Supreme Cmdr

Someone sent me an excerpt to a posting about EnB. They wanted me to prepared for the bum rush when BCO goes live. Still waiting for the person to send me the URL to where he found this unsurprising titbit. quote: EARTH & BEYOND FINAL BETA STRUGGLES On Saturday, 9/14, the final beta of Earth & Beyond went live, beset with last minute difficulties and irritating bugs. The Westwood team worked through most of Saturday, finally getting the first two servers fully functional late in the afternoon. Unfortunately, they failed to correctly estimates how many people would try the "full" game for nothing more than the cost of a 1GB download! Within minutes, gamers overran the initial two servers ("Galaxies" in E&B parlance), choking the "newbie zones" with huge crowds. Westwood techs struggled into the evening to get a third server launched, only to see it fill up by midday Sunday, necessitating launch of a fourth server Sunday evening. Server software and logic was not fully prepared for high load operation. Players frequently suffered crashes and dropped connections as servers lost contact with players in the crowd. This was especially true at key space stations. Although E&B has 18 "newbie garden" starting areas per server, these all connect to just three "choke points" in the Sol System (at Earth, Mars, and Jupiter). Here players frequently complained of huge lag times, graphics crashes, and dropped connections. The "trader" characters, who visit space stations frequently to buy, sell, and build items, found it especially difficult to remain in the game. Westwood's mistake of underestimating demand for free play of this heavily promoted MMORPG was compounded by their failure to bring up new servers fast enough. On Monday they revealed a new policy of "locking the doors" to a server at 2800 users. Unfortunately, E&B servers were clearly lagging even with 2500 users, and there is no limit to the number of characters per server, so players who create characters in slow times may find themselves unable to use them during peak periods. Needless to say, nothing will drive away paying customers faster than a policy that prevents them from playing their character! After over a year of missteps that were poorly received by gamers, such as Majestic and Motor City Online, EA seems unprepared for success. Having enough servers to handle the load when the game went live on September 24th would be extremely important. Just as important are the load and limit policies EA adopts for paying customers, since a game's early reputation will haunt it for the rest of its natural life, as Funcom discovered in Anarchy Online. Avid players are discovering that even on the least populated server, gamers are frequently disconnected, or crashed to their desktop, for no apparent reason. With the recent launch last month, Westwood programmers are still hard pressed to discover, fix, and test their fixes to these nagging but important problems. Will Earth & Beyond become another launch disaster, like last year's SciFi contender Anarchy Online? We will know shortly.

hehe, I popped in, didn't see anyone and popped back out. Think of it as a driveby popping

quote: Originally posted by Cmdr Nova: No, it's not that the community is dry; it's just the loose ends. And I hate loose ends. And the fact that it's been months since any major RP has happened. Yep, I agree. But, I'm patient and quite confident that oncee mp (even the Beta) is out, there's going to be a lot of noise over on the battlecruiser.net lobby and here as well.

A little bit shallow and not as suspenseful as the original (Charade), but watchable. 6/10

I was planning on seeing this one this weekend, but wasn't sure about the gore factor. So, I should skip the first, how many minutes before going in? I hate gory movies.

LOL!!! Man, you're bored aren't you?

quote: Originally posted by Baloogan: I have noticed after the release of the game the volume of posts has almost died... I think you're forgetting the most important aspect of how it works around here. People don't have to post if they don't have to. This is not a site where people are allowed to do anything they bloody well feel like. Thats why it is not chaotic like other boards. The fact that few people post, doesn't mean anything. If everyone who purchased a BC game, posted here, about anything at all, it would be cluttered and the bandwidth cost would be higher than it already is. The forum is open for viewing and unless you want to post, you don't have to register. And because it is uncluttered, people can find what they are looking for without having to post. If the forum was cluttered - as you seem to think is a mark of a large community - then they would have to post repetitive crap since they won't be able to find the info they are looking for, among the clutter. Its not how much noise you make that counts, its the quality of the whisper that does. I for one would care less if anyone ever posted. It keeps my board clean and my bandwidth costs down. Thats why I have very stringent rules about posting and in fact, posting is by approval only.

quote: Originally posted by LBM: I went to Tacops and zoomed on the missile and watched it. It went right though the starstation and out the other side! Thats not possible. You had the camera in a skewed view (which can happen). This happens all the time and I know about it. Nothing I can do but to tell you to learn how to use the camera. There is no collision detect in the camera depending on the view and range to the object being observed. If missiles could go through objects, you won't be able to destroy anything with missiles. The only collision detect issue that I am aware of (and which I can't do anything about) is during repeated collisions at low frame rates, it is sometimes possible to intersect and object depending on how fast you are going. In BCG this problem is solved by partitioning the game's rendering and update loop into separate passes so that the rendering loop (frame rate dependent) does not have as high a priority as it does in BCM. quote: I was running version RC19 (which btw has cleared a lot of probs for me What sort of problems did it clear up? Apart from the ability to restore saved games? quote: Originally posted by Crush: I understand about the probes but havent figured out why I can have a shuttle deliver a towed craft to the starstation in pluto when my CC is in sol from the bridge but cannot do it from tacops, isnt the tactical launch menu the same from both screens? If you understand about the probes, then why exactly are you still asking about this? Tacops is a completely different system from the bridge. Or did you not know this? In fact, HOW exactly are you selecting a target for the shuttle while on the bridge? Go back and do this, then post EXACTLY what you are doing from the bridge. [ 10-30-2002, 07:36 AM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

quote: Originally posted by Cmdr Nova: [update: Unless the "randomness" of the savegame bug let me load this session, all systems appear good. Thanks, SC. ] nah, its fixed. Those goons over at Area 51 said so! [ 10-29-2002, 05:05 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

quote: Originally posted by Crush: Dont know if this is a bug or not, didnt see any reference to it but having slight problem with the shuttle launch menu. When trying to direct shuttles that are in other systems from the CC (e.g. fly to or deliver to) i can not use the shuttle controls from tacops. From the bridge it works fine, gives me the proper target list but when done in tacops menu the targets it lists are all targets from the region that the CC is currently in not the shuttle. The list says its from the shuttles region but all the craft, planets, etc the in the CC's region. Running 1.07 with the script update if that helps. Any help is welcome, thanx. Its not a bug. Read the manual, particular the section that deals with Tacops and viewing remote regions.

quote: Originally posted by Cmdr Nova: OMGOMG, thanks SC! Now I can actually try to play myself a full game instead of seeing how long I can last using resume. hehe, check to make sure it actually works first - since I had to hack in several RC19/20/21 code modules to come up with this RC19 hybrid.

I have uploaded an RC19 build which also contains the recent RC21 fix related to an exit (or CTD) when attempting to restore a saved game. This release should get you folks going until the next major release is ready. RC18 saved games should be backward compatible See the first post in this thread for the file link [ 10-28-2002, 10:52 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

quote: Originally posted by Race Bannon IV: Ahh, Jamont....where's the link? Maybe we'd like a laugh too. ahahahahah!!

whoa!! I never knew that was there!! [ 10-28-2002, 08:00 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

whoa!! its alive!!

quote: Originally posted by Kiran: Well, I'll see what I can cook up, but it'll be quite hard without a way to make intruders board me. Any suggestions? I just got your email and saved games. Will look into this later. Thanks!

quote: Originally posted by Kiran: Well, I'll see what I can cook up, but it'll be quite hard without a way to make intruders board me. Any suggestions? Well, how hard can it be if you say that it happens frequently? And using playmod may not reproduce the problem because it may be location based. To use playmod to create intruders.. Copy playmod.exe (check the Game Builder System forum for the RC15 or higher version) to the BCM install folder SNG (using whatever settings you normally would to reproduce the problem), launch and then quit the game. Then create a create_intruder.bat file to generate intruders at various locations on the ship. In the example below, five intruders are created in the first five locations on the CC (see playmod.txt line 356). Note that the last parameter is the deck location, not the intruder number. Each call to 'create indruder' creates a single intruder at the provided location. In the example below, the first line creates one intruder in the main turbo shaft. code: playmod create intruder 1 playmod create intruder 2 playmod create intruder 3 playmod create intruder 4 playmod create intruder 5 Resume the game and go from there If you can't reproduce the bug, then it could be location related i.e. intruders in a certain deck location cause a Perscan crash. Since Perscan resizes the screen based on the number of personnel being displayed etc, you must be running BCM at the same resolution you were when the crash occured. This bug - if it exists could be related to either intruders in a certain location or Perscan when resizing the screen due to intruders in a certain location. And if you can't reproduce it in those five locations, then you need to check all 106 locations on the CC. Note that your CC asset must be carrier in order for all 106 locations to be valid. And you cannot create a batch file with 106 intruders on board because this will exceed the personnel limit for the CC and Playmod doesn't check for this overflow. If you do this, you will corrupt the game data. This means that you have to do it at a max of about 10 intruders at a time. It gets worse: Once the batch file creates a number of intruders, you have to remove them before adding more if the existing count is close to reaching the CC personnel limit. You can also use Playmod for this or just SNG in order to remove them. Or just dock. For this reason, thats why I suggested creating five intruders at a time. Have fun!

Well, if you can reliably reproduce it in RC18, I'd like you to tell me how you are able to because we are currently investigating this in the Area 51 and even the git who opened the report (that would be Wold) has been unable to reproduce it since. If you can reproduce it, please read the forum archive topic on save game submissions and send the profile you were running to [email protected]. In the zip file containing the saved game, please also include your BCCONFIG.INI and any .LOG files you find in your BCM folder. The Perscan color scheme and layout has not changed. Dunno what you're talking about there.

quote: Originally posted by Kiran: Ok, tried the campaign for ter/mil...just one question...is there a reason that the diplomat runs off and leaves his escort(me)? I mean, is he suicidal or something? uhm, you're escorting them. Not the other way around. Its up to you to keep up and stick with them. Which is why, you're advised to not piss around with the CC asset used in the scenario. Most people go and pick a totally different asset, not suitable for the scenario. And then wonder why that is. quote: Originally posted by Kiran: That's when you open your handy dandy TacOps computer and tell your crew to bring your ride back! ahahaha, look, 'e's learning already! [ 10-25-2002, 04:22 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

quote: Originally posted by mihau: quote:Originally posted by Kiran: 3. Do co-pilots serve a purpose or can I assign them to shuttles without hindering the fighters' effectiveness? Well, I found at some point that pilots flying alone in fighters are more effective. Maybe it's stupid, but it really works. There's a higher chance that they will get killed in a dogfight, than run out of fuel. Rubbish

quote: Originally posted by Kiran: In your expert opinions, would it be better to learn the game in roam or jump into the acm running blindly thru space attempting to complete objectives? Try the latter!!! I hear chics dig that!!! Just ask Resnig! [ 10-24-2002, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

quote: Originally posted by Remo Williams: Doh! Why did I come in here...damn nOObs! hehe, he's not that bad. At least not like some of the others. At least his posts make sense and he has reasonable questions to ask.

Nobody asked you to download Beta patches. Anyway, thanks for stopping by. Have a nice day now. [ 10-24-2002, 10:01 AM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

quote: Originally posted by Kiran: [QB]So what you're saying is that I should have waited a year or so and bought a later incarnation? lol Hence the word: sequel Dunno why this is even being answered. Have you actually tried going into friendly/hostile territory as a marine/pilot to see what happens? Try it. Reading the manual would be a great start If the pilot in a fighter dies (which he can, even if the craft is fine), guess what happens without a co-pilot. Because I disabled it before BCM was released. It could be done in previous BC titles but the complexity of BCM made it more extensive than I would've liked. I plan putting it back in BCM once it is actually implemented in BCG and tested. No. Maybe in BCG No. This is random but also tied to the composite nature of the planet. See the navchart section of the appendix. Unless you are mining, no. If there are no mzones on the planet, there's nothing to explore. I was planning on not displaying anything in Tacops when observing a planet, unless you had a probe in orbit, but decided against it. That would have provided a good reason to explore a planet. [ 10-24-2002, 09:58 AM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

quote: Originally posted by Cmdr Nova: Have been having the CTD on save load problem. Yeah, I've noticed it's random as well, and I've found some luck in using "resume" opposed to "restore", but I'm not really assuming much. Awaiting next patch. (Since it's random, Buzz probably hasn't encountered it in his reinstall.) VCF Camping Time Thanks for stating the obvious. What have I said about posting useless messages to important tech support threads? [ 10-24-2002, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]