Topic: AOTKII DH please read

[ShadowLord]

Hey DH -- i belive you can do the following --

Please award
Wraith (flying ISC) pp == an amount equal to the cost of the CCY

here is the story --

Got in a 2v2 with KBFSoth and Myself vs TT and Wraith..

Game starts -- a min later game shows me TT drops -- TT doesnt see my ship eather he sees a ghost ship
I belive Wraith didn't see Soth's ship .. to be blunt it was all a cluster Fu..
Now normally players would have called the issue but I think each team was unaware of the problems the other team was having... like I thought TT was a drop and Wraith still has him as a wing for the game..

Anyways you get the drift it was bad and while I did kill his ship -- the game was so bugged out that he shouldnt have to loose those PP (expensive ship) to a bugged game..

Thanks
Rom_Duck
KHH_ShadowLord

[FPF-DieHard]

sorry,I do not have the ability to adjust PP.

Fly in bugged missions at your own risk.

[ShadowLord]

NP and thanks for responding == like I said we didnt know it was bugged till after..

Cest la vie

GL GH all

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

I've seen this happen before as well, where players connect so badly at the start of the mission, some players don't even see some of the other ships. This is due to the host player having a connection issue at the time the mission loads up (and thus not all of the information is sent to other players). Fortunately it is rare, but because there are no immediate signs indicating there is a problem, it is difficult to identify until later in the mission.

It is possible to hex edit the flatfile database file to add on the lost prestige, however it requires the server be taken down of course, then the file copied, edited, sent back to the server and restarted. The editing process itself is not all that difficult, but you have to know what you are doing. As far as I know, in the history of the D2, only a few people have ever successfully manually edited the flat file (although it really isnt that all that difficult, just delicate).

[Dizzy]

Well, we need to start doing it.

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

With ship replacement set at 50% it does become an issue that needs to be looked at.

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

I'm happy to train anyone who wishes to learn how to edit the flatfile. Any volunteers?

[FPF-DieHard]

With ship replacement set at 50% it does become an issue that needs to be looked at.

Better idea, talked to your wingmen and if the mission is bugged, ALT out 

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

But it seems in the above example they weren't aware of the bug until the mission had concluded.  Just saying it would be a nice think to think about for future servers to see if an easier way could be developed to deal with this type of thing.

[Dizzy]

Well, its good to know how to do it, and occasionally it should be done, but it could easily become another tedious server chore that admins dont have time for...

Still, every server should be subjected to all the tricks and improvements to the game as we have made to date, so as to keep the skills and tech know how up to snuff. I dont think a lot of this is documented well... if at all.

[el-Karnak]

With ship replacement set at 50% it does become an issue that needs to be looked at.

Better idea, talked to your wingmen and if the mission is bugged, ALT out 

Hmm, if yer going gonna go down that road then let's do this:

Better, better idea: Get a new admin. that swaps out the buggy missions for ones that work.

Any questions?  *snicker*

The least you could do is give him back his PP.  Jeez . . . 

[KAT J'inn]

The least you could do is give him back his PP.  Jeez . . . 

Neither DH or I know how to do this.  It requires editing the DB flatfile.  We simply don't know how.   If we did, it would be done.

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

The least you could do is give him back his PP.  Jeez . . . 

Neither DH or I know how to do this.  It requires editing the DB flatfile.  We simply don't know how.   If we did, it would be done.

nor


I can edit the database if you wish.

[Age]

I'm happy to train anyone who wishes to learn how to edit the flatfile. Any volunteers?

I may take up on this offer does it require 2 comps?

[ShadowLord]

Considering the topic was created by me--- might I then suggest we put in somthing if possible for future servers and move along with this one ?

Duck

[ShadowLord]

Something that is for future use..

[Dizzy]

If it's fairly easy and you plan to practice on this one, my Dizzy-L account lost 6.1k. That's not a really big deal for me, because I'll make that up in a few days.

But here's the problem others are faced with. It was pointed out to me in a PM that someone said I'd not have that hard a time ammassing a large bundle of prestige because I can win PvP and the handouts for PvP wins are 10x or more what you get for a standard AI patrol but for them, and this happened to be a casual player who isnt so hot at PvP, with these ship prices,working so hard for one that gets blown up so easily sucks the fun out of it for them. He said that he has to work much harder than me to get the money to buy the bigger ship and he's stuck in smaller vessels most of the time. Basically, what he is saying is that this server caters to the nutter and PvPers. The others are left out.

Wonder if the DB could be searched like an excel file? If it could be, pp award bonuses could be factored in not by how much pp you have accumulated (rank bonus pp), but instead on how long your account has been active... Say you registered your account last week, well that's worth x amount of pp a week later. Or something. I dunno. I just think pp rank bonuses only cater to nutters. I have a big casual player slant, as you all know.

What kinds of limitations exist sorting and editing the pp in the db?

[FPF-Paladin]

I'm happy to train anyone who wishes to learn how to edit the flatfile. Any volunteers?

*raises hand*

I'd love to take some weight of the shoulders of the regular admins.  PM me and I'll see if I can line up some brain cells in a row for you...

[FPF-Paladin]

Umm, sorry about helping the hijack ShadowLord... if it's any consolation I only read that far down because I originally wanted to post that I thought it was big of you to bring it up for the other players' benefit, especially seeing how it was your kill and on the other side no less.  So...

+1 karma  <S>




As for the rest of the discussion; I'm just happy Someone is willing to go through everything to put a server up... it's hard for me to think of any good reason to insult the admins on top of that, but that's just me I guess.  If I had an extra system and the resources I'd be very tempted to do one myself, or at least try to make one happen seeing how I've personally no experience with them. 

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

The flatfile is in binary, so no, you can;t use excel. The only thing you can use is a hexadecimal editor.

To edit the flatfile, you can do a search though by looking for a string. To edit a player account then, you do a string search for the player's name. You then need to know the format of what immediately follows in order to edit the hexadecimal that corresponds to the value of the player's current prestige. Once that is done, you save the file, then restart the server. Sounds simple.

Always make a backup first, and if you make a mistake, you'll know soon enough.

The binary in the flatfile is stored in reverse pairs, and must be converted from hexadecimal to decimal, and then back again.

eg. 00 00 A1 45 in the flat file, has its digits reversed to 00 00 1A 54. Converting this to decimal gives us 6,740. Lets suppose we want to add on 5,000 prerstige. 6740 + 5000 = 11, 740. Converting back to hexadecimal gives us 00 00 2D DC. We then swap the digits back again to give us 00 00 D2 CD. These then are the hexadecimal numbers we use to overwrite the original hex humbers. You can use the Windows calculator for conversion. The tricky part is just making sure you have found the right hexadecimal numbers in the first place. If you havent, then you'll be editing something.