Birthday Bash Armada Style!

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wcnut

Rear Admiral
This thread is for the organizing of an Armada Proving Grounds game next Sunday (Aug 10th) on #wingnut irc channel

All player should use a standard build Dosbox .72. If you need help in setting it up, you can follow these directions. (recently modified thanks to HAL9000. HCl's armada patch is no longer needed!)

Directions

1.Download dosbox .72 (Best to use a frontend like Defender as it makes configuration A LOT easier.)

2. Install Armada in a folder (preferably in a folder in your dosbox folder though It doesn't matter) and install joystick without thrustmaster. (Hal says you can use it, but I have yet to get it to work properly and is not needed as it only adds the hat buttons for view)

4. Download netbios_binary.zip from the first post on this thread, and place NETBIOS.exe and dll files directly in your dosbox folder. (DO NOT copy dosbox.exe from this folder as it is older and unneeded.)

5. If you want to host, you need to configure your router to forward port 213. It differs from router to router so If you don't know how to do it, I'd check your user's manual.

6. In your dosbox.conf file, set: core=dynamic, cycles=auto, joysticktype=fcs (this actually enables Thrustmaster and configures buttons, so you can play with it to try to get the hat switch working. I havent had much luck), timed=true, ipx=true, and anything else you might desire.

(timed=true is important, as your joystick wont calibrate it without it. Armada.exe and pg.exe doesn't like it if it is set false and cycles=max, which is what generally happens when cycles is set to auto) (HCl's patch bypassed this, but is no longer needed)

7. On the very bottom of the dosbox.conf file, (after [autoexe]) or in dosbox itself type...
mount c [Armada folder dir]
mount b [Dosbox folder dir]
ipxnet startserver 213 (your forwarded port) OR ipxnet connect [IP adress] (Depending if you are client or host, and the host must be up first as it must connect BEFORE netbios is launched as netbios will change the ip otherwise!)
b:
NetBios.exe
c:
armada.exe
exit (not needed but is good to be put in conf files as it saves you the hassle of closing dosbox)

That's it, start dosbox!

Be sure to press alt-O to calibrate your joystick
 
NOTES and TRICKS

*You may wonder why I put Netbios in the DB folder, this is because there are other programs that may need it. You can put it wherever you want, just configure DB accordingly.

*Pg.exe does not require NetBios so it can be launched without it.

*Set joysticktype=auto before armada launches and press ctrl+1. Configure dosbox to read your joystick axises and 0 and 1 buttons. Then configure your z rotation axis to press the , and . roll buttons and congrats! You have working rudder! (after calibration of course ;))

*If you have a good graphics card, set your graphics card to run dosbox with max anti aliasing settings and other graphical options. This really enhances the look of the game, or at least makes text easier to read in armada.


*For dosbox, servers HAL9000 recommends the use of his java based server application located here!
all joiners as usual connects to the host computer's ip
host computer connects via client and type localhost, (ipxnet connect localhost)
and set your java server program to have a higher priority, as it can run out of system resources. (CTRL-ALT-DELETE)

Advantages of this include
-1 FULL MILLISECOND IMPROVEMENT! ;)
-Ability for host to close dosbox without disconnecting the other players.
-There is a bug if a normal dosbox server connects more then 16 times, this avoids it.
-Can be run in the background for use with real dedicated servers. (Idea for CIC perhaps?)

*Want custom taunts? Here are a few I recorded directly from WC2 and 3. You may get them here (only for Armada not PG :()

If you have any any difficulties post here. If your new to dosbox, again, I strongly recommend a fronted.
 
Thanks again for organizing the games here. It's something we'd always love to do more of, but just the associated craziness of the birthday night makes it very tough for the staff. Should be some pretty great sessions coming up!
 
Perhaps there should be a 1v1 tournament? I say this because we have discovered that two people from Europe would not be able to play two people in the States, but cross continent you can play 1v1 flawlessly.

If dosbox could have a peer-to-peer network instead of client-server then the game would hopfully work a lot better as Armada itself is p2p. Unfortunately, for Armada to communicate with the other players, instead of going direct it has to go through the dosbox server, thus increasing latency and causing the game to run unplayably slow. Perhaps a side project for a dosbox whizz kid!
 
Before we should try to figure out how many players. You have to remember that most people show up for the trivia and prizes. It can often be difficult to pull people away. Although this year with three choices for MP (WCP, Armada/PG, and Arena) we should be able to get some good games going.

Speaking of, I wonder how far along HCl has come with any improvements to WCP. I'd like to add some more kills to the killboard.
 
gr1mre4per said:
Perhaps there should be a 1v1 tournament? I say this because we have discovered that two people from Europe would not be able to play two people in the States, but cross continent you can play 1v1 flawlessly.

If dosbox could have a peer-to-peer network instead of client-server then the game would hopfully work a lot better as Armada itself is p2p. Unfortunately, for Armada to communicate with the other players, instead of going direct it has to go through the dosbox server, thus increasing latency and causing the game to run unplayably slow. Perhaps a side project for a dosbox whizz kid!
Click to expand...

H-A-L-9000 is the guy you should talk to about that. I don't know, I still think if we could get good dedicated server to run the java server application, it might improve things a bit connection wise. As oppose to the peer being the server for everyone.

@Dundradal Yeah, thats what I figured, but they said in the news that there will be armada games, so we better be there to help people get started I guess. I myself am never sure what I'm doing next Sunday, but we will see. I'm sure I'll be there later when the games are suppose to start up.

@ChrisReid Your welcome!
 
wcnut said:
@Dundradal Yeah, thats what I figured, but they said in the news that there will be armada games, so we better be there to help people get started I guess. I myself am never sure what I'm doing next Sunday, but we will see. I'm sure I'll be there later when the games are suppose to start up.
Click to expand...

You do realize that they put that there because you are organizing it.

It can be fairly difficult to pull people away from the trivia. Last year, Pete, HCl, Houki, and a few others were trying to get some more to play WCP, but as long as LOAF is asking questions they stay there. Perhaps this year we can work out some "play breaks" or something.
 
Well they actually posted that news article before I posted this. Still what an interesting circle! :D Not that it matters, I'll still be there attempting to get the few people with armada to peel themselves away from the trivia challenges. ;) Who knows, there may be game breaks as LOAF may want to go off gaming. Must be awfully dull spending the evening rattling out trivia questions.
 
LOAF just loves anything Wing Commander, doubt he would ever consider any aspec dull. I think if anyone could stay up long enough, the trivia would go on untill he has to start repeating questions :D
 
@wcnut: I think that perhaps having that dedicated java server on a dedicated box with a <1ms connection would have little or no difference for having trans atlantic play unfortunately. It may shave off 20 or 30 ms to the server that you would associate with an ADSL or CABLE connection, but again the communication then has to go from the server to the other players which just adds that 20-30ms again.

Technology seems to be advancing all the time and perhaps soon the atlantic link will have a latency low enough to play over dosbox's client-server connection, but for the here and now a p2p dosbox solution would possibly be the only solution to having more then 2 players playing across the atlantic. But having p2p dosbox is just theory, it may have no difference, but until we can try we won't know :(
 
That maybe true, though It may be a while before the dosbox dev guys work out a p2p solution even if they are inclined to do so. You should post over there.
Though that it should be noted that the 1mil second improvement is that compared to simply using the dosbox ipxnet startserver command on the same computer. I'm sure it would be more with a computer with a better connection.

But for the here and now someone/somewhere has to be the server and, I am pretty sure a dedicated server with a T1 line or whatever would have a much better connection then average Joe with his laptop on a wireless network hooked up to an older DSL. (which is what I use :)) Which would you choose to be the server?

I know what your saying. The quickest route between 2 points is a straight line. Adding a computer to be a server would be the equivalent to adding another point to go through, there by making communications more complicated.
I'm saying if we HAVE to add another point, lets make it the fastest/cleanest route we can.


On a side note, with other games like Alephone that use p2p, we COULD get around 6-8 players, but that was with allot of tweaking and refining with the source code, and even then, one needed a really good connection. (and the devs rewrote the network code from scratch) I doubt if Armada is near that able. XvT is newer then Armada and was p2p aswell, and the best games were only 4 or less players. Even then it could be jumpy as the network code wasn't the best. But mabe we could get 3 with a p2p style connection ;) Anything more, we would have to get the source code from EA and clean it up.
 
wcnut said:
Who knows, there may be game breaks as LOAF may want to go off gaming. Must be awfully dull spending the evening rattling out trivia questions.
Click to expand...

I'm taking it you've never been to a Bday bash?

Typically there are some breaks in the questions, but most of those who show up are chomping at the bit to prove their WC knowledge.

Speaking of...now I have plenty of time to devote to WCPedia now!
 
Though that it should be noted that the 1mil second improvement is that compared to simply using the dosbox ipxnet startserver command on the same computer. I'm sure it would be more with a computer with a better connection.
Click to expand...

That 1ms advantage comes from how the server waits for network packets. It has nothing to do with where the server is located.


But for the here and now someone/somewhere has to be the server and, I am pretty sure a dedicated server with a T1 line or whatever would have a much better connection
Click to expand...

The ping times of the nodes add up even if the server has a good connection.

then average Joe with his laptop on a wireless network hooked up to an older DSL. (which is what I use ) Which would you choose to be the server?
Click to expand...

A small simplified example:

Let's assume these peer-to-peer latencies:
A-B 200 milliseconds
A-C 250 ms
B-C 50 ms

Latency if we put the server on node A:
B-C 450

Node B:
A-C 250 (best)

Node C:
A-B 300

So with Node B as server we have the lowest maximum latency and thus the best possible response. Only if we find a place for the server that has a better connection to all nodes then the nodes have to each other it would be an advantage. This might actually happen on the Internet but may not be too common.

This also suggests thet there is no static best server, it depends on how the latencies between the nodes are.

Technology seems to be advancing all the time and perhaps soon the atlantic link will have a latency low enough to play over dosbox's client-server connection
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the light speed is a limiting factor... If I'm not too wrong it's like 65 milliseconds europe - US east coast one way. New technologies can only reduce the additional overhead.
 
@HAL
So without accurate information its difficult to judge what option would be the best server. It very well may be one of us playing the game. But still, do you think a direct peer to peer type network would be possible and advantageous?
 
The direct peer to peer is hypothetical as it requires significant changes to DOSBox's networking code. Wether it helps or not I can't really predict.
 
Ready for tomorrow? I'll try to be there but right now I'm having problems trying to boot into windows where my dosbox is. Here is hoping I can get it fixed.
 
I'd recommend showing up a few hours before the "official" party start. We should be able to help those who don't have it set up and squeeze in a few games ourselves and figure out what the hell is wrong with my connection/firewall setup that makes it be a pain.
 
Sure, if I'm there. I fixed my computer problem however I will be at my grandmother's house for a good portion of the day, and she doesn't have internet. Should have got her a mac, now she won't touch computers.:rolleyes:
 
Sorry, couldn't appear there... :(

The starting time was about midnight for me and I had to get up early the next morning.
However, the Javachat worked when I tested it :) .



This leaves me with but one problem (that I had forgotten when posting in the earlier thread) - every time I try to calibrate my joystick, I get the "bad calibration data"-message...
The only way to get around this for me is to either use some calibration-files provided in one of the community-"updates" (maybe they came with HCl's modified DOSBox, but I don't really remember) or to use the "AJ" program.

The latter makes the game read the joystick as always pressed upper left, no matter what; while the former gives me limited playability - I can fly my ships, but flying straight requires the joystick being pressed about half to the upper left. This makes targeting even more problematic then it usually already is in Armada, being the game in the series where this seemed the most difficult to me. I do have played the gauntlets that way last year (up to PhantomVSShoklar and KorlarhVSGladius), but my wrist(?) pretty much ached after that, and it wouldn't make sense against a good human player, anyway...

For the records: I'm using a MS Sidewinder Precision Pro at this PC, but on my other PC with a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro I had just the same problem :( .
 
Sorry I was late for this Sunday, I had completely forgotten with all that has been happening in my family. If anyone is available tomorrow at 7pm then I will be there for some more test/playing.

@MavS in order to use joystick use the normal armada build and make sure "timed=1" in your configure file. Armada has problems without timed and your cycles is set to max. HCl's patch is no longer needed for dosbox. calibrate in game don't use the AJ program.

Also press ctrl-F1 and make sure all your actual joystick imputs are set to the dosbox simulated joystick inputs. I noticed that playing with it too much you can actually accidentally add too many inputs like a up left to the left joystick command and that will screw things up. when you do add something clear everything that is there first. Or you can set your joystick to auto or fcs in the conf file and that should do it for you. Come to the irc tomorrow and I'll try to help you out.
 
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