Most Staple Version For LAN Matches

[clyde_frog]

Please excuse my ignorance of the Warzone 2100 development process.

I'm hosting a medium sized LAN party this weekend. I'd like to know what the most stable/bug-less version of the code I should stick with and use for the LAN? Strictly scrimmage LAN matches; four to eight people. Should I just stick with the official 2.1 beta 5 release, or is there an updated un-released version that has network code improvements or something?

Also, I thought that I’ve read about people having problems with hosting/joining LAN games through the in-game lobby. I know you have to open ports on the host’s computer, but is there anything else that should be done to smoothen the process for LAN games?

By the way, I've loved this game since I recived the PS1 version for christmas a long, long time ago. Keep up the excellent work.

[fisk0]

I think the nighly build trunk stuff usually works best. Haven't tried it in multiplayer, but if you all install they same build it should work fine I suppose.
Personally I haven't managed to play very well in beta 5 at all, and the latest 'real' stable is very old to my knowledge.
The only problem I've had with trunk (since they fixed a major bug that made it almost unplayable for a few weeks) is that music doesn't work.

[clyde_frog]

Would you be able to point me twards the nightly builds for windows? I'm not sure where to find them.

[Buginator]

I would say nightly builds also, just don't get the debug version, since those will error out more.

Check the 'nightly' thread...*Real* nightly builds! - viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1664

[clyde_frog]

Alright, so I guess the version I'm going to use is one. It's the latest non-debug build; from the 21st.
http://warzone.mortis.eu/nightly-builds ... -r6198.exe

I assume ".wz" maps work all of these newer builds?

[Buginator]

Alright, so I guess the version I'm going to use is one. It's the latest non-debug build; from the 21st.
http://warzone.mortis.eu/nightly-builds ... -r6198.exe

I assume ".wz" maps work all of these newer builds?

Hmm, may have to wait until tonight, since it is up to r6207 now...

And yeah, any map that works on 2.1 will work on these as well.

[clyde_frog]

Alright, the gaming won’t start until Tomorrow afternoon, so if it's up by then I'll grab it.

Great, I'd love to try this "Squared" map with eight people. It should be very interesting.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2259

Can you comment about the in-game lobby and LAN games? Should everything just work fine "out of the box" if the ports are open?

Thanks for your help guys, from me, and everyone attending. I know you probably get a lot of the same old questions repeated again, and again, but we really appreciate it.

[Zarel]

Alright, the gaming won’t start until Tomorrow afternoon, so if it's up by then I'll grab it.

Great, I'd love to try this "Squared" map with eight people. It should be very interesting.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2259

Can you comment about the in-game lobby and LAN games? Should everything just work fine "out of the box" if the ports are open?

Thanks for your help guys, from me, and everyone attending. I know you probably get a lot of the same old questions repeated again, and again, but we really appreciate it.

With LAN games, it'll probably be easier for everyone to join an IP, then type in the LAN IP of the host. Then you don't need to configure your router to open your ports, only your software firewalls (and a fully-patched copy of Windows behind a router can't be hacked that easily, so it's safe to just turn off all software firewalls).

[clyde_frog]

Seams easy enough. Thanks for tips.

[ViperGrendal]

FWIW, I've been playing 3-4 machines on LAN for a few months now. Logging in VIA IP is by far the easiest. You can shut down the software firewalls, but I go through the hoops of setting up the firewalls to allow the game to go though. It's usually not that hard to do, most firewalls will ask you "yes or no" to allow it.

As far as stability, I've found 2.1 beta 5 to be pretty stable. Some of the trunk versions work pretty good, but I've had a heck of a time getting some versions to run. Some will crash at the join screens randomly, other versions crash in game more and on certain maps. I've had only a few issues with the beta 5. I haven't tried some of the newer trunks since B5 came out though, and they have some cool features in them.

You can install more than one version at a time in different directories, so I always keep a known stable version installed and fool around with the trunks to see what's new.

[Buginator]

I play 99.5% trunk, so that is what I know best. For 2.1 b5, the main reason I don't like that is the path finding. It is much better in trunk.

Also for LAN games, you could set up the lobby server to run on your machine (You need to install perl), then in the config file, you point it to your server's ip (in config file:: masterserver_name=192.168.2.10)
Then when they click lobby, it will find games. That is the way I normally test the lobby stuff.

[ViperGrendal]

I'll give the latest trunk a try again. Better pathfinding is always a plus.

BTW, great job to the devs working on this. You added new life to a game that I've spent many an hour on in the past. Now I've got my family addicted to it too

[ViperGrendal]

Just a follow up to this thread if it's of any value to the devs or anyone curious.

We played with the latest trunk version over the weekend, 6209 I believe. All in a 3 player vs 5 Bots config. The bot AI was better and I liked the update to the Laser Sat. The main problem with it is the clients were very skippy. The game got unplayable at times. Running a dual core intel machine with Vista64 as the server, and Athalon64's with XP as clients. We ran an assortment of maps, Beggers Canyon, Maya, .... I forget the other two. All had the same issue. Beta 5 was much smoother. The trunk crashed out every time too, usually towards the end once the bots were being dominated. Beta5 does this too on occasion.


If there's any info I can gather that might help we play fairly often. If there's crash dump files or something I can relay, I could gather those when it happens.

Another thing I notice, and you're probably already aware, but when you load cyborg engineers into transports, the factories will pump out more trucks. When you unload you now have more trucks than what are allowed. This leads to some engineers not giving a build menu and usually leads to the game crashing not long afterward.

[Per]

Please report any bugs in the bug tracker. Thank you!

http://developer.wz2100.net/

[Buginator]

Seams easy enough. Thanks for tips.

I forgot to mention, that, if it does crash, we would like to see the dump files, and the stderr.txt that it produces.

We haven't really tested with more than 3 people really.

Just a follow up to this thread if it's of any value to the devs or anyone curious.

We played with the latest trunk version over the weekend, 6209 I believe. All in a 3 player vs 5 Bots config. The bot AI was better and I liked the update to the Laser Sat. The main problem with it is the clients were very skippy. The game got unplayable at times. Running a dual core intel machine with Vista64 as the server, and Athalon64's with XP as clients. We ran an assortment of maps, Beggers Canyon, Maya, .... I forget the other two. All had the same issue. Beta 5 was much smoother. The trunk crashed out every time too, usually towards the end once the bots were being dominated. Beta5 does this too on occasion.


If there's any info I can gather that might help we play fairly often. If there's crash dump files or something I can relay, I could gather those when it happens.

As Per said, if you can supply the dump files & stderr.txt file, that would be great.

Another thing I notice, and you're probably already aware, but when you load cyborg engineers into transports, the factories will pump out more trucks. When you unload you now have more trucks than what are allowed. This leads to some engineers not giving a build menu and usually leads to the game crashing not long afterward.

Yeah, I know about this, and it is a HUGE cheat IMO.
The way they count units is just wrong.