Issues in MP games

[Lakotavar]

Hi, I am new to the forum and found this amazing project.. big thanks!

I just played two multiplayer games for testing with a friend via Hamachi with the latest test version 20231223 and there were two issues we encountered.

- First we tried a huge map and early on one of my Scout ships forgot what it is. Like it had no name, I could just say "cloak" (even as Federation), move one sector with a red dotted line and there was no scrap option. No big deal, didn't happen again but then the game crashed after like 70 turns and the error log was unfortunately empty.

- So we tried a medium map which was more stable so far but when we met at a sector (me Federation, he Romulans) and used the hail option the game would not make us known and keep on saying "unknown task force" without an entry to the diplomacy page.

Probably it's on us.. maybe Hamachi, wrong version or we did not get something. I attached the save game where the second issue appeared. What did we do wrong?

SP Federation Small Irregular (MP).sav

(603.65 KiB) Downloaded 58 times

Otherwise just one wish for the list.. maybe there could be also a queue for the shipyards which would be very convenient if I just need like 10 colony ships.

Thanks!

[Misfire]

I'm not very familiar with how the multi-player side of the game works, and will be tough to find the issue without any error logs. Iceman is probably more familiar with that (he's been around a lot longer than I). Think he said he would be away for a few days.

Re: shipyard queue, that's crossed my mind as well in the past. Then just have the build slots automatically fill from the queue.

[Lakotavar]

Thanks for the feedback. I know this is really difficult without an error log but it would be already nice to know if a huge map was known for being an issue in MP. We could live with a medium map, no problem

I think the real bummer was that we could not propose any contracts because the game did not make the entry for each others diplomacy. That is like a core feature I would say.
We will do some more testing today with a tiny map. Unfortunately there will probably also be no error log beause for the game there was nothing wrong it seems.

Shipyard: we felt like it could have the queue on the window that opens when you make a new construction (tools symbol). In best case it would just behave like the other queue.. Would be so convenient

BTW the new auto build is amazing. In botf it felt sometimes useless.
Also we enjoy sending out the diplomats.. Very fun feature.

[Iceman]

Hi Lakotavar, welcome to the forums!
Thanks for your feedback. I don't think we ever had people playing with Hamachi.
I'm guessing the first contact issue only happens between human players? Since you have used envoys. In all the MP games I played and those reported here, there was no such issue. Not saying it's related to Hamachi though. It doesn't seem related to version either, if both of you are using the latest release.
I'm not sure if anyone has ever tried a huge map on MP, might be something related to desync?

Re shipyard, the good news is that the game already supports that, in fact the auto build has a yet hidden feature that allows building fleets of different types. . It's not tested yet, and it's one of those features that kind of makes the game play itself... In my ToDo list is an entry to make CTL click or something add 5 or 10 of the same ship type, like in scrapping PFs. As a side note, the AI uses a build queue for the shipyard, we just need to create the UI for the human player.
How is the auto build behaving BTW? There are still some inefficiencies, when I have the time I'll improve it. Any feedback is most welcome.
Diplomats are fun, yes. We still need to add officers and operatives.
Thanks for the feedback! Keep it coming. Looking forward to your MP feedback.

[Iceman]

Oh, and thanks for the save, I will check it when I get back home in a couple of days , in "hotseat MP" mode, hopefully it might be of some help.
Sorry for the late reply and for being somewhat telegraphic, but I'm on my phone and it's not very handy...
Feedback from MP games is really very useful and wanted, we don't have much of that.
Thanks again.

[Lakotavar]

Hi Iceman, actually thank you and the team for this really nice game and the support!

So we did some testing and yes the bug only appeared between the human players. We encountered the issue with the dev test and CE version but the the not CE version with both patches copied worked in that regard and we were able to interact via diplomacy. So maybe this would tell you something?

Unfortunately we found another issue. I had two first contacts with a minor race and while the first hail went without problems I could not click anything on the second encounter popup (I had a windows mouse pointer). The game was not frozen though as the cursor keys worked and I was able to move the map in the background. When my friend left and I loaded the autosav file in a single player game I did not have the issue.

I attached the autosav file because it is exactly before the problem occurs. I could not upload it directly though because windows didn't show me the file. It's in the zip archive now.

.zip

sav game

(452.26 KiB) Downloaded 50 times

How did you play MP so far? For us it would need to be via internet.


The auto build.. Actually quite good but I only used the balanced option so far.
While the population is still growing it could maybe build one more farm in advanced sometimes before it starts something else but it fixes that early enough so people would not be starving for too long.
Then once the max pop is reached and nothing else would need to be built it could automatically reassign capacities to universities and also build more of them (might be too much automation already).
Besides I like the shorter building times also for colonies compared to botf. It takes a bit longer but you can actually use it at least for another shipyard e.g. which is very nice.


Some general thoughts:
- Diplomacy was a joke in botf but it seems a bit too difficult now.. some races would be uncooperative or neutral for a long time even with a diplomat and ongoing gifts
- The interface had a tiny delay generally when interacting which is just a side note
- For crazy resolutions as for my friends ultra wide screen the diplomats recall popup was cut (he switched to window mode as a work around)
- The handling of the map was a bit tricky. Maybe some kind of "click and hold to move around" would be an option

If I understood you correctly something like missions would be very fun actually. Like escort a diplomat somewhere or deliver something to a planet.

Thanks again!

[Iceman]

Some really nice feedback, thanks!
I will reply in more detail later, but you can hold down CTL and click and hold LMB to move the map around. Very handy, yes. Not sure if it's listed in the hotkeys list (F8? ).
I think everyone played via internet so far, yes. I have never used Hamachi, I don't know how it works.

Happy new year everyone!

[Lakotavar]

To be honest we did not study the manual fully.. I will give it a read next chance.
However we found the option to set individual courses which is another great feature.
Also thanks for the ctl hint to move the map

Hamachi basically simulates a local network via internet.
So looking at page 8 of the manual it does not tell me too much about a connection via internet. We have to be on the same network I thought and the internet does not count usually.
I found this instruction though: http://bote2.square7.ch/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4846
Is that how you play online? Again sorry if I miss something really obvious here.

But for now actually happy new year!

[Iceman]

You probably only need steps 1 and 4. The supremacy manual is very very outdated and incomplete, but it explains that part. I will upload a new version of the manual one of these days.

[Iceman]

- So we tried a medium map which was more stable so far but when we met at a sector (me Federation, he Romulans) and used the hail option the game would not make us known and keep on saying "unknown task force" without an entry to the diplomacy page.

Probably it's on us.. maybe Hamachi, wrong version or we did not get something. I attached the save game where the second issue appeared. What did we do wrong?
SP Federation Small Irregular (MP).sav

So, I'm back home and I'll have a look at the issues you posted.
I moved all the posts about this to a new thread so that it is easier to keep track of the discussion.

I'll check this save, but the first thing I'm noticing is that it appears to be a single player game in a Small map (not a MP Medium) - unless you have changed the file's name.

SP Federation Small Irregular (MP).sav

It does load as a MP game though, apparently.
Its name should be MP Federation Small Irregular , not sure why it isn't... Maybe due to being played through Hamachi?
I can't load it as a MP game, probably same reason.

One other issue I found is that the Edo Guardian doesn't register in the Task Forces expander when selecting Rubicun... edit: it does when scan strength > 0

[Iceman]

So we did some testing and yes the bug only appeared between the human players. We encountered the issue with the dev test and CE version but the the not CE version with both patches copied worked in that regard and we were able to interact via diplomacy. So maybe this would tell you something?

Hmm, the new build and the not CE fully patched version should be the same game...

Unfortunately we found another issue. I had two first contacts with a minor race and while the first hail went without problems I could not click anything on the second encounter popup (I had a windows mouse pointer). The game was not frozen though as the cursor keys worked and I was able to move the map in the background. When my friend left and I loaded the autosav file in a single player game I did not have the issue.

I attached the autosav file because it is exactly before the problem occurs.

The current turn for this save only has one first contact, with the Yaderans. Was there supposed to be another one?

So looking at page 8 of the manual it does not tell me too much about a connection via internet. We have to be on the same network I thought and the internet does not count usually.
I found this instruction though: http://bote2.square7.ch/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4846
Is that how you play online? Again sorry if I miss something really obvious here.

Can you please clarify why the MP part of the manual is not clear? So that it can be improved.
Suggestions on how it can be made clearer are welcome.
The updated version of the manual has more screenshots in this part, but the text is the same at this point.

[Lakotavar]

- So we tried a medium map which was more stable so far but when we met at a sector (me Federation, he Romulans) and used the hail option the game would not make us known and keep on saying "unknown task force" without an entry to the diplomacy page.

Probably it's on us.. maybe Hamachi, wrong version or we did not get something. I attached the save game where the second issue appeared. What did we do wrong?
SP Federation Small Irregular (MP).sav

So, I'm back home and I'll have a look at the issues you posted.
I moved all the posts about this to a new thread so that it is easier to keep track of the discussion.

I'l check this save, but the first thing I'm noticing is that it appears to be a single player game in a Small map (not a MP Medium) - unless you have changed the file's name.

SP Federation Small Irregular (MP).sav

It does load as a MP game though, apparently.
Its name should be MP Federation Small Irregular , not sure why it isn't... Maybe due to being played through Hamachi?
I can't load it as a MP game, probably same reason.

One other issue I found is that the Edo Guardian doesn't register in the Task Forces expander when selecting Rubicun...

It seems there are some things odd and most likely it's due to Hamachi. We played this game just to test the diplomacy issue and now that it loads in SP (I didn't pay attention at first and I added "(MP)" because the "SP" was confusing) this might already be the explanation. For some reason with Hamachi the game was "not fully MP"? Eventually we were neither PC nor Human players - I don't know for sure of course.
I guess towards the weekend we will test the contact between players again via direct connection which I thought would not be possible outside LAN. It might not make sense to spend too much time on a problem that only happen when using an apparently unnecessary tool. I will get back to you after testing and thanks again for looking into this!

[Lakotavar]

So we did some testing and yes the bug only appeared between the human players. We encountered the issue with the dev test and CE version but the the not CE version with both patches copied worked in that regard and we were able to interact via diplomacy. So maybe this would tell you something?

Hmm, the new build and the not CE fully patched version should be the same game...

So concerning this part I would also repeat the test via direct connection. There might be random effects involved due to the bumpy Hamachi connection.

Unfortunately we found another issue. I had two first contacts with a minor race and while the first hail went without problems I could not click anything on the second encounter popup (I had a windows mouse pointer). The game was not frozen though as the cursor keys worked and I was able to move the map in the background. When my friend left and I loaded the autosav file in a single player game I did not have the issue.

I attached the autosav file because it is exactly before the problem occurs.

The current turn for this save only has one first contact, with the Yaderans. Was there supposed to be another one?

OK, I loaded the .autosav and it it seems I did something one turn later which was not saved. For testing keep the colony ship in Dosi sector (cancel its course) and the double combat will happen one turn later. Now when I try it alone both events went trough after each other without any issue. So again I blame Hamachi as the trouble maker here. The game did definitely freeze when the second combat window came up.

So looking at page 8 of the manual it does not tell me too much about a connection via internet. We have to be on the same network I thought and the internet does not count usually.
I found this instruction though: http://bote2.square7.ch/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4846
Is that how you play online? Again sorry if I miss something really obvious here.

Can you please clarify why the MP part of the manual is not clear? So that it can be improved.
Suggestions on how it can be made clearer are welcome.
The updated version of the manual has more screenshots in this part, but the text is the same at this point.

What confused me was that the label of the box reads "Servers on network" while using an (example) IP that starts with 192. This sounded to me like it's supposed to happen on a local network and would not work via internet. But if I didn't get you wrong I can actually just put in my routers IP and my friend can join the game using the same IP?

[Iceman]

The updated manual explains the SP/MP part in the name of savegames.

What confused me was that the label of the box reads "Servers on network" while using an (example) IP that starts with 192. This sounded to me like it's supposed to happen on a local network and would not work via internet. But if I didn't get you wrong I can actually just put in my routers IP and my friend can join the game using the same IP?

That IP was made up at the time I guess, and it was just an example. Yes, you have to share your IP with all the other players and they'll put it in the Direct Connect box and hit Connect.
At some point, if we have dedicated servers for the game, they should show up in the Servers on Network box. I think Danijel might have some plans for that; he already took a look at the auto updater feature for the game (which is concealed at this point).

This is good feedback, thanks!

[Lakotavar]

The updated manual explains the SP/MP part in the name of savegames.

That IP was made up at the time I guess, and it was just an example. Yes, you have to share your IP with all the other players and they'll put it in the Direct Connect box and hit Connect.
At some point, if we have dedicated servers for the game, they should show up in the Servers on Network box. I think Danijel might have some plans for that; he already took a look at the auto updater feature for the game (which is concealed at this point).

This is good feedback, thanks!

OK, so we tested the direct connection via internet with the latest test version and it worked. I had to activate port forwarding for port 4455 but that was no big deal.
We opened a tiny map and met as quickly as possible. This time the game opened the combat window and then after choosing "hail" the first contact info appeared.

Then we tried a medium map and played 90 turns before we met and unfortunately again the game did not initialize the contact after we choosed "hail" on the combat window.
The savegame was named "SP .." but when I open it the MP lobby starts. To test this again I used the computer for Romulans but in "29, 33" the contact won't be properly initialized and only the combat starts two times before the (unknown) Romulans leave the sector (I always used the "hail" option).

SP Federation Medium Irregular 91 (MP).sav

(773.18 KiB) Downloaded 49 times