Homegrown Dedicated Server: DedCon 1.6.0_svn1038

[bert_the_turtle]

The real end of the game cannot be detected by the server, but there is IdleTimeGlobal; if no game command is given by any client for that many seconds, the game is considered over and the WaitEnd commands return.

A limited auto-responder list for the bot sounds feasible. I'd like mine to say "STFU!" whenever someone says "speed" Of course, you would not be bothered by autoresponses to players you have silenced. So if shiny is so smart to mark his jokes with "lol", the bot can respons with "ROFLZORZ.". And whenever a spectator in the private channel says the name of an alliance, the bot could state that this player is cheering for them.

New on DedCon Test TotallyRandom: kick votes. Use the /kick and /kickid chat commands. Note that I generally consider them a bad idea, they are active only for testing. At least three people and two players (players count as people, too) need to approve a vote, and the majority of either the players or everyone needs to have approved the vote before it gets executed. Please look for unpredicted ways to abuse this. (The predicted way would be three people blocking a server by kicking everyone out).
Of course, the kick votes are configurable and off by default.

Also new: Players that refuse to ready up against the will of a majority get removed from the game after two minutes. Please be evil and try to stall a game (informing the other players that you're testing the anti-griefing feature, of course). The exact mechanics are a bit complicated because of the automatic unreadying when stuff happens; for the purpose of the voting, you still count as ready when the only reason you are not really ready was such an event.

[tonytoon]

I set it up tonight on my WinXP box (as soon as I can get routing working right, I'll try it on my Slackware box.)

For some reason it seems to be ignoring the ServerPort variable, and insisting on port 5033. I can update my port forwarding no problem, but it's still a bit odd. I'll let the server run overnight and see if it works out well.

[bert_the_turtle]

It does that when opening ports <our selected port> - 5032 failed. Usually, a failure can only happen when another application listens on that port, but maybe you told your personal firewall that ports 500-5032 are reserved for defcon.exe? I don't know whether something like that is possible. Maybe it can even happen automatically via that exploit-me-UPnP.

[torq]

Bert, is there any way, your server can protocol the game results? Dump them to a text file and publish somewhere? The only 'proof' of the results a player can produce now is a screenshot which sometimes raises doubts among other members of the community. Finding other players/specs who'd actually participated/seen this particular game can be tiresome.

Ideally, of course, the server should be configurable to push the results into a database which can be accessed by registered members of dedicated website. Alternatively, it can just send game protocol via e-mail or some other way to the specified address in order some other software could process and publish them.

[bert_the_turtle]

No, that's not possible, as the server has no idea of the result. You can make the server record every game and watch those. You could also try to automate that with one of those simulate-user-input programs.

/me needs to write a FAQ

[shinygerbil]

Is there no way to gently probe one of the other clients for the scores? I guess not, as we've all seen sightings of two clients having different scores in the same game, but it's worth a try. Perhaps it's something Introversion could help with, as it's a bit of a disadvantage. Also, it's nice to see who's winning at a glance.

[torq]

Where do the scores come from when right clicking the game in the server list?

[shinygerbil]

It doesn't actually show the scores, though, does it? Just the names of the players. It also doesn't show the names of CPU players, if I recall.

[bert_the_turtle]

Where do the scores come from when right clicking the game in the server list?

I'm pulling them out of my...
They're all just zero. I have to write something there, otherwise the metaserver replaces the score with -1.

I think I have tried everything that could possibly get the scores from the clients. I agree that it should be possible and already made a first suggestion regarding the How to IV. I'll bring it up again, but we can't expect a change until version 1.5 because it's a new feature, and frankly, getting my cheats fixed fully has a higher priority.

[torq]

Where do the scores come from when right clicking the game in the server list?

I'm pulling them out of my...
They're all just zero. I have to write something there, otherwise the metaserver replaces the score with -1.

I think I have tried everything that could possibly get the scores from the clients. I agree that it should be possible and already made a first suggestion regarding the How to IV. I'll bring it up again, but we can't expect a change until version 1.5 because it's a new feature, and frankly, getting my cheats fixed fully has a higher priority.

No, I mean do they come from the metaserver or from the host of the game (normally, without dedcon)? The game itself must have the API's that allow to report scores stored at each client. There bound to be some sync mechanisms, otherwise the scores of each client may differ. (I saw the results differ between player and spec but have never seen it happenned between results of the players). Or you're trying to say that results are calculated independently on each client and it's theoretically possibe for them to be different from each other?

[shinygerbil]

As far as I recall, it's entirely possible, and it has happened. I could probably pull up the page with a bit of searching...

[bert_the_turtle]

Or you're trying to say that results are calculated independently on each client and it's theoretically possibe for them to be different from each other?

Precisely that. The mechanism that that detects sync errors should protect against different scores, but in some cases, it does not work; there was this reported bug where the victory timer was started at different times on two clients, resulting in different final scores.

[bert_the_turtle]

Good news: the metaserver version database has been updated to include the dedicated server. You can set

Code: Select all

ServerVersion 1.42 dedicated

in your configuration files (after the "Include ConfigVersion-1.43-beta1" line) to mark your servers as dedicated. Future builds will do this automatically.

[torq]

Or you're trying to say that results are calculated independently on each client and it's theoretically possibe for them to be different from each other?

Precisely that. The mechanism that that detects sync errors should protect against different scores, but in some cases, it does not work; there was this reported bug where the victory timer was started at different times on two clients, resulting in different final scores.

Wow, this is what I would call 'the most desired patch upgrade' - scores MUST be syncronized.

[et172]

As far as I recall, it's entirely possible, and it has happened. I could probably pull up the page with a bit of searching...

Here it is : http://forums.introversion.co.uk/defcon ... php?t=4788

Or you're trying to say that results are calculated independently on each client and it's theoretically possibe for them to be different from each other?

Precisely that. The mechanism that that detects sync errors should protect against different scores, but in some cases, it does not work; there was this reported bug where the victory timer was started at different times on two clients, resulting in different final scores.

Wow, this is what I would call 'the most desired patch upgrade' - scores MUST be syncronized.

It's not that simple. The defcon netcode is not update-oriented (like a FPS) but command-oriented. The client knows the game status by basically summing all the previous commands received from the other clients, relying on the fact that a single command has the same effect in all clients. Unfortunately, if a bug is involved somewhere, this latter assertion will not necessarily be true, and the clients will be desync'd. There is no simple solution to this problem, and in this context it is pointless to say "scores MUST be syncronized" because that's not the way Defcon works.