Multiplayer initial testing success

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Moe479
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Post by Moe479 »

thanks for the info ace

i tryed to setup a test-server on my winxp-comp but it says something about "device not found" ...

maybe my configs are wrong/incomplete ...

so can u describe step by step how to setup a server on winxp and on a common linux distibution?

about hardwarespecs for the server its mayby not that much on my planned mod ... since i dont wanna deal with an endless count of systems cause the players should meet from time to time each other ;)

the other thing is the count of npc's that might eat up the cpu-time with thier ai ...
ace123
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Post by ace123 »

Never heard of a "device not found".

Was that the last line in the console? Was that a dialog box error? Can you paste the exact error?
I recommend running the server from a command prompt (run vegaserver.exe from the bin folder)
That way the command window won't close when the server exits and you can see the error.

Anyway, both linux and windows should work with servers...

You only have to run one server for now...there's not much point in going to other systems.
I don't know if AI players are well supported right now. I don't think I have experimented with that much.

Anyway, I believe the default setup is to connect to the vegastrike.sourceforge.net accountserver and get authentication with the forum logins.

I don't think you should have to tweak much to get it up and running.

If you give me a more exact error I might be able to help you more (paste the last 50 lines of server and client output if you aren't sure.
Captain{}Blood
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Post by Captain{}Blood »

As for the earlier question about clan systems and registration. In the interim, I suggest an administrator managed clan setup for home bases and what clan registration and clan carriers. This may patch some of the issues and keep things from becoming too chaotic and off balancing the detrimental effects a dominant and draconian clan may have on a server.
I speak from experience and it took forming a pirate clan to break such a clan from dominating the economy and the territory of just a server. However in the end the action I took was to the point that it destroyed the entire clan system in Sol and as a result, the interest in the server waned. To avoid that issue, I recommend clan safe houses spread out through the systems with a clans base remaining secret unless they are a merchant or mining clan. Then They should be able to advertise at will for the betterment of business. You definitely need some admin control on this just to keep things balanced.
www2
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Post by www2 »

@Captain{}Blood
Furst also form my a welkom on the fourms

And your hef good pont about the clane system.
All Your Base Are Belong To Us
jlebrech
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Post by jlebrech »

If you are planning making this a bit like an MMO would it be possible to have different sectors controlled by different servers, and each wormhole would either point to the same server is the sector is located here, or would make you connect to a different server.

Maybe also to prevent lag that certain server could be mirrored and have the wormhole disappear if you have bad lag, so that you only can't move to the server with bad lag, or maybe it could transfer you to a server to better lag.

For mirrors there could be a problem when you have hunting someone down and they take a wormhole, so maybe it could have an way to follow the person your were targetting to the appropriate mirror.

Hope you know what I mean, cheers.
Captain{}Blood
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Post by Captain{}Blood »

Another suggestion is that if it is possible to cluster and mirrior with clan servers, they can create a safe sector for their clan on theirt sector server and the other servers mirrior the servers if they go down in the cluster. Player and clan stats would be controlled on a central database server.
Player corperations could also be set up that ability for players to generate cash through other means as well. Even custom ship designs for clans as lond as they follow a certain balance. Server backup and coordination could be done also with on the central server as well. I would suggest a clan carrier issued in sizes according to the registered clan membership so they could transport easilty as a group to various activities. To save bandwidth on the server, I might suggest the use of teamspeak so the pilots can coordinate their efforts better and for clan to clan voice com, a low bandwidth voice com system just to alow players to talk if they are not in a clan or are part of different clans.
jlebrech
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Post by jlebrech »

What would be cool is a universe server which details every solar system in the game, and then when someone sets up a server for a sector, it'll configure the other servers jumpgates and so-on.

What would be cool is having a clan and you pick a unique place in the galaxy to run your operations, it would be better than all that mirroring.

But servers with huge upstream could still cooperate for popular sector to ease of the load.

Anyway the mirroring would have to look seamless, so that you don't lose track of someone your are chasing through the galaxy, but if you are not chasing anyone you would just be sent to the mirror with the least latency.
ace123
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Post by ace123 »

Actually, that would be a good idea. However, trust may still be a problem.

You don't want random people setting up servers, and then sending their authentication info through that person's server.

We might be able to get authentication set up so that passwords couldn't be stolen. But even with that, a malicious server could completely mess with someone's account.

Anyway, security isn't a problem at this point.

I think the idea is to only have one server per system. Right now I believe transferring to different servers works.
jlebrech
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Post by jlebrech »

Wouldn't the universe server keep the sensitive data,
then the system servers would sync with the universe server to tell it how many bullets were spent, who you killed, etc..

For trust I think the problem would be more about cheating and not stealing passwords if the authentication was made by the universe server.

To stop people cheating the universe server would have to check against the base attributes of the sector, because otherwise someone could make a server that gives credits away of sells free stuff..

So there should be a way of centralising market info also, and cross checking all that for cheating servers.

I think the impotus is just gettin it working isn't,
good luck with the coding.
Captain{}Blood
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Post by Captain{}Blood »

You also set the servers that are more generous with the credits to be linked with a more difficult and risk sector to be in, this way if someone wants to make the fast cash, they are going to have to take on some additional risks. This way there are safe sectors of the universe for the novice users and places for the more experienced can find a reward for the more dangerous sections and reap the benefits thereoff so cheating won't be a major issue and as the novice pilots become more experienced, they can venture into the more dangerous sectors as their confidence builds.
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Post by Grin »

I'm new to vegastrike and I don't really know anything about network programming. However, there are many problems with the client-server model for a game as large as vegastrike.

It has been suggested that different systems be hosted by different systems, but this has security, balance and stability problems. What happens if a server goes down? The system is suddenly gone? If you mirror the system then you could be in the same system as someone but on a different server and not be able to find them. Plus your two mirrors get out of sync with each other.

As I started looking up different models for MMOGs I found several papers about distributed peer to peer models. These have advantages in that every player that connects takes responsibility for some of the game world. The resources available scale with the number of players currently online.

As I said before I have no real experience with network coding and I really don't have much idea what's involved in setting up one of these systems but I think it might be worth considering. Below are a couple of links to pages I thought were interesting.

http://current.cs.ucsb.edu/projects/chimera/
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~hhl/games/

There are also many other interesting sources that a simple google search will reveal. There is also some java source code for a program using some of the techniques outlined in the second link that can be downloaded from http://www.csl.toronto.edu/chameleon/games.html

When I was looking at it the chimera system seemed like the best candidate, but I really don't know how difficult it would be to implement.

EDIT: Just remembered another interesting link
http://freepastry.org/
ace123
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Post by ace123 »

That could be interesting. Clearly scalability could become a problem.

As far as servers for systems, right now, it's one server per system... there are a lot of security concerns right now. Certainly you can very easily change your position (if nothing else, by using F9/F10 time compression client-side).

I have also found a few MMORPG's that use open source/GPLv2 code.
Sphere
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Throwing in 2 cents

Post by Sphere »

New to the forums and vegastrike multi (downloading SVN now...) I've played the single player stable version for a while, and I'm very impressed.

Just spent a bunch of time reading through the MMO forum and though I'd toss a few ideas as well. Take all with a grain of salt. These are just ideas and suggestions....

Have core servers that handle a number of systems that newbs spawn in and PK is prevented in. Good place for tutorial missions, upgrades and shipyards. players can get used to things and learn their way around before venturing out into potentially hostile MMO space.

To expand the universe, have each client account create one system with user chosen stats. The client created systems would contain planets and asteroids, but things like cap ships and stations would have to be purchased from core systems, or constructed (nice MMO activity?).

When the user is logged on, the planet(s) becomes the users storefront. The map could indicate systems with active outposts (i.e. logged on players.) Users would of course have to dock to log out thereby keeping the systems somewhat clean. Some sort of AI race would cleanup debris (kilrathi, packlid sort of thing) and give n00bs something to shoot at.


The universe should grow like an onion. The oldest accounts closer to the center (core systems), with newer accounts (systems) added in a spherical layer. Each layer could be carved up into wedge shaped sectors with one or more "Sector Capital" systems (that are actually individual servers handling all of the systems in that sector...)

Sector Capitals would have jumps to each other, and back to the core system(s). Sector Capital systems could also be targets for guild/alliance/whatever battles. Sector capitals would be a logical location for a server(s) as the universe grows, and would offer many of the same things as the core systems, but "higher end" items (.milspec ships, etc.)

Users would of course have to dock to log out thereby keeping the systems clean. Some sort of AI race would cleanup debris (kilrathi, packlid sort of thing) and give n00bs something to shoot at.

Well, the SVN downloads are done. Think I'll check to see if there is still a server running. I'll have a peek at the code to see if I can help at all.
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Post by loki1950 »

Welcome Sphere no server online ATM there will most likely be some announcement on the forum when ace123 is ready for more tests the current code only supports the basics.

Enjoy the Choice :)
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