Topic: SFC Launcher (a dynaverse and gamespy's online services replacement)

[Javora]

Wow Carlos, that's amazing.  Can't wait to see this.

[d4v1ks]

Thanks.
Today i added support for SFC2 EAW.
And with the motd system in mind, i created and added a little webserver to the launcher, so it will always give the lastest motds to the clients. It will be optional, as it will listen for motd requests on port 80.
I did a lot of testing. It looks stable.
Just need to add a better interface, and some code to handle more than 1 version of the servers, as we have now support for sfcop sfceaw.
Cheers.

[Panzergranate]

Gamespy being taken over buy money grabbing individuals who have no idea who their fathers were also screwed up the Sword of the Stars space wargame community.

The Sword of the Stars developers actually broadcast on the game's online bulletin start up board the true story of how everybody using Gamespy was screwed over.

Apparently the new owners of Gamespy immediately tore up and reneged on all client existing contracts and deals, hiked up their fee by just over 400% for server usage and...... well all the various game developers said, "Screw you!!", and stopped using Gamespy...... which killed it completely.

So the new owners of Gamespy through sheer greed killed "The Goose that was laying them golden eggs".

Like all businesses, blatantly attempting to openly screw one's customer base leads to a boycott of said business.

[Javora]

Thanks.
Today i added support for SFC2 EAW.
And with the motd system in mind, i created and added a little webserver to the launcher, so it will always give the lastest motds to the clients. It will be optional, as it will listen for motd requests on port 80.
I did a lot of testing. It looks stable.
Just need to add a better interface, and some code to handle more than 1 version of the servers, as we have now support for sfcop sfceaw.
Cheers.

Is there any way to change the code so that SFC II, SFC CE, and SFC OP (minis X-Ships) can see each other on the same Dyna?  This might be the best way to get as many people as we can to play multiplayer again.

[d4v1ks]

Hi,
This weekend i did a lot of tweaks.
Here i am playing with 3 clients on my home lan (with internet off).
We 3 drafted a patrol mission.

[d4v1ks]

Here i am runing 2 diferent servers in the LAN.
One client is idle in lhe EAW server, and in the other i drafted a mission with my wife.

[d4v1ks]

Here as you can see, the MOTD system distinguish the 2 versions. And it will always popup each time you play.

[RazalYllib]

Very Intrigued and amazed.

Just recently did the upgrade from blank drive to win 10.
Have not installed OP yet...this news makes me tingle and incentivise myself into re-installing the client / upgrading etc.

If I have issues I will know where to start at least.

Would be honored to participate in any testing and "might" be able to rez my buddy to load his client- been awhile since he flew against another human.

Now where is my install disc?

[d4v1ks]

Hi again,
Yesterday i started working on the UI itself. We had a holiday here.
So, probably i will release a fully working beta this "weekend".
This is how it is starting to look.
Cheers.

[TAnimaL]

Fraking awesome - that makes it clear to even a LAN neophypte like me

[Tumulorum Fossor]

This is GREAT, Carlos!
I also took note from the thread where you and Tar increased the font for the reticles for me that you were integrating THAT functioning into this somehow, too!  If I'm interpreting that correctly, consider also control for the font size for game messages that show up in the lower right corner, too!

Thanks a lot for all this!!!

[xeryx]

Will this also be compatible with SFC 2 EAW?  Please keep up the good work!  I want to be able to create a server so that my nephews and I can play some amazing battles!!

Xeryx

[d4v1ks]

Will this also be compatible with SFC 2 EAW?  Please keep up the good work!  I want to be able to create a server so that my nephews and I can play some amazing battles!!

Xeryx

Yes, it is currently compatible with EAW.
But, it needs a bit of attenction to configure.
I will give a bit of attention to it, in the days ahead.
Cheers.

[d4v1ks]

Ok guys, it is time for a beta release of:

Starfleet Command Launcher v1.0.1.0 (beta) 

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AiumJZOPROpbg9xz2yKlLJWyM0Hr0g

I've spent a lot of time today tunning the last details for it, as i need to redirect my attenction to another matters soon.
It is a beta version. It is not finished. It has a probability to crash.
But today i did some games on my home lan, and it runned fine.
If you want to help test, please do it.
I have wrote some instructions.

Happy games!   

[d4v1ks]

Hello all.
Yesterday i took a fast look into SFC3.
In the next update of this tool i will give support to it. 

It will be compatible with:
   - SFCOP 2552 and 2563;
   - SFC EAW 2036 and 2037;
   - SFC 3 build 534;

[TarMinyatur]

This is GREAT, Carlos!
I also took note from the thread where you and Tar increased the font for the reticles for me that you were integrating THAT functioning into this somehow, too!  If I'm interpreting that correctly, consider also control for the font size for game messages that show up in the lower right corner, too!

Thanks a lot for all this!!!

I've been away from the game for a while. It'll take some time to rediscover how the hell I modified the reticle font. My guess is that a font size booster will be a separate download. The regular (albeit tiny) font sizes will probably remain as default. I suppose a GUI tool could be made, but I'm not a GUI guy. I'm good for old fashioned batch files.  :-)

[TarMinyatur]

This is GREAT, Carlos!
I also took note from the thread where you and Tar increased the font for the reticles for me that you were integrating THAT functioning into this somehow, too!  If I'm interpreting that correctly, consider also control for the font size for game messages that show up in the lower right corner, too!

Thanks a lot for all this!!!

Hey TF, check out the attached fonts.zip. Is this big enough (size 22)? The Volley Info overlaps vertically...I don't know how to fix that.

[Tumulorum Fossor]

Is this the same one you provided several weeks ago? It looks to be a BIT larger. I think this one is the perfect size (for me). It really helps especially with playing SFCOP on an extremely large projection screen, as the higher resolutions now allow.  It would be cool if the font was OCR like stock, but this look is CERTAINLY adequate. The vertical clipping is NOT an issue.  SFC OP looks more legible on my laptop. And looks amazing on the projector screen!

Would be nice if the new Ez-INI could adjust typefaces for both the HUD text AND the information/scripted text because it seems to go hand-in-hand with the jacked up resolutions.

NOT trying to look a gift horse in the mouth here, and now have BOTH of your modded fonts.zip files in my assets folder so I can select any of the three (stock, first mod, second mod) of them easily. Just curious: what point fonts did you use for those mods?

And THANKS AGAIN!

Merry Christmas!

[TarMinyatur]

You're welcome, TF.

I modified the bcascii22.fnt yesterday. I assume it's size 22. The one from months ago was bcascii16.fnt. The non-OCR fonts need to be presented as OCR fonts to appear near the reticle. This is done by pasting the OCR footer (32 bytes) to the end of the file.

4F 00 43 00 52 00 20 00 41 00 20 00 45 00 78 00 74 00 65 00 6E 00 64 00 65 00 64 00 00 00 00 00

Which is "O.C.R. .A. .E.x.t.e.n.d.e.d....." in readable characters.

The beginning of the file must be modified too.

** ** ** ** 20 ** 00 00 02 00 00 00 0A C9 01 00

The red stuff tricks the game into treating, for example, the bcascii22.fnt as a replacement for ocra10.fnt -- the default SFC reticle font.

The yellow byte, 0A, means ten in hexadecimal. The reticle demands a nominal size-10 font, but it doesn't care about the data that follows in the file. An oversize font is subsequently drawn without fuss. A size-22 font (16 in hex) can be drawn even if the header declares it to be size 10 (0A in hex). 

The third part of this hack is to update the fonts.txt file:

; Following font has a typeface value of:   (eTypeface)(_CustomTypeface + 6)
;
assets/fonts/tar22.fnt

I gave my custom font the name tar22.fnt. The original ocra10.fnt and bcascii22.fnt are therefore not modified. Restoring the reticle should be easy -- just edit a text file...

Actually it isn't easy because the font assets are zipped without compression! So you have to work on an extracted archive. Then you build a new fonts.zip including the assets\fonts folders. You must use the "store" mode (which doesn't compress). The 7-zip utility works well for this. (The built-in zip capability in Windows 7 will automatically compress the assets and break them for SFC.) Then move that new fonts.zip to the OP\Assets folder.

[d4v1ks]

Wow, good job Tar!
I'm happy you found how to increase the fonts, and already posted a solution for it.
I was in total darkness about this one. 

I've been busy with adding the Sfc3 support to the SFC launcher. It is like.. Why not right?
All got a working HD patch, a sprites editor, and now all will be playlable in a LAN or public internet.
Sfc3 was tricky, but i managed to understand it today.
It took some hours. But it is working!
All directory services, and gamespy, are all now packed into the small application that is SFC Launcher. Less than 100k, or 5000 lines of code. 

Keep up Tar!
Cheers.