I got a bogus server disconnect message (the server was just fine) which caused me to manually disconnect (I should have waited for the message to clear and confirm that the server had in fact dropped me) probably due to the massive packets that were being sent due to the fact that we were pounding the station. I dropped and later the guys destroyed the station.

I logged back via the server, made some notes (some issues I had noticed while playing) and then left.

All in all, it was quite cool and is only going to get better once I resolve a few mp kernel issues (especially the time synch problem on the planet).

Below is the chat log from the session as well as some PNG shots I took. I tell you, its pretty cool seeing all these ships out there (Marv can't park! ) and players flying around in fp mode while in space.

Enjoy!

chat log

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[Marvin]

Nice shots, SC. But why do I get the feeling they're just the first of a long set of pix you can call "How I Spent My Summer Vacation?"

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Thats when I got a bogus server disconnect message (the server was just fine)

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[/indent]I could've sworn I never knew that could happen but, in the chat log, somebody with my name on it says he'd seen it before. Chalk it up to old age.

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Lucky for him, he had the station already in his target matrix (though his radar was down)...

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[/indent]Actually, I wasn't sure. But I used the Range indicator in the upper right corner of the TDD. Even though the Tactical scope (TRS) and VDD were dead, I could still cycle (unseen) targets with the "," and "." keys. When the range matched what you told me was the range to the station ... bingo!

You gotta love it. If you look around, there isn't a problem you can't solve one way or another. Which is good. 'Cause it sure is easy to get into trouble.

[Charles Lindsey]

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I could still cycle (unseen) targets with the "," and "." keys.

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[/indent]Hehe I've done that.

Had fun today. Those NPC's are killer though.

[Supreme Cmdr]

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Originally posted by Marvin:
I could've sworn I never knew that could happen but, in the chat log, somebody with my name on it says he'd seen it before. Chalk it up to old age.

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[/indent] I never knew about that one, I just thought you were saying that the server disconnects clients. What happened was that the client got a bogus disconnect message from the client and I think its because when there is so much packet going to the client, if it does not respond within a certain time, the server thinks the client is gone and disconnects it.

Yeah, we had a blast last evening - too bad I crashed the server (using a cheat hack I hadn't even tested in a while) trying to save Kyle from Empirian Police, during our pilgrimage to Galadran.

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Originally posted by Shingen:
Just some comments:

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[/indent]Shingen, did you read the VCF lately?

The issue with AG entities not moving (actually they *are* moving, the client is just not updating them because the server is not sending the info) was reported to me days ago and I've already figured out the problem.

And I made stations and ods system invincible in order to prevent them being destroyed. To see why, read the VCF.

I never designed mp to be used with AG entities, thats why its not documented. Once I allowed it (only on SERVER4), I've been tweaking it here and there because it looks like it is a popular addition.

The server needs to treat each NPC as if it were a client and then send that information to all the clients on the server. Thats a lot of data and I've been scheduling what gets sent and when. What I've discovered is that one particular packet with dynamics info is not being sent regularly and as a guaranteed packet. For that reason, it can get dropped and will never get sent. When that happens, while the NPC will be updated on the server, it will not be updated on some clients.

Anyway, I expect to fix it shortly.

Stations do resupply because NPC transports do dock (they don't have strike targets). And even if AG ships did'nt dock, they will still resupply over time because AG is not required in mp in order for stations to contain items.

There are no PZ definitions in mp, so you won't lose EPs for stuff like that. You only gain/lose EPs if you do actions which affect the target e.g. if you destroy a friendly, you will/should lose EPs.

Intruders beaming over from NPC ships probably won't work, for the same reason that cargo pods are created empty. The server needs to know about all the clients in order to know which client to beam intruders so. Since thats not handled, I am not surprised that it does not work.

[Supreme Cmdr]

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Originally posted by Shingen:
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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:
Shingen, did you read the VCF lately?

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[/indent]Yes, I read it everytime you update it. It was 4:30 in the morning.

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[/indent]LOL!!! The usual Mea Culpa I see

[Crush7100]

its stories like this that really make me upset about being robbed. was saving for a new comp to run UC but now have to replace everything (about $3,000 worth of stuff). Thinking I can skip on the tv and stereo, maybe get UC running a little sooner. At least they didnt get any of my BC stuff, thats kept elsewhere thats a little more secure. One day....

[Supreme Cmdr]

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Originally posted by Crush:
its stories like this that really make me upset about being robbed.

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[/indent]heh, we (Terran/Military) had a truce going with the Terran/Insurgent scumbags. The ROE was, if its not an NPC, you don't shoot at it. So, imagine trying to go from Procon to Galadran - with weapons on hold - and a bunch of Red blips on radar.

Funny thing happened to me en-route. There I was at Gaulan trying to use the flux field to hop over to Junae so that I could proceed to Rovarix, then on to Palean and finally to Galadran. Got relocated by the fluxfield twice. And on the third attempt, I finally got the destination I wanted. I was back in Castrin. So I just hopped over to Foron and took the long way. When you're trying to get somewhere in a hurry, you don't want to use a flux field.

Well, en-route, not only were the Police out in full swing (and harassing the Insurgents), Kyle was sure to meet sudden death, so I decided to access the server remotely to manually destroy the Police ship. Thats when I crashed the server.

But it was fun though. Marvin - would you believe - was making the journey in a shuttle. And he actually made it too. Go figure.

Before I crashed the server, the Insurgent (I think it was Shohashi) who had made it to Galadran, was passing along tactical information about NPC movements in Galadran. For example, there was an NPC S24 Raven camping the jump gate into Galadran. Of course, being in a Nightstar carrier, I shrugged it off as a pest. Until I jump in. And the bastard destroyed me - because I forgot that I had weapons on hold. I think Sho got him in the end.

[hazzig]

Cool pics there SC. How about taking that chat log to Hollywood and make a movie? You've got the action, the heroes, although some of them gets killed but thats neccesary for the drama part. The bad guys are all around lurking in the dark, so the audience have someone to hate. Only thing missing is princess Leia but you can add her as a bonus pack. (But not before noting THAT THIS IS NOT A FRIGGING LOVE STORY!!!).

[Pugwash]

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Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:
heh, we (Terran/Military) had a truce going with the Terran/Insurgent scumbags. The ROE was, if its not an NPC, you don't shoot at it. So, imagine trying to go from Procon to Galadran - with weapons on hold - and a bunch of Red blips on radar.

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[/indent]Didn't I ever send you the later version of the MP map with the grid and star background?

Here's a preview the original file has been compressed from a 7.17 MB .bmp to 751 KB (769,300 bytes).jpg then to 212,725 bytes for the preview.

Anyone who wants to download the uncompressed jpg in a self extracting (exe) rar file can get it Here

Edit URL's changed just browse the site until you find the file.

[ 06-11-2004, 06:51 AM: Message edited by: Pugwash ]

[Supreme Cmdr]

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Originally posted by Pugwash:
Didn't I ever send you the later version of the MP map with the grid and star background?

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[/indent]No. And its not adequate because printing a version with the Black background is not as good as the White one. Which, this morning, I modified to include the name/type (click the link above again, as I have now refreshed it) of the station in each region.

So, If you have a version with the White background, grids, station name/type etc, send it to me and I'll include it in the upcoming 2.00.08 build.

[Marvin]

If Pugwash would post the bitmap, instead, it should be pretty easy to change the colors using MS Paint (assuming the bitmap is clean ... the background needs to be all the exact same color of black).

[Pugwash]

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Originally posted by Marvin:
If Pugwash would post the bitmap, instead, it should be pretty easy to change the colors using MS Paint (assuming the bitmap is clean ... the background needs to be all the exact same color of black).

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[/indent]No unfortunately the background is many shades of black so it means going in and filling with white what you can then cleaning up all the rest.

It is probably easier to start from the white background and add the grid, planets and name tags.

[ShoHashi]

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Before I crashed the server, the Insurgent (I think it was Shohashi) who had made it to Galadran, was passing along tactical information about NPC movements in Galadran. For example, there was an NPC S24 Raven camping the jump gate into Galadran. Of course, being in a Nightstar carrier, I shrugged it off as a pest. Until I jump in. And the bastard destroyed me - because I forgot that I had weapons on hold. I think Sho got him in the end.

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[/indent]Yep..had a ball on that little field trip, SC! It's a very rare sight indeed to see Insurgents helping GalCom!

[Charles Lindsey]

heh heh cowards. I coulda stood to die but no one would take me on. Zane had to take care of a problem in his home sector after we had agreed to a battle. Heh

Overall was fun.

[Gordon]

Yeah, had a blast tonight, there were quite a few battles going on all over the place. At one point there were 8 people online with fighters and lasers everywhere.

[Cc]

There is no question about it ,MP is definitely working better.

Compliments to the SC and the testers for their hard work making MP an enjoyable game!

[ 05-25-2004, 02:46 AM: Message edited by: Cc ]

[DREADA]

From the chat log, sounds like mad fun, can't wait till exams are over and I graduate!!

[ 05-25-2004, 05:53 AM: Message edited by: DREADA ]

[Supreme Cmdr]

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Originally posted by Gordon:
Yeah, had a blast tonight, there were quite a few battles going on all over the place. At one point there were 8 people online with fighters and lasers everywhere.

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[/indent]Sounds like fun. I missed you guys last night cuz I was busy working on the next update and trying to squeeze in fixes for a bug I introduced in the latest hyperjump code etc.