VG BMS4 Co-op | 24/7 Dedicated Server!
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Only relevant mod I did was adding the pilot kneeboards. And I aint flying without them.
I also don’t fly without a kneeboard, but because of a few problems I had with a digital interface in the sim, I stopped using it a long time ago. Instead I use the BMS Electronic Flightbag App (which functions just like a kneeboard, even has checklists, charts, channels, maps, etc.) and I have it loaded on a $45 7" Kindle Fire. Gotta side load it on that, cuz it doesn’t access Google Play Store where the app is. Happy to help anyone with that, if they want. Here is the link to the app (would work on a smart phone, too - any tablet, phone, touchscreen device with Android) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kosmo.bms.efb&hl=en
Sorry that it seems the AC data check is conflicting with your kneeboard mod - trying to be as accessible as possible but also keep the server as stable as possible and that means a few concessions like that, and the 32-bit version usage here.
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Sit rep?
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Sit rep?
Server has been running pretty well lately, but we have had a few CTD’s this past week surrounding day 8-10 of the campaign. Auto-saves are a real ‘campaign saver’ - server creates one every two hours, and I’ve been able to reload from the latest auto-save with each crash or hang the server ran into. I check often for concurrent campaigns and haven’t seen one in awhile. Good to know they are rare, but they do still happen.
The best way to ensure that new pilots are joining correctly is to share the link to the “How to Connect” forum post when sharing the IP Address of our server.
Thanks to all the pilots who help out by reporting issues and keeping a watchful eye on things! -
Sit rep for March - We have had some issues this past month, one of them is a simple gameplay issue, maybe only due to the dynamics of a campaign. Our server runs via an aircraft sitting at the ramp, cold. One of the unavoidable issues is the DPRK sending an OCA Strike to destroy the airbase of the server plane, though not causing a crash or even interruption in gameplay immediately, it will cause a CTD within 24 hours. The problem I’ve found is that when this happens, were we to re-load from a recent auto-save file, the same strike mission will take place shortly thereafter. I have tried to revert the server a few auto-saves back in this scenario to avoid the OPFOR AI from fragging that mission, but often it occurs around the same day causing the same inevitable end to the campaign. Usually, they never touch the base - it’s merely been less rare lately, far less rare. Makes me wanna do something about it if I can, players lost a chunk of progress these past weeks and I felt bad for them. If it can be avoided somehow in some way, we should find out.
I have heard talk that I may be able to recreate the base server file that starts at Day 1 to include an engineering division at or near the Server’s airbase. Would like to know if this is actually feasible or if it’s just a concept that comes up in conversation.A second issue that happens upon a server checkup is finding the server back at the 2D map, the server plane having not been hurt nor the airbase, nor the “fake” mission we assign the server plane completed (by AI). Nothing seems to have happened at all to cause the server to go back to the 2D map that we can tell, and again, it doesn’t seem to break the campaign immediately, but within 24 hours sitting in this state, the server will have CTD’d. I am not sure, but I have a theory that a person had joined not Seosan, but the same base as the server plane, possibly launching into the same flight (1 aircraft), heading to the ramp, but then coming back to the 2D Map themselves - possibly causing the server to also return to the 2D map? It’s all speculation unless some others here have corroborating information.
Also, we do continue to have issues with players initiating a second campaign. This very well may not be intentional, I’ve been wary to try to “incorrectly connect” to our own server to see if this is something I can recreate by not following proper connection procedures. I would like to, without any judgement or reprimand, post screenshots here of people’s names we see running in a second campaign on our server. Examples of why we may not be able to simply talk to them on IVC would be a password on that second campaign, or missing them and getting the report at a later time. It always causes serious issues for the players in the other campaign, sometimes crashing the whole server.
My goal is to find them or someone here who knows them in order to get the information to them about proper connection procedures for our (or most any) 24/7 BMS campaign server. Everyone is welcome, always.Aside from the above mentioned issues, our server health generally seem to be okay. 4.33 runs very cool, even the CPU usage seems better, more consistent than 4.32 did. I never come in to see it pinned at 100% in 4.33, meaning I rarely cause any interruption or spike when I remote in to look at it. Pretty cool! Auto-save has been a wonderful little life saver, and for the most part, I only need to use it in the first days of the war as the server crashes more often during those first days (by often I mean more of a chance to, but not always) - after those first days, it’s mostly smooth sailing and I rarely find a dead server upon a checkup. I still hear reports of rubber-banding AI, but it seems to be more rare now that we have the server running a bandwidth of 25000 and players joining with no less than 1024 bandwidth, and enforcing the ‘no dubious connections’ setting. There was an attempt at a 9 ship multiplayer flight recently, but they had issues immediately during takeoff. I would like to suggest to any players attempting such a large flight on our server (I know it doesn’t happen often) to try to have each player bump their connection bandwidth to 2048 and see if it helps the stability next time around. We all come from all over the world, the server is in Kansas, and mostly we have players from the UK, Western Europe, and America playing - but some of the Eastern Mediterranean and European users, as well as North and West African users have consistently reported problems to me.
Here is a screenshot of a few players we need to reach and teach how to connect - any help from the community here is greatly appreciated! The goal is to make sure any player that wants to fly on our server has read this “How to Connect (with IVC enabled)” thread back at the vg website. (here’s the link: http://www.veterans-gaming.com/vg-plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?39754.last )
Thanks again! Love live the BMS Community!!
**As an addendum, I want to say how happy I am to be able to report issues relating to a campaign that can go past Day 7 in a very stable manner - still with good missions to fly! I hate issues, but this is way better than restarting on day 5 or 7 every week just hoping to avoid far worse gamebreaking issues in years past for our little server!! We only go back to Day 1 when the pilots are all bored with barely any good missions available. Recently, we let one go to Day 25, amazing JSTAR replay at the end
, and it is truly a joy for the regular pilots on our server to see such a stable dynamic campaign and to reap the fruits of their missions throughout the course of the campaign over weeks and weeks! Kudos BMS Devs! Sorry for the brownnosing, but this progress in 4.33 is not wasted on me, and I never gloss over how cool it is! I don’t even get to fly that much these days, but I love keeping the server going (if only at least for the players) to see this 1:5 scale Korean War play out week after week, over and over again, Live 24/7. -
The server has now been updated to BMS 4.33 U1 (4.33.1) and I’ve recreated the campaign as close to the 4.33 version we were running. No HQ fragging at Seosan or Kunsan, and one squadron of Block 40’s available at Osan not fragged by HQ. We are again running the 32-bit version to allow for maximum accessibility by the public, as well as ‘same ac data’ and still enforcing ‘no dubious connections’. The campaign may need some tweaking depending on how it goes - input is welcome. We have a thread at our website for players to report in, we’ll also keep an eye on this thread here, links to our site can be found in the previous replies to this thread above. Special thanks to the BMS team for making this all possible, and to all the pilots who fly on our casual little server. Cheers!
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Server down sir? 0221 UTC 15 May 2016.
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Server was restarted and is back operational.
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Server Down?
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Crashes do happen at random, infrequently, and we use the Autosave feature on a 2 hour interval to recover the server with minimal progress lost. Our response time to server crash reports depends on time of day, but is often within an hour or two. I am the only server tech for the VG BMS server, my time zone is USA PST and I often check the server by 8-9am each day, and several times throughout, and once before I sleep near 10-11pm most days.
I play many different games at VG - when I’m not flying, I can be found on the VG TS3 server for faster response time, or can be messaged privately on the VETERANS-GAMING website, or people can just post in the website chatbox that the server has crashed. Again, crashes are not frequent but they do happen, just FYI in case you need to get in contact with me. I’m happy to stop what I’m doing to give the server a swift kick in the afterburner.Server has been running very stable lately, seems to be at least 1-2 pilots online at most any given time (during daylight hours). We have changed some of the default AI Squadron behavior to allow reliance on Human players a bit more, making for more rewarding targets and missions for the players, and have added 2 Tanker Squadrons so players can have AAR options in the latter days of the war where flights often go far north to find viable targets.
Out of Choongwon, KC-10’s in the 910th and KC-135’s in the 908th are now available for players to frag and attach to missions for AAR support.
Thank you to all our regulars, thanks for the reports and feedback, and the help with these newest changes! (and thanks to the BMS team for the sim and for these forums!)
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hmm. Crashed this afternoon on a 2x2ship sead + strike mission unfortunately. On the way to home plate, after > 1hour playtime
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Thanks for the report. Server restarted to the last AutoSave - it’s Day 10, but it didn’t seem like the Korean Campaign was completed based on the FLOT.
2016 is almost over, it’s been a great year! We updated to 4.33 U2 and with the help of friends, we’ve remade the Master Day 1 Save file to include many Player-Only Squadrons. Carrier Vinson appears on day 1 of campaign, but its AI squadrons are not active until China/Russia joins the war. Added following player-only (not AI controlled) squadrons:
Choongwon Airbase: 1 F16CM52 squadron, 2 tanker squadrons – Kunsan Airbase: 1 F-16CM40 squadron, 1 F16CM52 squadron, 1 KF1652 squadron – Carrier VINSON: 1 FA18C squadron, 1 FA18E squadron – Osan Airbase: 1 F-16CM40 squadron, 1 F16CM52 squadron, 1 KF16C52 squadron – Seosan Airbase: 1 F16CM52 squadron, 1 KF16C52 squadron (complete player squadrons list and connection instructions here: http://veterans-gaming.com/index.php?/forums/topic/6656-falcon-bms-4332-how-to-connect-online-campaign-with-ivc-enabled/ )Another new change recently to the server was the addition of a config line to hopefully cause the AI units on both sides of the 88th to “idle” when there has been no human online for 2 hours. This might help us extend the length of the campaign in that it won’t play “itself” when none of us are online, putting more of the power in the hands of the players. We are still testing this, and there are a few reports of odd UI behavior but we are unsure if it is related to this change.
Most current information will always be on our clan website, of course, and I try to keep an eye on this thread as well. Thanks for the love - here’s to a great year!
**Cloud 9 asked about the config entry for idle, most all information regarding the development and changes to our server can be found on our website in this thread: http://veterans-gaming.com/index.php?/forums/topic/6654-server-issues-questions-tips-for-4331/&page=10
***config entry for idle is: “set g_nNoPlayerPlay #” (where “#” is any numerical value for time in hours)
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Another new change recently to the server was the addition of a config line to hopefully cause the AI units on both sides of the 88th to “idle” when there has been no human online for 2 hours.
And what would this config entry be??
C9
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@Cloud:
And what would this config entry be??
C9
CatsAwayMiceDontPlay=1
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CatsAwayMiceDontPlay=1
That’s a Good one!!!
But you forgot the set g_b, so the one eyed mouse is still going to play!!! :uham:
C9
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Nice
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Happy New Year! The VG BMS Server has of course been updated to 4.33.3 and is back up for yet another year of simulated war in Korea. Thanks to our good friend Sinu, our Campaign will now feature a dynamic weather map that uses real world weather from Korea. The campaign will update its dynamic weather every hour after 06:00 on Day 1. The weather is accurate until about campaign day 20 where it will loop over itself.
Any problems or issues with the server, feel free to contact me on our website, here in this thread, or as a private message. Thanks!
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Hey friends I know you don’t want people to cheat and everything but can you at least deactivate the AC Data file compatibility. It would be nice to be able to use the gorgeous model of Janhas to their full extent. Don’t forget it’s just a game and we are here to have fun.
Thanks
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We’ll consider it. There were valid reasons when the rule went up, no problem re-evaluating them in the near future, after the current campaign has run it’s course. Currently, we are testing the Weather additions to ensure they do not cause problems for the players or stability issues for the server. The “fun and games” concept is not lost on me - thankfully flight sims rarely have trolls and such - but I could only wish all players everywhere were focused on fair play.
Cheers
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Server status? Cant connect.
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This post is deleted!