For Cooper

[bert_the_turtle]

(don't know whether it was Cooper42 from here), he went AFK on a game I hosted (but did not play in), here's the filal screenshot:

[Cooper42]

Thanks, I had sat down for an evening's Defcon and an old mate drops by, so the game went out the window...
I'm surprised I picked up so many extra points, I just launched silos and left - I was expecting my fleet and cities to be whaled on in return, but I see them still there

You named the serevr 'Dedicated'? Any reason? I know there's no dedicated server for Defcon, but I've been toying with the idea of writing up a possible autoit and/or other script to auto re-start a server with default settings so people could host 'almost-dedicated' servers...?

[bert_the_turtle]

You named the serevr 'Dedicated'? Any reason?

Yeah, I would call it "Bert would like to run a dedicated server, but there is no such thing, and the next best thing is to host a game and spectate only, so that's what he does.", but that's too long. It's not automated. I would find a way to start the server with the right settings, but I don't know how an external script could possibly determine when to shut the server down.

It's not that the others didn't try to nuke your cities; they just didn't to it quickly enough and your air defense was functional again. As for your fleet, it wasn't a threat to anyone.

[xander]

I would find a way to start the server with the right settings, but I don't know how an external script could possibly determine when to shut the server down.

Take a screenshot every minute, compare the shots, and, if they are identical, the game is over?

xander

[shinygerbil]

Maybe measuring net traffic in some way?

[Ace Rimmer]

That seems the more reasonable method to me, as even if all the players leave the game, CPU's will simply take over and in the case of screenshots you just have a rolling demo (until the game is over) when you could be hosting another game.

If it relied on net traffic, or the fact that "Bert, IP xxx" is the only person in the game, then you could start a new game when everybody had left. Of course, you might need something extra for that rare occasion when one or two players might hand around talking forever after it was over. But then, you could just institute the max game time option and set it to restart after a certain time?

I really have no idea what any of this would require, so ignore me if some/all of it's not feasible.

[shinygerbil]

Perhaps you could intercept the messages it sends to the metaserver, then just wait for it to send a [game ended] message, start a 5-minute counter and then restart?

Actually, there's a tool somewhere which was essentially an external metaserver viewer; perhaps you could find out how that worked? It's here but it's defunct now. If so, you could just have this tool automatically checking the metaserver to let you know when the game is over


EDIT: The latest version is on THIS website. It does work, so long as you put in your key! (Perhaps a demo key will work...)

[bert_the_turtle]

Listening to the network traffic may be a good idea. There's a small tool called uproxy that relays generic UDP traffic, I bet you can mod that to measure activity.