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General FreeSpace => Multiplayer => Topic started by: FUBAR-BDHR on January 08, 2009, 07:31:16 pm

Title: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on January 08, 2009, 07:31:16 pm
The infamous Squadwar will be returning to FS2 at some point.  This thread is for the discussion of features and fixes you would like to see.  I've already started a list so I'm posting it. 



Can't hit the no-show until the scheduled match time.  People used this because they didn't like match times.  If I remember correctly the attacking team gave the defenders a choice of 2 times.  Not sure what could be done here but the old system resulted in locked matches that would take forever to clear.

Locked up entry points.  Basically you could only enter from an entry node.  As time went on and the better squads started taking over the map new and weaker squads were unable to challenge.  The locked matches really made this a problem.

Team limits.  Another thing people started taking advantage of was creating multiple squads with virtually the same players.  This way they could make more challenges and control more entry nodes.  A limit on the number of squads a person can belong to would help.  2 would be more then enough.  I'd actually prefer one.  Of course there isn't a reason why a person couldn't be on a different squad if his normal squad doesn't participate in a particular league.

Event logs and outcome sent to file and FS2netD.  This would make it easy to resolve arguments and locked matches due to stats not saving.  The old method was print screens and email. For file some sort of security would be needed to keep people from editing them.

Expired matches.  Some way of making the teams that don't play matches suffer the consequences.  The old system had some sort of limit on when matches could be scheduled but I can't remember what it was.  Again the big problem was the no-show.  Another was the ability to play before the scheduled time.  Well not the scheduled time but the minimum allowed time before the next match.  Since we know when people log in we could actually check the no-show with who is on.  If only one team shows we award the node.  If neither team shows and no reschedule is selected both loose their nodes.

Reschedule.  Like no-show it was abused.  If a squad didn't like a time for any reason they would just hit reschedule button immediately.  Usually they would hit both no-show and reschedule.  A limit on the time to reschedule should be enforced as should the maximum of reschedules.

"Node swapping"  A practice where 2 squads with an alliance exchange nodes in order to get multiple attacks on another squad.  They would just play a couple of dummy matches that were thrown.  Should be banned.

Bigger node map:  Gives more teams a chance.  Would cut down on the entry node problem as well.

Exe file validation.  Something new since it's open source now.  Need a way to make sure someone didn't change the program to make it easier for them to win.  (probably not going to happen but it's here just for the record)

Mission selection.  Most of the matches in Squadwar were played in either NWTR or one of the Gannys.  One squad in particular like using the nebula one because it gave a great advantage to the host.  Now this might not be the case with the fixes but I always thought it would be neat if the mission was determined by the nodes.  Say a node (A) is connected to 3 other nodes (X,Y,Z).  An attack from node X on node A would always be NWTR.  An attack from node Y on node A would always be MT-07.  Node Z on node A MT-13.  Just distribute the missions randomly based on the number of lines connecting the nodes times 2.

A subset of validated missions that are valid for squadwar.  So basically you can't just choose any old validated TvT mission it will need to be one with even stricter validation standards to be allowed for squadwar.  (already in the works)

Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: captain-custard on January 08, 2009, 07:38:05 pm
yay , all the above and can we have it tomorrow?

but seriously what is the limit to how many ppl in each squad?
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on January 08, 2009, 11:07:26 pm
Not sure but I bet changing it breaks pilot files :)
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on January 08, 2009, 11:35:30 pm
I don't think there was a limit to number of people in a squad.  The only restriction was there had to be at least 2 people. 
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: taylor on January 08, 2009, 11:50:05 pm
From the code it looks like:
2 teams
1 player minimum on each team
4 players max on each team

Changing any of that would only affect retail SW compatibility, but since I have no intention of keeping the rewrite compatible I don't why that should be an issue. ;)
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on January 09, 2009, 01:38:56 am
That sounds like the limitation for a particular mission's teams, are you saying that Squads themselves are also limited to 4 people?  I thought Squads were bigger and any 4 people from a squad could participate in a match.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: captain-custard on January 09, 2009, 02:05:24 am
with the changes that have been implemented in multiplayer could the maximum players in each team be boosted to 6 or 8 in each team
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: taylor on January 09, 2009, 02:13:24 am
That sounds like the limitation for a particular mission's teams, are you saying that Squads themselves are also limited to 4 people?  I thought Squads were bigger and any 4 people from a squad could participate in a match.
No, just that 4 people from each squad can play at once.  But I think that number needs to be bumped if possible.  That is the only real limit that I see though, nothing that applies to the number of people that can actually be in a squad or the number of squads.  I still haven't been through all of the old website stuff though so there could be some sort of limit somewhere that I just haven't seen yet.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on January 09, 2009, 02:15:02 am
I'd almost rather see more teams allowed than more players per team, but I have a feeling that's several orders of magnitude more difficult.  Not really related to squadwar anyway, but since we're talking about multi limits...
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: JGZinv on January 09, 2009, 02:49:05 am
Are we talking strictly SquadWar here, or can we make suggestions for the benefit of mod
integration?

Note too that a fair amount of people (like myself) haven't been around long enough
to have experienced SquadWar first hand, although we got the concept from reading about it.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: captain-custard on January 09, 2009, 04:25:40 am
ok i have very little idea on the basic rules concerning the ships allowed in squadwars , and are you allowed to hack the tables for this .... or would it be a case of choose your ship from theses ..... as proposed from the game


its just an idea as each squad is built up (lets imagine its for real) each team his going to have engineers mechanics trying to tweak the most out of there machine , adding bits and pieces(lets say thats this is limited to weapons and systems that would be compatable in size and power requirements and species relevent) and each team would have to post the tables for there ships so they can be judged as legal ( no modifications to the basic initial hit points of the ship)

so if you managed tomod your ship to have a rear facing gun (AI) this would draw from the ships power  and would limit your forward fire as such , after that it would be down to a group of mods and admins to set the rules for what was legal within the said rules .....


anyway its just an idea , away to advance the developement of the game play and to create a more realistic scense of what would be a little like a competition feel in the scense of motor racing (nascar or such) ( i use nascar as a very loose example  different makes of vehicle all restricted by weight and silohette competing in the same competition )


this is something ive been waiting for...........

 ;)
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: taylor on January 09, 2009, 02:32:25 pm
Are we talking strictly SquadWar here, or can we make suggestions for the benefit of mod
integration?
Strictly SquadWar discussion in this thread.  You can make other multi related requests in this thread (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,58050.0.html) though.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on January 09, 2009, 03:07:05 pm
From the code it looks like:
2 teams
1 player minimum on each team
4 players max on each team

Changing any of that would only affect retail SW compatibility, but since I have no intention of keeping the rewrite compatible I don't why that should be an issue. ;)

Yea that is what the code limit was but the website and rules required at least 2 members to play a match.  1v1 were supposedly forbidden.  There was no way to prevent it and it was used a lot to get the match to save when validation failed.  Basically a dummy match 2 member enter one shoots the other jump type thing.  Hopefully we won't experience any of that type of problem though.  It was also abused for the "node swapping" I mentioned. 

So 2v2 minimum for a match.  No max except code limits (4v4).  If the code is updated then there is no reason that 8v8 or more shouldn't  be allowed unless lag starts to be a major issue. 
2 members minimum for a team due to the above.  No max number of members on a team. 
A person can only be on X number of teams and is not allowed to participate if 2 teams he is on play each other.  X should be a small number. 

That reminds me of another issue that was never clearly spelled out.  2v2 2v3 4v2 etc.  If a team only has 2 members should 4 players be allowed to play against them in a 4v2 or should it always be equal player vs player numbers. 
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: GTSVA on February 21, 2009, 01:30:14 pm
I'm not in a squad yet...Any suggestions?
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Blue Lion on February 21, 2009, 06:13:12 pm
And ending. Quite often TCX or DW or another squad/alliance would lock up a vast majority of nodes and that was it. Smaller squads could only fight over the precious few entry nodes and the stronger squads spent their time either making dummy or secondary squads.

I think once a map reaches a point where either a squad or alliance reaches a certain number of nodes or the number of matches vs nodes reaches a low number (meaning inactivity for whatever reason) the map should be closed and reset.

And I honestly don't think there are all that many people left from SW. 2 dozen maybe?
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on February 22, 2009, 10:06:54 am
I want to experience SquadWar now that I have FS2 and am old enough to know what is going on.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Charismatic on March 18, 2009, 12:32:11 pm
Im with AE. I came around when SW ended so I never got a taste of the glory.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Warlock on March 24, 2009, 07:13:23 pm
Well...my thoughts on a few things:

If you change the default max I'd suggest no more than 6-8 but make that depend on the mission profile. Some misson set ups can be completely voided due to piloting skills of one team over another.

Now granted I've been out of the loop for longer than the game was supported offically....so please bare with faulty memories. One of the issues I recall was, the Demios mission IIRC ...I know it was one of the protect/destory cruiser missions, you could comepletely ignore your cap ship and just rack up pilot kills and win the match everytime due to point count on the caps being seriously under balanced.

Another trick was using the Ery with full load of Kysers and simply long distance gunning transports while another team mate covered you and two others went toe to toe with the enemy.

Luckily we shouldn't have to worry about the old "lag bombing" tactic anymore.

So I'd say one of the biggest things to flesh out, aside from the basic hosting/scoring system, would be mission design. Once you have a set group of missions you can then talor rules to account for possible "illegal tactics" in said missions.

I do agree that some sort of verification system needs to be in place since everythings open source now. Even down to simple table editting needs to be the same for everyone one playing in each and every match.


Random thought: instead of simply a node map that we had in the old days, how about several node maps? Each map is it's own "quadrant" for lack of a better term, each one a different tier in the competition. Once a squad performs well enough to control a certain number of nodes in quad 1, they get moved to quad 2, same for quad 3 which would be the top squads fighting for control. This would allow for a good blend of competition among newer, less skilled squads and upper level squads.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Mav on March 25, 2009, 01:13:24 pm
Random thought: instead of simply a node map that we had in the old days, how about several node maps? Each map is it's own "quadrant" for lack of a better term, each one a different tier in the competition. Once a squad performs well enough to control a certain number of nodes in quad 1, they get moved to quad 2, same for quad 3 which would be the top squads fighting for control. This would allow for a good blend of competition among newer, less skilled squads and upper level squads.
Good idea :) .



Personally, I'd most want the possibility to select the species a squad belongs to (Shivan :mad2: for me ;) ) , which of course might need special re-balanced versions of the original ships and weapons...
[wait - there's still no dedicated Shivan smiley? *arrgh* - *dies*...] ;)

Or at least some other sort of balancing, maybe only allowing matches with player ratios (2 Terran : 3 Vasudan : 4 or 5 Shivan) or something...

Anyway, that's what I'd like to have in, thank you for reading :) .
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: BlackDove on April 15, 2009, 02:41:56 pm
Once upon a time, written by Lightspeed. Most of this I doubt anyone would go to the trouble of making, but here it is.

Quote
IF this is to work, the following things are essential:

-> Full moderation access
-> A properly planned and working auto-forfeit system
-> Automatically generated "maps"
-> Several very dedicated people donating their time

As for throwing around ideas:

I think a fixed "Squadwar" server would be a very good idea. The idea would be a server having two functions:

1) Any SW games would be played on it via dedicated host. I realize people will scream about bad connections to the server, but it would prevent.... certain things.

2) Track the data and generate the according missions.

I also have a bit "larger" concept, I'll try going through the major points here. Note that most of it is insabe gibberish and probably beyond implementation:

Each owned system would slowly build up itself. The server stores a mission file for each system, and will auto generate content in it over time. This would mainly be:

-> Stations
-> Patrol wings with random generated waypoints
-> Cruiser/Corvette defense to blockade the jumpnodes

The ships would carry the squad tag, as in SSXI Arcadia, SSXCv Deimos, etc. The names would be picked from a random pre-generated list. A player will always be represented with the nametag as well, as in, the individual ship will carry the name (or alt name, as it was untill now).

This process is limited however, so a system may very well reach its "maximum defense".

One such system may span a distance of say, 25000 kilometres radius, the according jump nodes at each end.

Each squad will have a main system, which can be altered later on. If a squad has no system yet, they will have to conquer a system (or claim an unused one) which will automatically become their home sector.

There would be several "scenarios" alike to the multiplayer missions. The defending team will know in advance which scenario will be played; the attackers will not know until the actual mission is generated. Each mission would remain unique as there may be different variables (for instance, a shivan attack may (little probabilty however) occur or may not) which even the defending team is clueless about. The defending team will have limited support of the system's fleet (see above).

If the match would "auto forfeit", which is, the defending team does not respond to the attack, a mission will be generated which pits the attackers against the defending fleet (as seen above).

Either case, if the mission is won, the attacking team wins the system, and all ships currently in the system will be destroyed. The system will immediately begin building up defenses of its new owner.

To prevent idling squadrons clinging onto their defenses, from time to time "shivan incursions" may happen as random events. These can happen in any unchallenged system (anywhere, basically) and are, in kind, somewhat treated like a SW match. A deadline will have to be scheduled (2-3 weeks?), but it can be dealt with any time before that deadline. If the deadline is met and the incursion is not beaten back, the system will lose its owner and remain "unclaimed". The incursion itself would be a randomized coop-kind of mission (not too hard). Basically, the players spawn in the middle of their system and shivans warp in. If the shivans kill a specific target (ideally an installation) the system will be lost.

And last but not least... The members of a squad will be an imaginatory attack fleet (i.e. will NEVER appear in-game, and exist only on "paper" and the websites). They will always "spawn" at the home system if they lose a fight. A fleet may be moved at a certain rate. If the system currently containing the fleet is challenged, the defender will have a bonus in defending the system (a fair advantage). The fleet may only move through friendly territory. If the territory of a squad is split up, i.e. NOT connected through jump nodes, all systems that can NOT be reached from the home system will be considered "auto forfeit", which means they can not be defended by the players, but only the AI which currently resides in them. (see above). As soon as the systems are re-connected, the players can jump to the defense again. (which should be a lot better than what the AI can throw at intruders. However the AI is not to be underestimated. A fully built system should stand a fair chance against an attack.)

To prevent a squad from coveniently moving their home sector just around when it's split up, the home sector may only be changed to where the fleet currently is. If the fleet happens to be in the part which was cut off from the home sector, they CAN defend against attacks against that cut-off part (and ONLY that part). However, as soon as one defense is lost, the fleet will respawn at the home sector, and the part will be without players. Another possibility would be to change the home sector to the one the fleet is in, in which case they would respawn there, but in turn be unable to defend the other part.

Because it may happen that the fleet is stuck in the cut off part, and a system connected to the home sector is attacked (in which case the fleet CANNOT defend against it), another mechanism is needed, so it isn't possible to just cut off the fleet from its home sector and then swallow up the rest of the territory, knowing that they cannot return until they lose a fight. That would simply lead to the fleet attacking an adjactent system and losing on purpose. So for this not to happen, there will be the option of "returning" to the home sector, in which case the fleet is, over a short period of time, placed back on the home sector.

I liked that.

SquadWar made FS2 kind of a pseudo MMO. This would make the entire process pushed in that direction.

But an entire system needs to be built up for this. This would however be a v2 of Squad Wars.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: karajorma on April 15, 2009, 04:12:50 pm
Quite a fair bit of that could be done using scripting, persistent variables and my team loadout changes.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: BlackDove on April 15, 2009, 04:21:40 pm
Yeah, he said it was easy, looked complex to me from what I knew of existing squadwars anyway.

Up to you at the end of the day.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Charismatic on April 21, 2009, 11:58:52 am
How far off is squadwar?
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on April 21, 2009, 12:54:43 pm
In the upcoming months (could be in Valve Time (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time) though).

Or perhaps just Soon (tm) (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=soon%20(tm)).
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Charismatic on April 27, 2009, 01:11:38 pm
Lofl valve time. I read each one, and several links. I loved the DMF one.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Charismatic on April 20, 2010, 07:05:20 pm
Any updates on progress of SW?
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on April 20, 2010, 07:41:30 pm
Dude you coulda waited one more week and nailed it right on the 1 year :necro:
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Aardwolf on April 21, 2010, 11:06:31 pm
4/20, huh?
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on April 22, 2010, 01:49:51 am
Aardwolf, that's about the most useless pointing out of that fact that I've seen.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Charismatic on April 23, 2010, 12:09:46 am
Ok, banter aside. Any updates?
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on April 23, 2010, 12:13:04 am
Still on the same plans as before.  We are all a little held up by other projects at the moment but we do have a plan......
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Aardwolf on April 25, 2010, 11:50:21 am
Aardwolf, that's about the most useless pointing out of that fact that I've seen.

Well I just noticed that he appeared out of nowhere and asininely asked everybody for updates on 4/20, and hypothesized that maybe he was "under the influence"
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: GameSlayerGS on June 23, 2010, 04:02:44 pm
In response to controlling the number of squads a single player could be in: 1) This should be controlled by that player's FS2NET account not the in-game profile; this will help maintain that the player doesn't join too many squads. 2) Also I too think that players should be limited to one or two squads, but they should be able to change which squads those are; they shouldn't be able to change whenever though, they should have to wait something like a week or two after joining a squad to leave and join a different squad.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Charismatic on September 14, 2010, 03:48:28 pm
Nope, not under the influence.

I like GS's ideas btw.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: GameSlayerGS on September 15, 2010, 03:55:02 pm
Thanks! I like my ideas too! Haha, hey can we get some sort of option somewhere to recieve an alert via like email or something when a new update to the game is released. The email should contain data on anything new as well as maybe progress on whatever is being worked on. Kind of like a newsletter. This should probably go some where else, but I'm not sure where.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on September 15, 2010, 05:23:19 pm
You can subscribe to get emailed when new topics are posted to a forum, like Announcements and Highlights.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Colonol Dekker on September 15, 2010, 07:23:52 pm
One Squad per profile. . . . I never liked people splitting their flag.
 
Pick it and stick to it I say.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Tigerchen on September 20, 2010, 01:42:48 pm
I don't think this has actually ever worked in real squad war back in those days... people can always make more than 1 account and join 1 squad with each of those. Actually getting the thing to work should be of a higher priority than sorting out the details :P
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: GameSlayerGS on September 20, 2010, 02:17:27 pm
Well, yes getting it to work should be of a higher priority than getting the details sorted out. We could have a system that prevents the players from creating multiple FS2NET accounts with the same email address. Trust me, people are much less likely to create multiply email accounts than they are to create multiple online accounts on something else, like FS2NET.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on September 20, 2010, 03:42:21 pm
I've already got more email addresses than I can count on one hand.  That's a lot of possible FS2Net accounts right there, with email validation.  But the accounts themselves would be completely separate entities, and you would have to constantly be switching your account in game making sure you don't use the wrong one, etc.  So really I think that just limiting to X squads per account would be enough for most situations.  It could also disqualify you if you are using more than one account.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: GameSlayerGS on September 20, 2010, 04:59:01 pm
Yeah, that sounds good. I still think that three squads should be the most, that a player can be in with one account at a time, two would be better though. We'd have to think of something that the player would have to do when multiple squads that he is in have a conflict. I say the player should not choose, rather is forced to be on the side of the squad that he was on the longest ago. That or the player just can't participate in those types of conflicts.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on September 20, 2010, 05:05:57 pm
If we allow 2+ squad memberships per account, blocking you from participation where there is an obvious conflict of interests does make sense.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on September 20, 2010, 07:32:03 pm
Just remember membership is per league not total so you could be in more then 2 squads if those squads don't play in other leagues.  You could be in 2 Euro and 2 world league squads for instance if the 4 squads did not play in both leagues. 
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: QuantumDelta on September 21, 2010, 04:17:29 am
If we allow 2+ squad memberships per account, blocking you from participation where there is an obvious conflict of interests does make sense.
the system never allowed you to play in such games before afaik..
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: karajorma on September 21, 2010, 04:44:08 am
I don't think this has actually ever worked in real squad war back in those days... people can always make more than 1 account and join 1 squad with each of those. Actually getting the thing to work should be of a higher priority than sorting out the details :P

You're kinda screwed when both squads face off though. :p
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on September 21, 2010, 02:28:53 pm
Yes the rule was any player that was a member of both squads could not participate in any match between the two.  Common sense really. 
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: GameSlayerGS on September 21, 2010, 03:41:03 pm
Well, that all sounds good to me right now, I'm in a hurry at the moment so I didn't think too much about it.

What else do we want? I want a status update on how this is coming.

\/ \/ \/ Extra Statement Below \/ \/ \/

I've noticed that there are a certain few per thread that tend to post often. Then there are those who are active everywhere, pretty much, and I was thinking... ... ... most people just post and forget about it. Then there are us, (probably incorrect grammar there) who make sure to check the little "Notify me of replies." thingy. That way we know about it and reply.

/\ /\ /\ Extra Statement Above /\ /\ /\
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on September 21, 2010, 04:33:19 pm
I auto-notify to anything I reply to, sometimes I reply with something near useless instead of just hitting 'notify'.  That's our little secret though.

As far as progress, the old squadwar code is somewhat up and running, and I'm still needing to add more test data and do more poking around to see how it behaved.  Then hopefully we'll port that behavior to PHP but with a working connection to the user database, and then work on the new Squadwar.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Tigerchen on September 25, 2010, 11:59:24 am
I don't think this has actually ever worked in real squad war back in those days... people can always make more than 1 account and join 1 squad with each of those. Actually getting the thing to work should be of a higher priority than sorting out the details :P

You're kinda screwed when both squads face off though. :p

I don't think you have an idea how severe rivalary was back in the days. Allied squads hardly ever fought each other anyways. So that situation VERY rarely occured.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: GameSlayerGS on September 25, 2010, 02:44:31 pm
Not necessarily allied squads, just squads that the player was in.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on September 25, 2010, 03:27:37 pm
That almost seemed to imply that no one would ever be in two squads that weren't allied.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: QuantumDelta on September 25, 2010, 07:59:18 pm
Correct.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: GameSlayerGS on September 27, 2010, 07:30:09 am
Limiting the player to multiple squads only when they are allied seems fair, but now we need to discuss alliances.
When two squads form an alliance, then would they be able to assist in another squads battles? What would being an ally mean for the two squads? And should there be a limit as to how many squads can form an alliance?
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: QuantumDelta on September 27, 2010, 12:17:08 pm
It was never handled by :V: or the website, that was just left up to the pilots.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on September 28, 2010, 06:55:47 am
It was never handled by :V: or the website, that was just left up to the pilots.

Really? That's a surprise. I thought :v: had at least one person to look after things.

Speaking of which ... http://web.archive.org/web/20031225023308/http://www.squadwar.com/

For the curious.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on September 28, 2010, 10:23:54 am
That looks familiar (http://the4cags.homeip.net:8080/pxo/squadwar/)...
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: GameSlayerGS on September 29, 2010, 06:48:41 am
That second one won't open...
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on September 29, 2010, 09:46:08 am
Hmm, yeah I don't think my dev server can handle the HLP effect :P

I'll reboot it later tonight and we'll see if it can hang in for another few days.  I need to set up development on a real server.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on September 30, 2010, 01:38:24 am
Game Warden isn't really a viable choice, is it? It's run off donations.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: The E on September 30, 2010, 02:03:00 am
Let me ask you, Androgeos, what do you think HLP is run on? Besides Ads? I mean, http://www.hard-light.net/donate/ doesn't exist for fun, you know.


Okay, I think technically speaking, it does, but you get my point.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: sigtau on October 17, 2010, 09:23:39 am
Limiting the player to multiple squads only when they are allied seems fair, but now we need to discuss alliances.
When two squads form an alliance, then would they be able to assist in another squads battles? What would being an ally mean for the two squads? And should there be a limit as to how many squads can form an alliance?

We could have an "alliance" system similar to the squads, though keeping it up to the players seems like a more viable choice (because, being that this IS a game, players won't always be disciplined enough to always respect alliances).

On another note, this. (http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/8783/ramirezbringbacksquadwa.jpg)
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on April 15, 2015, 06:15:30 pm
Been a while since I messed with this.  One of the main issues I've been trying to solve was a replacement for the Adobe Flash-based league maps.  I wanted something truly dynamic, that would allow leagues to have completely distinct sector sets and the map could be reliably generated and displayed regardless.  A coworker recently pointed me to Graphviz, and with its help, and learning a bit about applying Javascript to an SVG image (and thankfully decent CSS3 acceptance by most browsers I care to support now), I have something in the works that should do the trick.

So far, I think I've got some fairly intuitive styling cues in the map, and the info boxes could be used to add any detail about a sector that would be useful.

The beauty of it being dynamic is that it allows for Squadwar to serve other total conversions, with entirely different sector maps and numbers of sectors.  It would also allow for small, medium, large, even mega-scale leagues maps, if there was ever that much interest again.

When I'm happy with it I'll have it committed to Github and checked out on the official server.  Did I mention the map is click-to-drag and scroll-zoomable :)

(http://swc.fs2downloads.com/files/private/window.png)
(http://swc.fs2downloads.com/files/private/fullscreen.png)
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Cyborg17 on April 15, 2015, 06:54:03 pm
Shiny!
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: jr2 on April 16, 2015, 12:55:07 pm
And,

Holy

:necro:


Batman!

EDIT:  Yeah I know it's to be expected, I'm more expressing shock at seeing something picked up after 5 years without so much as a batted eye.  I think it's rather cool.  :D
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Colonol Dekker on April 16, 2015, 01:25:34 pm
The background can change right? I'm really excited for this.  It was the core of my freespace life.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on April 16, 2015, 01:51:07 pm
You don't like the starfield?  It's ok, I just stole it from google image search.  I don't know what you mean by it can change though, it wouldn't be user-customizable but I wasn't set on that being the final background necessarily.  Definitely open to suggestions.

I had already mentioned (sometime less than 5 years ago but still a while back) in the "Very Interesting Things" thread here on Multiplayer that I had been doing work on Squadwar.  But I thought that this one might be worth bumping again since it's stickied, and a different group of people might get notification emails :)

Currently working on making the tooltips more interactive.  Linking squad names, little more info, that kind of thing.  Might also try to make it possible to issue challenges directly from the league map.  That one would be pretty tricky though.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: Colonol Dekker on April 17, 2015, 05:31:45 am
Starfield is fine mate :)

Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: jr2 on April 17, 2015, 06:46:05 am
Hmm.  What about these?


(http://i58.tinypic.com/21mhf7k.jpg) (https://www.google.com/search?q=milky+way+star+field&espv=2&biw=1608&bih=783&tbm=isch&imgil=HVyxRgW3qT0BkM%253A%253BaqtCuLdwpmg4CM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.jeffsstuff.com%25252F2012%25252F10%25252F07%25252Fthe-milky-way%25252Fstarfield-1%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=HVyxRgW3qT0BkM%253A%252CaqtCuLdwpmg4CM%252C_&usg=__Fb1rfANScUZuA2_hB7RhcDTtkuI%3D)


I like #s 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10 (would need crop), 11, 14, 20, 21, & 22 (would also need crop).



(http://i61.tinypic.com/15g5955.jpg)
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on April 17, 2015, 07:20:42 am
After making that post, I made it configurable per-league :p

Those are all very striking images.  However, the one I selected had several features I thought important for this particular use case:


A couple of those you posted might work, but any with a featured object would have to stretch as oppose to tile, and I'm not sure how that well that would work.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: jr2 on April 17, 2015, 07:25:27 am
Hmph.  I just... I dunno.  Trying to see if the starfield could be pretty in the background.  Not that the other one isn't, just, you know how starfields can be.  Oh well, valid points.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on April 17, 2015, 02:33:57 pm
I'm sure we can pick out a pretty one, and I don't mind experimenting with different images.  I gave #5 a shot actually.  It's 86kb vs 9kb for the one I've been using, so does take a bit longer to DL, but probably not too noticeable on any decent connection.

(http://swc.fs2downloads.com/files/private/newbg.png)
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on April 17, 2015, 06:08:45 pm
And I've got the code on the live SquadWar Leagues Page (https://fs2netd.game-warden.com/squadwar/league.php?leagueid=1) now.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: jr2 on April 18, 2015, 09:02:52 am
I got:

Quote
Your connection is not private

Attackers might be trying to steal your information from fs2netd.game-warden.com (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID

EDIT: Oh, and that background looks sweet.  :yes:  Yeah 86 KB shouldn't be a problem unless you have dial-up.  Even then, I think it will become cached.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: chief1983 on April 18, 2015, 12:39:41 pm
Yes, I know, the SSL cert on fs2netd is invalid, I don't have control over it but I thought that using an invalid cert was better than no cert at all, with all the passwords being exchanged for user login, squad logins, etc.  To my knowledge it isn't a compromised cert, the trust authorities just don't know that.
Title: Re: Squadwar will return one day. Get your suggestions in now.
Post by: jr2 on April 18, 2015, 03:07:36 pm
Ah, just making sure you knew.