Dedicated - multiplayer (was: Hybrid server: sp settings)

[Wik]

Hello fellows,

the noob that I am made some steps into admin territory by setting up a hybrid server at home. So far, so good, but some things i don't understand:

1. It seems single player settings do not apply when all other players have disconnected. Neither sp_size_factor nor sp_num_ais (or other sp_* settings) will change on the next round, so when I'm online alone there is one bot on a huge map where should be three on a smaller one. :/ Obviously multiplayer settings are used instead.
Btw: can the bots' colors be changed?

2. Due to my bottleneck of a connection, clients jump around, lose control of their cycles or even die on the open road. I measured 120KB/s/30KB/s down/upstream, bah. Therefore I now set MAX_CLIENTS 4 / MAX_IN_RATE 30 / MAX_OUT_RATE 7.5. Reasonable? Also, my AA freezes for some time when rounds change.

3. On custom maps I experience a hell of flickering, especially in narrow corridores and nearby rugged walls. What I tried: reducing window size/screen resolution, switching off floor/wall textures, enforcing another camera, reducing wall height, changing SIZE_FACTOR. The last two work out promising *cough*, but in, let's say, a racing/labyrinth map it's no real solution. (And thats the good news. Playing offline --> AA crashes. Often.)
I have GeForce nVidia5200. Yes, the bitch with the slow memory.

4. What is SERVER_OPTIONS good for? My guess it was the options line with the server description when one browses the server list. But my comment won't show up somehow.

5. Occasionally I can't get into spec mode for some rounds. The key seems to be ignored/reverted during round.

6. Where do I find the chatlogs?

7. Is it possible to give a web adress to WAIT_FOR_EXTERNAL_SCRIPT? I thought to change something in the game during play (you know, zones and stuff).

That's for now. Could anyone please help me out (in german maybe)?

FYI: WinXP, 0.2.8.3.0_gcc. This is my autoexec:

[Removed. Scrolling FTL.]

[Z-Man]

It looks like you're trying to strain the hybrid mode to much more than what it is meant to do: it's just a low-performance mode for quick matches with friends. A lot of the things the dedicated server does will simply not work in hybrid mode. For example, there are no chatlogs. everytime.cfg isn't read. I don't think WAIT_FOR_EXTERNAL_SCRIPT works. So try again with a dedicated server, you'll find most problems just go away.

[Wik]

My apologies that it took me so long to answer (and bothering you with this bulk of config).
I followed your advice and started a dedicated server. Okay...

I get:
"User 1 does not know about netObject xxxx: gCycle nr. yyyy owned by ePlayerNetID nr. zzzz)", repeated like 200 times. Somewhere here it's posted that this means network timeout. IMHO it's not critical unless followed by
"Closing socket bound to *.*.*.*:4534: Bound socket to *.*.*.*:4534", repeated like forever. I blame both messages on my dynIP for now.

Main problem is:

Server works well if I am the first and only player connected. But all others are forced to spectate until the player leaves/goes into spec himself. OTOH, when one's "slot" becomes free and he is really in spec mode then, he is trapped there. Idk how to describe it, but I guess you get the point. BTW, I could not reproduce this behaviour in hybrid mode.
(This issue came up two days ago when someone mentioned he could not join. While checking the settings the server crashed, with the strange result that yesterday AA would not let me play offline. Yes, offline.)

The law as I enforce it:

auto_team 1
min_players 2
new_team_allowed 0
num_ais 0
sp_min_players 1
sp_num_ais 3
sp_teams_max 1
sp_teams_min 1
sp_team_balance_on_quit 1
sp_team_balance_with_ais 1
sp_team_max_imbalance 0
sp_team_max_players 1
sp_team_min_players 1
teams_max 8
teams_min 2
team_balance_on_quit 1
team_balance_with_ais 0
team_max_imbalance 1
team_max_players 1
team_min_players 1

Dunno if this is important: the server and my client share the same (lots of) config files. I need it this way to switch gametype/maps.

[Jonathan]

I'd start by making the SP/MP settings less restrictive. I.e. allow more than one player/team in SP and less than two in MP. The game will figure it out anyway, and perhaps not allowing it prevented the game from switching.

[Z-Man]

Yeah:

sp_teams_max 1

Make that 2. The second player needs to be able to join to trigger the switch to the multiplayer settings.

I can't say anything about the crash and further errors. If you could attack a recording (ingame recording, not just a video) of you being unable to play offline, that would help. Of course, the shared configuration could have something to do with it.

[Jonathan]

attack a recording

Attacking just isn't Z-Man. Maybe he meant to attach the recording to a post.

[Z-Man]

He can first attack it, then attach. I don't mind receiving my recordings softened up.

[Phytotron]

Hadta.

[Wik]

Attacked. Defense was stronger.
I did two recordings (off- and online), but when problems arise, you just cannot see it. Let me elaborate this a bit further down. *sigh*

As I was told, I now have:
sp_min_players 1
sp_num_ais 3
sp_teams_max 2
sp_teams_min 1,
which at least lets me leave spec mode again, under this conditions:

1a) I am the only player (read: offline it works)
1b) No other was there when I entered my server (else: spec prison)
2) map_file must be the standard square map. Nothing else. (Idk if resource_repository_* has some to do with it...?)

I came in when benfoefin was playing on my grid, /me could not join nonetheless. He left, I left and re-entered. After that I connected with two clients --> unable to have both of them on the grid simultaneously. (allowEnemiesSameClient/Ip 1, maxClientsSameIpHard/Soft 2) No improvement :(

Now for the debugging: The files are showing me playing solo, switching from game to spec and back to the normal square grid. Then I change the maps, from which on there is no more real recording (T:105.xx). That is, instead of displaying the actual loaded map, i see me explode straight ahead on a bot's wall in the standard arena, which in reality I did not. Resetting to the old polygon-regular-08/15.aamap isn't recorded either. Z-Man, I can come up with some, but I doubt they are highly useful. However, if there's no other way, I might make an .avi and post a link here, but it will not be IMAX quality.

The hybrid thing could handle it... thinking of that, I agree that it may have to do with the simultaneous client/server config flush. /me is checking in this direction. EDIT: No, has nothing to do with it.

[Wik]

Little success. People can join at will if

sp_min_players 4
sp_num_ais 0
sp_teams_max 3
sp_teams_min 1
sp_team_balance_on_quit 1
sp_team_balance_with_ais 1
sp_team_max_imbalance 1
sp_team_max_players 1
sp_team_min_players 1

but when one fights solo and a second player joins, two bots are still active. They would vanish one round later, I can't get rid of them from the start. To me it looks if mp laws weren't fully in effect.

min_players 2
num_ais 0
teams_max 16
teams_min 2
team_balance_on_quit 0
team_balance_with_ais 1
team_max_imbalance 0
team_max_players 1
team_min_players 1

Settings now seem to survive map changes, which makes me a bit happier.

[Jonathan]

teams_min 2

Maybe applying my advise more liberally would help. I.e. set that to 1.

[Phytotron]

but when one fights solo and a second player joins, two bots are still active. They would vanish one round later, I can't get rid of them from the start. To me it looks if mp laws weren't fully in effect.

That's totally normal. You'll also notice that any points a real player scores during that first junk round will be erased on the second round—which is now actually the first round of the new match. (If it's not normal, then there are a lot of people who've been doing something wrong for a lot of years, and/or it's a long-standing bug.)


(By the way, [sp_]team_max_players 1 negates [sp_]team_balance_with_ais 1. But, assuming you don't want AIs to join real players on a team, it doesn't matter much.)

[Wik]

@Jonathan:
Had no effect, but thanks anyway. Increasing (sp_)teams_max was it.

@Phytotron:
Ok, I believe you. /me is roaming around quite a lot, and that's not what I usually see. That is, either there are 2 on the grid, which means no AIs at all, or there's only one, then three AIs. But I checked it a bit after your post and found your statement true at least on Tavern and Wildcat. Well, I can live with it.
About the balance thing I know. And the tape machine (Pic 2) somehow reminds me of the cookie monster...

Thank you all very much. I'm gonna let it run now "officially". :)

And I still want to know how waitForExternalScript is used...

[Z-Man]

And I still want to know how waitForExternalScript is used...

We first had to get you to the point where you could actually use it It works like this: you set it to 1 (best in everytime.cfg), and then when the next round starts, the server pauses, prints WAIT_FOR_EXTERNAL_SCRIPT into ladderlog.txt, your external scripts picks that up and feeds its input to the server (via a pipe to stdin. Umm. I guess that part doesn't work so well in Windows, I remember IO pipes are kind of broken there) and writes "WAIT_FOR_EXTERNAL_SCRIPT 0" to mark its output as finished. Then the server continues its work.

[Wik]

We first had to get you to the point where you could actually use it :)

Pädagogisch-didaktisch sinnvoll. XD

'Tis a challenge for the mid/far future, then. My local machine struggles enough already.