Dedicated Multiplayer Server

[admin]

And it crashed again – damn!

I’ve put together a little restart script, now it should come back automatically after 20-30s. If anyone’s interested, that’s the script:

#!/bin/bash
# if online is NULL, it's down. May change maps, so wait and check again:
if [ -z "$(curl -sSf http://hirnschwund.net/?s=13 | grep "ONLINE")"]; then
echo "I-War is offline"
sleep 20
fi
if [ -z "$(curl -sSf http://hirnschwund.net/?s=13 | grep "ONLINE")"]; then
echo "I-War still offline, killing all processes"
pkill -SIGKILL -f "Xvfb :1" && pkill -SIGKILL -f "loader.exe" && pkill -SIGKILL -f "dpnsvr.exe"
sleep 2
echo "Starting server"
Xvfb :1&
export DISPLAY=:1
cd .wine/drive_c/GOG Games/Independence War 2/ &&
LC_ALL="c" nohup wine ./bin/release/loader.exe -ac iwar2.icServerApp -sp dm -sn "i-war2 GOG" -stl 900 -sfl 10 -aic 2 > /dev/null 2>&1 &
else
echo "I-War running, leave."
fi

---

Space. The final frontier.

[RichardSkinner]

i think you crashed it on purpose cause you saw that I had dual antimatter streams and i was gunning for ya! 👿

---

The Priceline Negotiator

[admin]

Yes, that’s the only explanation! 😀

You’re a tough match. Are you playing with a Joystick or plain mouse + keyboard? 😉

---

Space. The final frontier.

[RichardSkinner]

a joystick, sidwinder precision 2, I got it in 2002 after I upgraded the ram in my computer from 64mb ram to 256mb so that I could finally progress past the junkyard mission (all that junk floating around was wreaking havonc on my crappy system at the time)

those seekers are nasty, not like fighting NPC’s

---

The Priceline Negotiator

[admin]

Woah nice – SideWinder guy here, too 😉 I own the Force Feedback Pro.

That’s the one with the big motors that need an extra power supply and light sensors inside that should never wear out. (Microsoft replaced them in later models when they realized they couldn’t sell new Joysticks if they never break 😀 ).

Works fine on any OS I have (Win XP, 7 or Linux), although I need Windows XP for Force Feedback support.

I’m playing I-War on a Quad here with 4GB RAM. Back in the days on my old P3 with a NVidia TNT2 this game surely made the machine get hot 😀

---

Space. The final frontier.

[RichardSkinner]

damn those bots are nasty, if only they were that nasty in singleplayer, it would have made the game more interesting without needed all the mods.

Im dissapointed we haven’t been able to get a match going with more then 2 or 3 players in it. com’on guys! lets go to war!

---

The Priceline Negotiator

[admin]

The problem is the time difference. When you’re here, I’m almost asleep and probably shouldn’t be up anymore 😀

The bot difficulty can be changed in flux.ini – they are a bit too hard for my taste, I might adjust that.

FLUX: [unknown] ** Stats for player “MP_NAME_RichardSkinner”
FLUX: [unknown] kills 0
FLUX: [unknown] shots 350
FLUX: [unknown] missiles 16
FLUX: [unknown] shots on target 0
FLUX: [unknown] missiles on target 4

So many shots and no kills? Damn, you’re getting old 😆

---

Space. The final frontier.

[RichardSkinner]

whaaat, thats a bunch of bull. I got 9 kills and 0 deaths my last match with the bots. and I know I got a few yesterday

so far the heavy corvette has been the way to go it seems.

i like the idea of stats being tracked tho.. if only they told the truth B)

---

The Priceline Negotiator

[admin]

That’s just from the last match. 😉

Maybe the stats don’t count the bots as kills? I’ll have to investigate 😀

BTW, did you encounter any crashes or did it work this time?

---

Space. The final frontier.

[RichardSkinner]

No it worked great, I played 3 matches, the first two I quit becauce I wanted to change my ship, the last one I player all the way through, got 9 bot kills, no crash.

I don’t really like that announcer voice though, a little to unreal tournamenty.

“One minute remainaing!”

shut up

---

The Priceline Negotiator

[Chessking]

What would be interesting would be to add a Torn Stars sort of server, with all of the ships, multiple systems, and the ability to mine for resources to buy weapons to gain the upper hand on the other team. That would need more than two players on at a time, though.

---

This is one tough navy, boy. They don’t give you time off, even for being dead. -Clay

Storm Petrel

[admin]

Sure, that would be an MMORPG in space. But it’s not possible.

The server can only run one map file at a time, so players could only stay together in one star system, because the server has to load the new map and remove the old one.

The German announcer is more calm, I like it 🙂

Now I’m sure – bot kills don’t count as kills in the log file. A little bad, but we can still count the “real” kills players make.

This seems to affect the other stats, too:

FLUX: [unknown] ** Stats for player “MP_NAME_schmatzler”
FLUX: [unknown] kills 0
FLUX: [unknown] shots 120
FLUX: [unknown] missiles 17
FLUX: [unknown] shots on target 0
FLUX: [unknown] missiles on target 1

I’m pretty sure I killed 3 bots with missiles only, but my shots on target are still 0. A little unreliable. Maybe I can adjust the log level, so I can get more information out of the thing.

Edit: No way, it doesn’t log the kills directly. Shame.
But I adjusted the bot skill from 0.6 to 0.4 and now I can stay alive a little bit longer.

---

Space. The final frontier.

[Chessking]

Besides, as it is you can only have 16 players on at a time. The thing to aim for right now would be creating a server for the “What Rocks v2” mod.

---

This is one tough navy, boy. They don’t give you time off, even for being dead. -Clay

Storm Petrel

[admin]

[quote=”Chessking” post=19628]The thing to aim for right now would be creating a server for the “What Rocks v2” mod.[/quote]

I’m trying to get one running in the next few hours.

---

Space. The final frontier.

[admin]

Good news! I was able to get a “What Rocks” server up! 🙂

To be able to connect, the start line has changed a little bit.

For the vanilla server:
loader.exe -hsn "i-war2 GOG" -hip "i-war2.com:2313"

For the “What Rocks” Server:
loader.exe -hsn "i-war2 WR" -hip "i-war2.com:2314"

I chose to load the Academy mod by default, which is this nice baby here:

[spoiler]Academy Game:

Story:

You exit Hyperspace in a strange sector and discover a huge station that reads “Academy” on your sensors. It is heavily protected by 3 “Comsat Gunstars” positioned around it. You also see debris of another station that looks like it was once a twin of the Academy. It too is orbited by a, fortunately inoperative, “Comsat Gunstar”. As you near the station you notice a strange object called “Alien Cave” and enter a weird red cloud that seems familiar. Suddenly you are attacked by a pair of Storm Petrels that read “Trainer” and “Rookie”.

You realize: This is a military training base that has been infected by remnants of an alien cloud. Obviously the base and it’s contaminated, hostile occupants must be destroyed! If you don’t, the Alien Infection originally caused by Caleb Maas’ experiments could be propagated throughout the whole galaxy.

You only have a limited amount of time to destroy the academy, otherwise you too will be infected by the Alien Cloud and doomed to spend the rest of your life in that eerie academy!

Game Type:
Players against Bots
1 – 6 Players

Scoring, Rules, Tactics :

Server Settings:
Game length is per default 30 min and the point limit to win the game is 150 points. You can set either value higher ( but not lower) in the server settings.
If your team has less than 150 points at the set time limit you loose the game.
If the Enemies obtain more than 150 Points (frags) at any time you loose the game too.
Note: if you pilot a destroyer, for example the enemies get 8-10 points per frag !
Your frag points are noted in the document you see as you select a ship.

Enemy Frag Points:
“Academy” Base 150 Pts.
“Comsat Gunstars” 20 Pts.
“Trainer” 1 Pts.
“Rookie” 1 Pts.
“Def Comsat Gunstar” 0 Pts.

Important: Destroy the Gunstars first!
If a Gunstar only has a few hit points left the Academy may destroy it while firing at an attacking ship. In that case you get relief but no points!
Likewise, If the Academy only has a few hit points left the Gunstars may destroy it while firing at you (or a team member). Then you get 0 points for the academy! Since the Gunstars only total 60 points and no more bots will be spawned after the academy is destroyed it will be impossible to win the game. (unless you fragged 90 bots before the academy was destroyed)

Details:

All Players will spawn in Alpha team upon entering the map.
For each player that is spawned a pair of Bots ( 1 Rookie and 1 Trainer) are also spawned.
For each player death (re-spawn event) 2 more bots are also spawned
Every time a player comes within 12 km of the Academy an additional pair of bots will launch from the academy to protect it
If you’ve completely cleared the area of Trainers and Rookies, one or two pairs (dependent on the number of players) will be spawned at 2 to 3 minute intervals (randomly) even if you don’t get near the station!

Max. no. of Bots = 12

Tactics and Notes:

Generally each player that spawns should try to take out as many bots as possible. Then, use your base “Alpha Indy Shipyard” to reload weapons by docking to it, before attacking the Academy.
You can reload weapons at any time by docking to your base.

Tips:

The “Pioneer” can deploy up to 2 miniature Gunstars type 8ty8. They are helpful against the enemy fighters. However, it’s not a good idea to deploy them in the Academy’s range of fire or close to a Comsat Gunstar. They are Antimatter powered and when they explode they probably will destroy things, but you (your team) won’t get the points for that kill!

If there are too many Trainers and Rookies for you to handle head to your station immediately after you have spawned and dogfight there. The station will fire on the bots, distract them and even eliminate a few for you. Also, if your ship does not have a PDT, the stations PDT will protect you from enemy missile fire.

You can hide in the Alien Cave or in the Tunnel Asteroid and call for help if you are surrounded by bots. If you are in the sniper ship ( the Moth), you may be able to pick off a few of them too. If you are in the engineer ship Pioneer, don’t forget: you’ve got Gunstars.

Internet Games with more than 5 or 6 players can exhibit a bit of lag when the maximum number (12) of bots are on the map, unless you have a very powerful server and high connection bandwidth[/spoiler]

One disadvantage: I can only run one DirectPlay service, so they both depend on that one dpnsvr.exe which seems to crash from time to time. If one of the servers goes down, both go down :pinch: I’ve tried to isolate them, but they keep running into each others ports. Damn you, Microsoft!

So I won’t open any third one until someone buys me a second server 😛

---

Space. The final frontier.

[Author]

Posts