Topic: Announcing... SFC Direct! (beta)

[Bonk]

Dynaverse.net is proud to offer the community a web-based direct tcp/ip game matching service!

SFC Direct

SFC Direct supports EAW, OP and SFC3 and will integrate with an upcoming release of the Mod Switcher for OP. It even has a built in check to enable you to quickly manage your Windows XP firewall.

It requires that you be registered and logged in on the forums to use it. You do not even need to know the game host's IP address, SFC Direct will take care of all that! It only requires that you install the setup linked at the top left of the page. Otherwise it should be pretty intuitive and self explanatory.

It is fully functional but still somewhat of a WIP (thus the beta status), it still needs a few finishing touches and any modifications necessary based on feeback and any issues discovered by users. So its time to let it loose and give it a workout. This is some of the groundwork for the Omniverse project which I'd like to get moving along.

(Think of replacing this interface with something like the webmap with player movement capabilities and similar game launching mechanics, matching based on map location and more extensive battle reporting and forums integration... )

So have at 'er!  All feedback is welcome and appreciated.

EDIT - NOTES:

- When the page opens the chat applet will give you a security prompt to accept a certificate - it is OK, I placed it there and it is required.

- There is a ~15s delay between when the host launches and when joined players will launch, to allow the host a head start on setup, so give it a minute after the host launches and joined players will automatically launch and connect to the host.

- The main frame on the page is set to auto-refresh every 10 seconds so there is no need to manually refresh the page.

- Use the signin button before joining or creating games(rooms) and use the signout button when you are finished on SFC Direct.

- Its free and ad free!

[Tus-XC]

New toys .... but why o why do i have to be stuck behind a Gov't network

[Age]

  Would this have anything to do with Strats Mod chooser as well?It looks intersesting and good jop there Bonk.

[Bonk]

Would this have anything to do with Strats Mod chooser as well?

Why yes it does... check the discussion recently made public here (thoughts and feedback needed):

Strat and Bonk - Mod Chooser, SFC Direct integration - Mods standardisation

There is still some discussion and work to do before the new Mod Switcher design is finalised, but the hooks for integration with SFC Direct are in place.

[Magnum357]

New toys .... but why o why do i have to be stuck behind a Gov't network

Its for your own protection son.  Let us handle the intruders.   

[Tus-XC]

New toys .... but why o why do i have to be stuck behind a Gov't network

Its for your own protection son.  Let us handle the intruders.   

but i don't want protecting *sniff* i want to go blow up some klinker pilot   such a shame that SFC can't run through tunnels

[RazalYllib]

wOOt!!!

[Bonk]

but i don't want protecting *sniff* i want to go blow up some klinker pilot   such a shame that SFC can't run through tunnels

FireSoul managed to setup playing it with a pptd setup once, though it was laggy.

[Age]

  Bonk.The Mod Chooser is in Pestalence's Enhancement Pack as well as it make a great addition to it so don't for get that.This looks great btw however it will work.

[Chris Jones]

When it goes to launch a game, does it look for the default directory as in C:\Program Files\..etc..?

[Bonk]

When it goes to launch a game, does it look for the default directory as in C:\Program Files\..etc..?

It checks the registry before a game is launched and will launch the game from the location referenced in the registry. (Identical behaviour to SFC on GSA if I'm not mistaken).  So that even if you uninstall SFC and install it to a new location SFC direct will still work.

EAW:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Taldren\Starfleet Command II  "Path"

OP:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Taldren\Starfleet Command Orion Pirates "Directory"

SFC3:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Activision\Star Trek Starfleet Command III "InstallPath"


If you are running multiple SFC installs without cycling them about the install location referenced in the registry then you may not get the behaviour you desire.

http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163365074.0.html

It will work for SFC installs that are not in the default location (Could be J:\Games\SFC\OP - it should not matter) But if you did not actually install SFC to a particular folder then it will not work i.e. J:\Games\SFC\OP-My-Manually-Created-OP-Install-that-I-copied-from-the-location-I-Installed-from-the-CD-to  ... will not work.


Also, I notice people are not signing out after launching a game... during closed beta testing I went to great efforts to account for players who signed in but did not sign out, but just closed the browser window, thus staying in the players online list (and leaving ghost games up)... I implemented a cull of players online who have not viewed the page in less than the last two minutes, (no auto refresh, indicating they are not actually online) however I did not do this for players whose status is "playing" as most games will obviously last more than two minutes... so I guess now I need to implement a time based cull of players online with a "playing" status as well but the question is what time period to use? Accounting for this has placed approximately triple the server CPU use on the application and slowed the whole works down... it all seemed so obvious to me... "sign-in" play games... "sign-out" - simple right? I guess not.  I may have to resort to using serverside sessions to cull players who do not sign out, will probably be more efficient than my current strategy... (I refuse to use javascript of any kind) anyway, any thoughts on a reasonable timeout to cull games and players listed who are not actually online? Too low and it will sign you out if you actaully are online and playing a game, too high and ghost players (that fail to signout) will clog up the list confusing people who actually are online... I'm thinking 90 minutes is a relatively safe margin... 

[Tus-XC]

longest game i've ever had lasted me and hour and 15 or so minutes.  so 90 mintues sounds safe. 

[Bonk]

Thanks for the input. I think I'll go with 90 minutes for the ghost 'playing' player cull then, and a one minute cull of ghost players with 'free' or 'staging' status.

After some discussion with Frey I'm making a few tweaks today.
- main page frame auto refresh upped to 10 seconds.
- fixed clients relaunching if host did not report match first. (I think...)

There will be couple more tweaks and user friendliness modifications to come as well, based on additional feedback. Making good progress, its looking pretty good. 

[Lepton]

I'm curious as to how you are making this all possible programmatically.  Certainly, I see that there is a PHP webpage and a Java Applet.  Are you somehow utilizing some Gamespy functionality to set up the TCP/IP games or are you somehow accessing SFC directly through a program you wrote that sets up the connection amongst players?

[Bonk]

I'm curious as to how you are making this all possible programmatically.  Certainly, I see that there is a PHP webpage and a Java Applet.  Are you somehow utilizing some Gamespy functionality to set up the TCP/IP games or are you somehow accessing SFC directly through a program you wrote that sets up the connection amongst players?

I am accessing SFC directly with a program I wrote by locating SFC from its registry settings and launching it with the appropriate command line parameters. (Gamespy works the same way for SFC) I could apply this to other games as well. Gamespy Arcade is not required, SFC Direct is independent of it.

It is using a url application mapping in the registry I setup to point to the installed sfc direct executable, which then decodes the passed encoded host ip (if launching in client mode), detects the location of the appropriate sfc executable, and launches it - passing the appropriate command line parameters.

e.g. the url below should launch OP in multiplayer host mode if you have sfcdirect installed:
sfcd:///ACTION=op/MODE=-Host
(the forums are not setup to parse such a custom url as a link - so paste into the address bar and "go" to test...)

similarly this url will launch the Windows XP firewall detection and setting routine of SFC Direct:
sfcd:///ACTION=fwall

Also, the hooks are in place to launch the upcoming new version of the Mod Switcher with command line parameters to configure or validate the specified mod.

The links to launch are not directly visible on the sfc direct pages and game host IP addresses passed to clients are encoded for privacy - should people try and collect IP addresses by viewing page sources. (the client does not need to know the IP address of the host)

The one drawback to this approach is that AOL (or other users behind http proxies) cannot host a game, since IP addresses are determined by the webserver. (but should be able to connect as a client fine) Though I may come up with a workaround for that eventually.

Make sense?

[FA Frey XC]

Yip!

Nice work man!

[Lepton]

That's very interesting.  What are the command line parameters that one can utilize with the sfc executeable?  I have seen or heard of other programs such as All-Seeing Eye and Hyperlobby that provide similar functionality, but for a number of programs.  I had wondered how this was possible, but if it is merely a matter of providing the correct parameters to the executable I can finally see how this is doable.  Thanks for the info.

[Bonk]

ASE relies on games listed with the gamespy master servers. That functionality is not available with SFC because of the WON API used in the serverkit, though both Dynaverse servers and game hosts will respond to queries on their listening udp ports roughly according to the gamepsy API used.

Anyway, as I've posted a number of times elsewhere ages ago (can't be bothered to dig up the threads) the SFC command line parameters are as follows:

-Host (launch as a tcp/ip game host)

-Client XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX  (where XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX is the IP address of the game host to connect to) - does not apply to Dynaverse

-DontTerminate  (which does not seem to have any effect that I can find)

Psst: check \GameSpy Arcade\Services\detection.cfg and \GameSpy Arcade\Services\full.cfg for gamespy's approach.   (search for sfc)