what would you like to see in the vegastrike multiplayer?

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chuck_starchaser
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Actually, this is a bit OT, but, the escape pod could be made into something more useful than just an escape pod. It could be "just" an escape pod *officially*, but if it were quite stealth (you can only see it within a small radius) and anywhere comparable to ships in speed, it could be useful as a spy vehicle. You couldn't take off from a planet in one, but you could fly it off a space station to a nearby planet or system you want to reckon before attacking; or if you have a mission to take photos of a massing hostile fleet, you could do so in the pod without getting detected, if you're careful. Perhaps there could be pods with different capabilities and prices...

WRT re-cloning: I'm still all for the idea. The reason I don't mention it in my posts is that I'm trying to make my case for hard core first. But for sure 100% hard core is a bit harsh, and any kind or "death recovery" needs to be justified. But re-cloning should be very expensive (millions of credits), perhaps partly covered by life insurance the first time only; and it should take several days and at least 5 attempts to start the game again, before the recloning is completed. IOW, it shouldn't become a routine way of re-loading or re-spawning. Just a buffer against the occasional death due to a bug, or lack of awareness about something.
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Post by klauss »

I was once thinking about making a similar game: hardcore and all, bla bla. Vegastrike just beat me to it, that's why I decided I would try to help developing it. But, anyway, my solution to the death problem was similar to cloning, and quite funny: families.

In my game, one would live many years. So many, that eventually one would die. How to keep playing? Well, you got married, had children - all that could be done random, it's not that you control that kind of things. But when you die, someone in your family would take over.

Now, if you twist it a little to fit VS universe, perhaps replacing families with a clone pool, and you could hire "cloners" to clone you and raise them. Raising a clone would take time, so if you die too soon, you're toast. That would enforce some thinking ahead. Once the clone is mature enough, you could put him in stasis or keep him as a wingman, and develop his skills (the RPG someone was talking got in my mind, sorry - but it's a nice idea). If you die, your "second in line" would take over. Basically, you build your empire. (That was what my game was supposed to be about).
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Post by smbarbour »

Perhaps the ejection pod could have a really powerful tractor beam (as long as tractor beams are handled using Newtonian physics. The pod should be pulled towards the target more than vice-versa if the target is much larger than the pod.)

In regards to servers, I've never played a massively multiplayer game so I don't know how things are handled in regards to what happens if a player disconnects mid-game. This may sound crazy, but I think that if a player disconnects (from a persistent universe server) perhaps the AI should fly their ship to the nearest planet/base as soon as possible, ESPECIALLY if the game is hardcore. If the power goes out, I don't want to be dead in the game just because I can't actively defend myself. If I reconnect before the ship gets there, I should regain control as well.

Just an idea. I am definitely of the opinion that the player should not just "vanish" because he/she is no longer connected.
I've stopped playing. I'm waiting for a new release.

I've kicked the MMO habit for now, but if I maintain enough money for an EVE-Online subscription, I'll be gone again.
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Post by hellcatv »

interesting stuff
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Post by Halleck »

smbarbour wrote:Perhaps the ejection pod could have a really powerful tractor beam (as long as tractor beams are handled using Newtonian physics. The pod should be pulled towards the target more than vice-versa if the target is much larger than the pod.)
Interesting idea. Maybe the pods could tether themselves to larger ships without the ships noticing (or caring), kind of like a mollusk. This might eliminate the need for SPEC drives on escape pods.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

And the best pods money could buy would be so stealth you wouldn't show on radar at any distance, and hardly be noticeable visually. And not being lockable, even if they see you hanging on to the hull of one of their ships, you'd be under the protection of the ship's own shields. And if they fire on you, they'd fire on the ship you're hanging onto, as well; presenting a dilemma for their AI... ;-)
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distributed servers

Post by Guest »

If VS goes MMOG then it will require servers. Servers require money. Here's a half baked idea. What if the servers were distributed in a similar way to file shareing networks.

The bigest problem I can think of is cheating. But like I said this is just a half baked idea.

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Post by Duality »

Well vegastrike won't defenitly go mmorpg with everyone connecting to one server. Which would cost an arm and a leg to get hundreds of players online in a single universe.

Mandatory pay to play would be the only easy way to solve the problem however, which I think mabie me, and most of VS fans would think that idea would be very evil.

Optional donations may be the solution but it may be very difficult to do but may be the only solution if you wanted to host a large universe.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I would think unjustifiable high prices as "evil", as well as having to use credit cards I purposely don't have, to be charged by the hour, which I don't believe in, but let's see: Assuming 100 people join to play, at $10 each for initial registration, that's $1000, which more than pays for the downpayment in leasing a server (I'm thinking a 4-socket dual core, 8-way Opteron). Then $10 per year more than covers the payments on the lease. At such a price, I can't imagine there won't be 200 people joining, at least, and produce a nice, well deserved little income for the devs. I'd probably get a money order for $30 and pay 2 years ahead. But try to charge twice as much, though, and besides the evil of it, there might be half as many joiners. At least I know I probably wouldn't join. I'd rather donate, than feel ripped off.
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Post by Duality »

I was wondering if anyone has found the cheapest way to have a network of servers to host over 100 players.

Well donations can be very acceptable.

But in other words, I'm not talking about hosting a whole server universe with 100 players but take a look at another abandoned space game.. Parsec. Where one person can host one cluster of systems and the other person can host another cluster of systems and connect all the computers to make it a whole single universe network.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Yes, but like you said yourself, security is a nightmare; I think the single server solution would be best for 3 reasons: 1-Security, 2-simplicity in having the whole universe in one place, 3-It would get the devs an income they could use.
Now, the problem with it, of course, is limits of memory, processing speed, and connection bandwidth and lag for those who live far from the server. Well, I'd think that those problems could be dealt 1 by 1: Let's say that in the next version of the game there's a bit of a proxy server built into the game itself, that offloads descision making from the server. In fact, the server knows where everybody is, both on Earth and in space, so the server could decide which players' proxy servers to activate. It could send digitally signed, encripted notices to all running games in that sector that this proxy server is to be trusted until further notice.
The only work for the proxy server would be to keep track of, and re-broadcast, a few players' position, speed acceleration, and shots, so as to arbitrate when two machines disagree, as well as to detect cheating. The server would then be a subscriber to these re-broadcasts.
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Post by Guest »

No single server please. We should beable to set up our own servers. Or is this game going down the propriatory path? Also there should be an option (in the client) to use TCP only so things can be piped over SSH etc.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

TCP is only possible at initialization; for normal traffic you can't afford to re-send lost or corrupted packets, so regular traffic is UDP. I don't see why a central server with a modest subscription fee would necessarily be "the start, going down some path". I think it has technical advantages over a distributed system: A) And most importantly, security; cheaters ruin the multiplayer experience for everybody else. B) The devs probably need, and deserve, some money for their work, and personally I wouldn't mind them making decent money off it. Certainly it would be a pity if next year some of them say, "sorry, people, I got a job, moving to Redmond; if anyone wants to take over this project, go ahead"... C) A decentralized server is a lot more difficult to design than a centralized one. But like I said, a future version of the game could include a stripped mini-server that the main server can download some of the functions to. This could multiply the main server's capacity without jeopardizing security too much.
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Post by Guest »

chuck_starchaser wrote:TCP is only possible at initialization; for normal traffic you can't afford to re-send lost or corrupted packets, so regular traffic is UDP. I don't see why a central server with a modest subscription fee would necessarily be "the start, going down some path". I think it has technical advantages over a distributed system: A) And most importantly, security; cheaters ruin the multiplayer experience for everybody else. B) The devs probably need, and deserve, some money for their work, and personally I wouldn't mind them making decent money off it. Certainly it would be a pity if next year some of them say, "sorry, people, I got a job, moving to Redmond; if anyone wants to take over this project, go ahead"... C) A decentralized server is a lot more difficult to design than a centralized one. But like I said, a future version of the game could include a stripped mini-server that the main server can download some of the functions to. This could multiply the main server's capacity without jeopardizing security too much.
You should take the project off of sourceforge if your aim is to make money.
TCP is fine over SSH. It can be an option. Normal people can use UDP while those wanting a secure connection can use TCP over SSH if they have a shell on the server.

I can't believe that an open source project is seriously considering one server where you have to pay. That is ... not good.

If devs leave _so be it_. VS will continue... that's how OSS works.

Other people should beable to put up their own servers if they want to. I suggest you follow crossfire's method.

I though all this was figured out months ago...
but if you want to go on the path of windos pay for play crap then please leave sourceforge and OSS... VS will not be in the true spirit of free opensource software then.

You could have made a game company and not pertended to be OSS... rather then giving us something just to take it away later.

Guess that's how the alure of MONEY is.

What's your money going to be worth when in halves in value each year though?

How bout using something else to get rich on rather then closing up an opensource project.

???

I hate it when windos people try to steal projects.

If you do this you might as well work at redmond.
"Oh we don't want _that_ country that does exactly the same as us to get these soliders... because they are EEEVILL (even thought they do the same thing)"

1/2 free is worthless.

Yes I am an open source dev.
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Post by hurleybird »

Don't worry its, its not going to happen. As far as I know none of the dev's would be for this suggestion.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Guest wrote:You should take the project off of sourceforge if your aim is to make money.
I make enough money, and I'm not a dev. I'm just expressing my honest opinions.
TCP is fine over SSH. It can be an option. Normal people can use UDP while those wanting a secure connection can use TCP over SSH if they have a shell on the server.
TCP protocol requires confirmation of packet receipt, AFAIK, and mandates the re-sending of lost or corrupted packets. The speed and latency requirements of online gaming require packets to be 'fire and forget'. If a packet is lost you just have to invent it. You got, say, 25 ships, and for each ship you need to send 3 floats for position, 3 for speed, 3 for accel, and a bunch of other status flags, plus time, plus shield energy level, so say 16 floats, 4 bytes each, so 64 bytes * 25 ships = 1600 bytes, * 30 FPS, say, 48K per second, steady stream. If a packet had to be sent again, even to just one player, it would interfere with the flow. So UDP is the answer. You can still use TCP and SSH when you're sending a decryption key, so that the UDP packets are encrypted, though; and that's what I would do.
I can't believe that an open source project is seriously considering one server where you have to pay. That is ... not good.
Never heard them considering anything; I'm just an outsider opining.
If devs leave _so be it_. VS will continue... that's how OSS works.
It often happens projects die after the original devs leave, though.
Other people should beable to put up their own servers if they want to. I suggest you follow crossfire's method.
Haven't heard of them. How do they handle security?
1/2 free is worthless.[/quote]I don't agree. I'm a big fan of open source, but charging money isn't necessarily the antithesis of os; Red Hat make a bit of money and they benefit os with it. All os means is that the src's are available for download; not that the software should be free. Of course, if the src is available, you can't charge TOO much for it, or everybody will figure out how to use a compiler... ;-)

In any case, I wasn't suggesting they charge for VS, merely that the quickest and easiest way to implement multiplayer would be using 1 server, and that paying for the hardware could be offset by a small membership fee. I think $10 per year and $10 registration would be a good target, neither too high nor too low. Nor am I unaware of the fact that for someone in a poorer country, or with a depreciated currency this price might be rather steep. But at $10, I might pay the fees for a few such people out of my pocket.
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Post by Guest »

Having to pay is the antithisis of OSS in the real world, along with not getting the source.

Free/Opensource is about freedom. Restricting vial $$$ is an antithisys.
I use debian btw (not redhat). However, you can get fedora core free.
If OSS cost $ it would be nowhere. It is where it is now because it is free as in beer aswell as freedom.

As for TCP, it can be a server side option to allow TCP and UDP, only UDP, or only TCP. You need 2 encapsulation subroutienes (note: I write my stuff in perl so I'm going on my experiance here). You send the data to one or the other. Also note all my stuff is released free and GPLed or BSDed.

Search for the networking discussion a couple of months back, wasting tons of bandwith is wholly unneccacary... so your concerns with TCP are wholly unneccacary. Besides, if the player dosn't want TCP he (YES HE) can simply use the default. If the server admin dosn't want to allow TCP he can just disable it in his config :D. Freedom to choose (which I'm sure you agree with) :).
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

Having to pay is the antithisis of OSS in the real world
I disagree. Wrestling monopoli out of Redmond may very well take the extreme measure as offering an OS and a million other softwares for free. But once Redmond is nomore, I don't think there will be a need for such an extreme measure. There's a difference between oss and COMMUNISM, you know? Software is the antithesis of oil. With oil, monopoli was necessary or else oil prices were unstable and chaotic. Software is the opposite: It is created out of nothing, by the human mind, and a few companies have been trying to monopolize creativity by filing absurd software patents. Extreme circumstances that require extreme measures. That doesn't make the measures less than extreme, though; just circumstantially necessary.
As for TCP, it can be a server side option to allow TCP and UDP, only UDP, or only TCP.
Well, if you think you can have real time networking through TCP and SSH, what can I say? Code it.
Besides, if the player dosn't want TCP he (YES HE)
You again?
If the server admin dosn't want to allow TCP he can just disable it in his config
Or she can enable it and have a great network that doesn't work.
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Post by klauss »

TCP is only possible at initialization; for normal traffic you can't afford to re-send lost or corrupted packets, so regular traffic is UDP.
I have yet to read the whole thing but... Careful with using UDP if you plan on using SSL/TLS. SSL/TLS cannot work with UDP:
rfc2246 wrote:At the lowest level, layered on top of some reliable transport protocol (e.g., TCP[TCP]), is the TLS Record Protocol.
So UDP packets should have a form of encryption managed by the client/server code. That's not a problem, as I can help with that. But would make the protocol quite complex.

I think TLS should be used only to initialize a session, and packets should be sent by UDP along with a session ID and, optionally, ciphered, MACed or signed. MACing or signing an UDP packet would be tricky too, due to its unreliability and due to the size limits. Usually, signatures are huge, if you want to carry the certificate too. We could spare that, and carry only the signature bits, which is still large (1024 to 4096 bits, depending on key length), which amounts to more than half the maximum packet size if you add structural overhead. (which is commonly around 512 bytes).

That is, a TCP/TLS connection should be kept alive for secure transactions, and for critical transactions without security needs, UDP could work fine. A simple MAC would suffice as a security precaution for UDP datagrams.
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Post by chuck_starchaser »

I was thinking along the lines of 32-bit encryption, since we're not trying to prevent the NSA or the KGB from breaking the code, just regular hackers from gaining an advantage. Even 32-bit encryption might take a day or two of computer time to break, which is more than sufficient, given that players will log off after just a few hours, and get a new session key the next day.
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Post by klauss »

About paying, I think there's a big misunderstanding here.

Paying for using a server is completely understandable. Running the server needs money to mantain it: fix it when it's broken, pay for the bandwidth which I doubt is free, etc... Now, people could donate that stuff (the maintenance / hosting, the bandwidth), so users don't have to pay. But if noone donates, someone will have to pay, and that someone could be the user, with a subscription fee.

OS does not mean that you don't charge for services, it means that you don't charge the software. They're two very different things.

You can always, always, always always start your own server. Noone will stop you from doing it. Just download the server code, compile it (or download the binaries), and run it. As simple as that.

If you want, don't charge for connecting to it.
If you want, do so.
It's your choice.

I agree that a server where you have to pay would decimate the group of users able to play in it. So it would be a bonus to the whole community if the server was free. But in no way the server being non-free would be against OS.

I could rant much more about it, so I'll stop. Just think of it.
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Post by klauss »

Actually, depending on the algorithm, 32 bits could be broken in a day or so. Of course, depending on the algo.

32-bit RSA is laughable: I could break it in less than a minute.

So, let's stick to standards: DES should be fine. It's standard, it's free (I think), it's fast, it's quite reliable. Blowfish/Twofish are also other common methods, fast, found in almost all opensource crypto packages. Going from 32 bits to 56 bits (DES) is a lot of a difference. And it's quite repsectable. (I wouldn't use it to initialize sessions, though).
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Post by klauss »

Forgot: You're probably referring to the signature. Signatures cannot be 32-bit. As signatures use RSA, and as I pointed out, 32-bit RSA is laughable. I would suggest a minimum RSA length of 1024 bits, as 512 bits is already insecure.

There are some other forms of signatures which do not use RSA, but all of them use assymetric encryption as a base, or are based in the same problems as assymetric encryption (either the discrete logarithm, or number factorization, modulo roots, whatever). So, they're almost all the same, with a different face so as to not upset patent rights :roll:
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Post by smbarbour »

Perhaps a system could be developed where a server is more of an organizer that "conducts" the universe where all of the clients each handle the processing in a distributed fashion. Systems that are currently inhabited by users would be processed by the clients of those users whereas the goings on of uninhabited systems would be processed by all of the clients. Perhaps a client validation scheme could be devised to prevent hackers/cheaters from "polluting" the game environment.

Maybe my visions are unrealistic. I've pretty much forgotten how to program in C/C++, and I don't currently have an Internet connection at home (I know... It's unthinkable :oops:), so it would be some time before I could even try out a theory like this.
I've stopped playing. I'm waiting for a new release.

I've kicked the MMO habit for now, but if I maintain enough money for an EVE-Online subscription, I'll be gone again.
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Post by klauss »

The complexities with such a theory lays with dealing with errors. What if a client which is running part of the world looses the connection? What if the client is using a different version? What ifs could plague such a design.
But after considering all whatifs, it could be quite a good design. Only very complex. If anyone wants to design it, feel free to help out. But I think the centralized approach, due to its enormously higher simplicity, will take precedence unless a good distributed design comes forward.
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