Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => Multiplayer => Blue Planet Multi => Topic started by: bigchunk1 on March 07, 2011, 10:46:15 pm
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This is a community project to build a War in Heaven multiplayer, using a public SVN as a way to rapidly distribute balance tweaks and new missions. SVN is incredibly easy to use and really powerful. Follow the simple steps below to get set up!
To install BP multi on your computer:
- Make sure you have Blue Planet 2 correctly installed, including Blue Planet 1, the 3.6.12 MVPs, and all patches*
- Install TortoiseSVN (http://sourceforge.net/projects/tortoisesvn/) - guaranteed malware free
- Create a folder in your FreeSpace 2 directory called blueplanet2_multi
- Right click on it and hit 'SVN Checkout'
- Enter the following address in the 'URL of repository' field: http://bpmulti.fsmods.net/svn/
- DO NOT DOWNLOAD FILES FROM THE SITE MANUALLY
- Press okay!
- Select blueplanet2_multi as your mod in the launcher, and assuming you have an FS2NetD account and everything is set up right, enjoy!
*Make sure you install the latest patch for 3.6.12 mediavps. We have experienced crashes as a direct result of using the older version.
If you still need help getting setup, you can try going onto IRC in the multiplayer setup channel (https://widget.mibbit.com/?settings=b73fe961ed217d9a3cbd9637dc7ba9bf&server=irc.esper.net&channel=%23multi-setup&noServerTab=false).
If no one else is there, try the Blue Planet IRC channel (https://widget.mibbit.com/?settings=b73fe961ed217d9a3cbd9637dc7ba9bf&server=irc.esper.net&channel=%23bp&noServerTab=false)
If you're interested in a game, try the IRC MULTI Channel (https://widget.mibbit.com/?settings=b73fe961ed217d9a3cbd9637dc7ba9bf&server=irc.esper.net&channel=%23MULTI&noServerTab=false)
IMPORTANT
Before you start playing, make sure you're up to date by right clicking on the folder and hitting 'SVN Update'. Do this every time you want to play!
Here is a brief summay of both recent and planned work on the project. If you want to get involved in this, ask for an SVN account and you can make your own commits.
Modified install directions, someone managed to get it wrong, so it wasn't obvious enough ~KyadCK
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Mars' UEF Gauntlet mission has been converted to multiplayer.
YAY! I hope I can make it this time.
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Has the Grimler been nerfed/removed in dogfights and TvT?
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Edit: *moved over from old thread... Looking to have another test sometime in the next few weeks (mid to late march). I would like to know when people have their spring break so we can fit the test sometime in that week. If anyone has a particular time they would like to have the test, now's the time to speak up.
Has the Grimler been nerfed/removed in dogfights and TvT?
Not yet. Once it has, it will be moved into the 'Recent Fixes' category.
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Anytime after the 17th is fine. Once I finish my last final, the beginning of next quarter wouldn't even matter.
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Progress has slumped as I have recently been unable to acquire testers on IRC that can host multiplayer games. There are 2 coop conversions and several TvT/dogfight missions which have been sitting in the SVN untouched. (Missions which require multiple players to test)
I need testers to help provide direction for this project, otherwise I'm afraid that there will not be many changes between now and late march.
Lester also has a mission involving the in-mission jump mechanic which has never before been tested in multiplayer with multiple players. We have as of yet been unable to find someone to help us test it.
If you can host multiplayer games (able to forward ports) and would like to help us out, please send me or Lester a PM. It is essential to get feedback on our latest updates, and to go bughunting.
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Was a funny sortie, but the last fight showed some wierd bugs or at least one major bug.
I started with the Gattler gun on my ship, but when I tried to fire the ammonition count jumped to something a few hundred thousand negative bullets, so I couldn't fire and whoever was in front of me had a good shot at me. :doubt:
However, the best sortie was the first one. I loved to fight these Feds.
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I just played a couple of rounds on FSHero's server. Unfortunately, I didn't play enough to really judge balance. Here are some thoughts.
General
I didn't fly the Lao-Tze, but I saw it in motion. The AI (in the UEF gauntlet mission) is very difficult to destroy; using the Lao-Tze's extremely powerful afterburners to dodge and outrun missiles. Lester pulled off some impressive maneuvers in a Lao-Tze, and I imagine that he was difficult to hit for the opposing team.
UEF Gauntlet
- There is a Solaris in the distance. It's pretty, but some of us experienced a low frame rate.
- There aren't enough weapons on the loadout screen for every player.
Pre-emptive Strike (Lester already knows about these issues, but I've listed them for posterity)
- No portal appears during the first jump. Also, the screen fades to black twice before the player appears at the second convoy.
- The second jump didn't work at all, in our test.
- After the first jump, the directives box and escort list do not update for the second convoy.
- The mission needs a new key combination to allow the host to end the game early (since alt-J is used to jump).
- The jump gates are destructible.
UEF vs UEF TVT battle
- There's no music!
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I don't know about anything else, but Lao Tze's are very vulnerable to primaries. They're almost twice as wide as an Uhlan.
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Had an impromptu test earlier today. Here's some screenshots.
(http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/Brandon_Rehayem/fs2_open_3_6_13r_INF-20101212_r2011-03-1215-54-29-68.jpg)
(http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/Brandon_Rehayem/fs2_open_3_6_13r_INF-20101212_r2011-03-1215-58-05-38.jpg)
(http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/Brandon_Rehayem/fs2_open_3_6_13r_INF-20101212_r2011-03-1216-02-30-25.jpg)
(http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/Brandon_Rehayem/fs2_open_3_6_13r_INF-20101212_r2011-03-1216-03-27-36.jpg)
(http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/Brandon_Rehayem/fs2_open_3_6_13r_INF-20101212_r2011-03-1216-08-55-50.jpg)
(http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/Brandon_Rehayem/fs2_open_3_6_13r_INF-20101212_r2011-03-1216-19-18-82.jpg)
(http://i1178.photobucket.com/albums/x380/Brandon_Rehayem/fs2_open_3_6_13r_INF-20101212_r2011-03-1216-21-13-77.jpg)
Today we tried out Lester's Tev convoy raid mission, Mars' UEF Gauntlet converted to multiplayer, and SDM's UEF vs UEF mission. A fun test which will yield progress in the future. Special thanks to FSHero for hosting, otherwise the test would not have been possible.
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I've just played a few rounds with Kyad, BlueChunk, Lester, and Planeurdelamort.
General
- During Escalation, the first time I spawned as an Atlanta, I could not fire my secondaries. The lone secondary bank displayed 'Tornado', but there was no arrow next to it. Attempting to switch secondaries gave me the message: 'this ship has only one secondary weapon'. However, I was able to switch to dual-fire mode. The second time I spawned as an Atlanta, my secondaries worked fine.
- The first-person viewpoint for the Deimos is a little too far forward. When attempting to ram a Karuna, my viewpoint passed right through my target before the ships collided.
UEF vs GTVA capship battle
- It's difficult to assess balance until beams are working; I believe BlueChunk is fixing that.
- I'd like to have more control over my capital ship's systems, like in The Blade Itself (single). I imagine it'd be a nightmare to FRED, but it'd add layers of strategy to team capship combat.
Escalation
- This is a very fun, hectic dogfight!
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I've just played a bit more on FSHero's server, with Lester and Matth.
General
- GTB Rhea is unable to carry the Balor
UEF gauntlet
- Frame rate is much smoother, now that the Solaris is gone.
- Our host crashed during this mission, but we don't know why!
Forced Entry
- After re-balancing, the mission is quite hectic and fun.
- There is still a bug regarding the cutscene. Every player gets a fade-to-black. Clients go back to gameplay after the fade; only the host sees the cutscene.
Pre-emptive strike
- The short quickjump period is a good idea, but it's not enough. There really needs to be a dedicated key, that works any time, to end the mission.
- There was no music.
- After jumping to the second gate, players would still respawn at the first gate.
UEF dogfight
- I often found myself spawning in the battle. It was still very fun, though.
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I gotta show up next time man, this looks like a blast!
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I just played a few missions with Kyad, bigchunk1 and others. Soooooooooo much fun. Will definitely be looking to make it to the next one!
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It was great fun! :D Hopefully I can join you guys the next time.
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This download solutions sucks, can you please make a solid file rar zip 7z nobody cares which, nobody likes to download 20+ ****ing files... THANK YOU.
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No because it's constantly being updated. Think of us as Google Chrome. If we make a vp today, you'll need to redownload everything tomorrow. Best bet is to just get the SVN. Once that happens, everything will be updated without you needing to download anything.
P.S. We'd appreciate it if you try to sound less rude and more understanding. thankyouhaveanicedayenjoy;
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you want to re-download 80MB+ every time you play? we update daily, so it is better to use the SVN and only download what you need then for everyone to wait 30 mins while you download a new version.
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This download solutions sucks, can you please make a solid file rar zip 7z nobody cares which, nobody likes to download 20+ ****ing files... THANK YOU.
Do you really want to download that same archive over and over and over every time you play?
Instead of just clicking 'update'?
The package is still constantly being rebalanced and updated with new missions. It's more or less the same size either way (SVN includes some compression), but this way you save a lot of bandwidth because you don't have to download the whole thing all over again for every update.
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This download solutions sucks, can you please make a solid file rar zip 7z nobody cares which, nobody likes to download 20+ ****ing files... THANK YOU.
I sympathize with your anger. Why should we have you download a program, tortiseSVN, just so you can play BPmulti? Furthermore, why should we take you through this silly SVN thing when we could just zip and send like normal single player projects? Is it that we don't like easy, and marvel in our own technical nerdiness?
Most single player projects under development have an SVN or FTP they use to collaborate, but Blue Planet multi is not a typical HLP project. It is a public multiplayer project, where the bleeding edge of our work is available to anyone as we create it. So say, a guy creates a mission and needs it tested, tables need to be edited to add new weapon variants, builds need to be updated. we need an effective way to distribute numerous fixes to one another in a quick and painless way, and with the SVN updating is as simple as a single click. You don't even have to login to a webpage.
I cannot expect everyone to like this way for distributing the project, but if you go to This tutorial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPUdXvjY_G4) and learn about how an SVN works, you might find that it is a pretty effective solution for what we are trying to do. In any situation, we want to make distribution of our project as simple as possible.
Thank you for voicing your concern on the forums, and for your interest in BP multi.
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After downloading like 40 odd files when your in a rush you would be frustrated too.... And as far as update software, we already have that, its called FSOINSTALLER (http://www.fsoinstaller.com).you should look into getting BPMP added :)
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After downloading like 40 odd files when your in a rush you would be frustrated too.... And as far as update software, we already have that, its called FSOINSTALLER (http://www.fsoinstaller.com).you should look into getting BPMP added :)
FSOInstaller is nowhere near as powerful as SVN for this purpose, and would not do nearly as well. In fact, FSOInstaller is being upgraded because it's not good enough.
And you'd have just downloaded 40 odd files in a single package anyway - did you somehow have to download each of them individually? Normally you just have to press the 'checkout' or 'update' button and it takes care of it on its own. Did you somehow have to give individual commands for each file?
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Here's some clarification.
FSOInstaller can download entire files. All or nothing. If the Blue Planet multiplayer package were uploaded as a single archive, which it would have to be, and then updated - which it is, every day - you'd have to download the whole archive again every day.
That'd kill a lot of bandwidth. Do you really want that?
SVN, on the other hand, only downloads files that have changed or been recently added. It saves you a ton of bandwidth and saves the host a lot too.
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The FSO Installer itself needs to be updated, and the person maintaining it knows it. As for you downloading 40 odd files in a rush... There shouldn't be much to download. Aside from the Blue Planet requirements and the Multi requirements, the only thing you have to download for this mod specifically is TortoiseSVN. It would weigh exactly the same as the vps you only need one button to download everything. If you made a mistake, go check #multi-setup on the IRC. I should mention that we aren't as user-friendly as other projects because of the following reasons:
1.) Just like Nightly builds we depend on, we're "bleeding-edge". If you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't touch us. However, if you don't know what you're doing but would like to try, we'll help you. Just don't complain.
2.) We're open to the public, and we have no real leader. We don't have a person to zip up the files for you nor for the Installer. We don't need to because we're not finished. Everyone who plays contributes. If you don't have the time, then you should avoid it just like any other game or mod.
But honestly, we're pretty noob-friendly if you ask us. We prefer you to ask on IRC where the bulk of us hang, but if you can't do that, then PM someone or make a thread here. All we ask, and I'll say this again, is that you don't whine and complain. Most of us are just regular folks who plays FreeSpace for fun.
P.S. Noted that Battuta already made mention of FSOInstaller problem.
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After downloading like 40 odd files when your in a rush you would be frustrated too.... And as far as update software, we already have that, its called FSOINSTALLER (http://www.fsoinstaller.com).you should look into getting BPMP added :)
FSOInstaller is nowhere near as powerful as SVN for this purpose, and would not do nearly as well. In fact, FSOInstaller is being upgraded because it's not good enough.
And you'd have just downloaded 40 odd files in a single package anyway - did you somehow have to download each of them individually? Normally you just have to press the 'checkout' or 'update' button and it takes care of it on its own. Did you somehow have to give individual commands for each file?
turey said he modded his installer a hella long time ago allowing it download UPDATES on anything you UPDATE... via version number..
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To which not only would we have to still update to our svn, but someone would have to repack everything for the installer after every commit. Plus, not everyone uses the installer, and unlike SVN the installer has no place outside FSO. Not to mention the reasons svn is superior for what we need listed above.
In terms of downloads:
MVPs download: gotten from installer, or by hand (should already have anyway)
BP1/2 download: gotten from installer, or by hand (should already have anyway)
missions vps: by hand
1.20 patch: by hand
the installer: by hand
SVN: by hand
bpmulti files: gotten from installer, or by SVN
Not all that much is gained from bpmulti being on the installer instead of, or in addition to, SVN while we lose functionality by using the installer and makes work far more difficult for us to keep the updates on both sides of the line. Not to mention switching to just the installer now would hurt those already updating BPmulti via the SVN.
On top of this, if we screw up something with svn, we can just rollback to a good version where nothing is borked, i do not think the installer has such an option.
tl;dr? short version: not only is nothing gained, but functionality is actually lost by using the installer
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Did you get the SVN to work [DW]-Hunter? Once you download tortiseSVN, it should be pretty straightforward.
From the original post:
1. Create a folder in your FreeSpace 2 directory called blueplanet2_multi
2. Right click on it and hit 'SVN Checkout'
3. Enter the following address in the 'URL of repository' field: https://subversion.assembla.com/svn/blueplanet2_multi/
These 3 steps should get you the blueplanet multi files, it is all taken care of in your windows file manager.
1. Downloading tortoise SVN gives you the ability to assign folders to host sites. There should be a new option when you right click folders called 'SVN checkout'
3. After assigning the folder to a host site by entering the host site's URL, you should see a red mark near the folder indicating the folder has not been updated. You right click on the folder itself (blueplanet2_multi) to update it. Tortoise SVN will then automatically upload ALL the files which belong to that folder and indicate you are updated by showing a green checkmark on the folder. So, it really is a one click download as you would like, as well as a one click update.
Once your folder is updated, use it as you would use any other mod folder with the FSO launcher. Be sure to update every time before use.
I'm curious if you have gotten the SVN to work for you, of if not, I would like to find out where the confusing part of the install instructions might be. Again, I agree the system is not ideal, but I also feel it is a comfortable compromise between development and distributability.
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After downloading like 40 odd files when your in a rush you would be frustrated too.... And as far as update software, we already have that, its called FSOINSTALLER (http://www.fsoinstaller.com).you should look into getting BPMP added :)
FSOInstaller is nowhere near as powerful as SVN for this purpose, and would not do nearly as well. In fact, FSOInstaller is being upgraded because it's not good enough.
And you'd have just downloaded 40 odd files in a single package anyway - did you somehow have to download each of them individually? Normally you just have to press the 'checkout' or 'update' button and it takes care of it on its own. Did you somehow have to give individual commands for each file?
turey said he modded his installer a hella long time ago allowing it download UPDATES on anything you UPDATE... via version number..
This capability is inadequate compared to what SVN can do.
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version control
atomic changes
bleeding edges updates
used for dev at same time
installs a soft that you're going to need for other mods anyway
whats the problem? i dont get it.
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Install directions updated for new BPmulti SVN host.
If you have BPmulti already, delete or rename the current folder, then follow the install directions.
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Does anyone have any suggestions for an SVN to use with Linux? I prefer to use Ubuntu as my main OS, partially because FS runs MUCH faster on it. I'd like to find an SVN for use with BP Multi, and possibly for the SCP as well. Any ideas?
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http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Fs2_open_on_Linux/Installing_Subversion
This should get you started.