Server issues with 0.15.1

[kyokei]

To start off - The server has been started and stopped and since I literally had no time to do anything I was just able to update and run the server. I did see quite a few issues come up so these should be in the logs:

https://cloud.kunix.org/public.php?service=files&t=97839ea98e3469504310af6085f23a73

First thing I saw which was ultra odd was that when starting the server I was getting the message that the Upnp port 5000 was not forwarded. Upon checking my router I confirmed that the ports were forwarded fine.
After restarting the server again it worked no problem. I even had the issue today after putting the server as public

Second thing I saw, but I didn't check the logs to see, is that I saw errors on the CMD screen when the server was shutdown.

I know this is ultra bad bug reporting :S
I've added all the logs that were generated since the new version and my server config (if somehow needed).

[Excalibur]

I've been operating a limited, but very high traffic private server for the last day or so as well. Errors out the yin-yang (Hehe) more or less. I can provide logs as well.

Oh, and some of the research options are actually giving research points, instead of taking them anyway.

And did I mention the main storyline is broken? Yeah, might want to fix that. Quickly please. We cannot progress the game any further if we have no access to the Xenotargn systems, sadly.

There are about four of us now, somewhere in the range of Level 60-70. Doesn't seem to be a way to chat with other players either. Either they don't get the chat message, or it comes up in garbled text. Fortunately, we are all on Teamspeak, so we manage that way.

I do appreciate you logging in Lurler, you as well ai_enabled. I did notice you both log on briefly, but it's kinda hard to play with 340 ms pings of course. There are two very, very hard core testers pounding away at the current build and breaking it in more ways then I care to count. Posting the encountered bugs here, is well beyond the scope of a simple forum post.

Sorry guys, there are just too many to post. Again, I can provide logs for you guys if you need them.

[Lurler]

True, there are a lot of issues that came up with this version. We are fixing the most important ones now, hopefully we will release a new build today to address the some of these problems, but it will still take some time to really make it all work perfectly.

[Excalibur]

Oh, don't mind me. I'm not complaining man. Just very tired tonight, and eager to start splattering some aliens.

[ai_enabled]

Hello everybody!
Thanks for testing the game. We're working hard on fixing all the reported issues.
Today we released the v0.15.2 with fixes of the main quest line, the mining issues and several other issues.
Unfortunately, the v0.15.1 savegames is incompatible with this version due to world generation issues (so we can't fix the broken quests without world re-generation). Sorry for that, but hope it's more interesting now with the fixed quests.
About the multiplayer game endings - we was focused on the singleplayer game endings only, not sure how it will works for the multiplayer world (I think the server will just ignore the game ending script and you will be able to continue playing the game).

First thing I saw which was ultra odd was that when starting the server I was getting the message that the Upnp port 5000 was not forwarded. Upon checking my router I confirmed that the ports were forwarded fine.
After restarting the server again it worked no problem. I even had the issue today after putting the server as public

The game server including the UPnP port forwarding feature (starting from the v0.12.x), so if your router supports it, you don't need to login into the web interface and manually forward the port, the game server will do it automatically (a great help for the inexperienced users). But if you already done it before manually, the game server might display some warning messages about it. You can safely ignore it.
Also the router can respond with HTTP error if something broken on its side (so the server will display messages like "UPnP port forward failed: The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error."). Usually it can be fixed by updating the firmware on the router.
Would be glad if somebody test it further to be sure it's really working as expected.

And logs, please more logs from v0.15.2! We will crush all the bugs :-).

Regards!

[kyokei]

I was indeed getting that error message when starting the server. My router firmware us managed by my isp so i cant update that. So the way it works is that upon starting i get the issue. Stop the server and try again  and then suddenly ita fine after 1 or 2 retries.

Btw are you any further with decreasing the cpu usage of the linux server version? Im now running it in windows bevause it takes 50% less cpu and updating is easier.

I really though want to run it in linux again. Let me know

[ai_enabled]

kyokei, I've sent you a link to a new Mono server build, please try it and let us how if it's working now.
We just tested it on Ubuntu 14, and it seems that the Mono server is 25-50% faster than the Windows .NET server!
Though, both are fast enough (usual "total" frame length is less than 2ms). We've done multiple optimizations in the v0.12.x: the physics+scopes calculation and world updates are at least 4x times faster, networking is also much faster and the memory is actively reused to avoid extra GC.
Regards!

[Hammish]

Getting this when I try to launch the server in 0.15.2 locally with BTC installed:



The odd part is that higher up on the page it's not even showing BTC as trying to load, just core, but BTC is still configured to run in both modsconfig.xml and if I fire up the local game launcher; if I try to play a game I just get the message about something horrible having happened to the local server.

[ai_enabled]

Hammish, the game server executable now is "VoidExpanse.Server.exe", the old executable can be safely removed. It was not deleted automatically by the Game Launcher, as we want to be sure it will not delete any user files inside the game folder.
Regards!

[Hammish]

Ahhh, okay.  And that's odd; I tried the new server file you mentioned and it gave me a slew of errors trying to launch it from outside the game, just trying to create a new world... but it works just fine if I fire up single-player inside the game with BTC loaded.

Just to confirm, though, best way to debug a mod going forward for possible .XML/JavaScript failure... just launch VoidExpanseServer.exe, create a new world and see if it can correctly parse everything?

[ai_enabled]

Just to confirm, though, best way to debug a mod going forward for possible .XML/JavaScript failure... just launch VoidExpanseServer.exe, create a new world and see if it can correctly parse everything?

Right, but with v0.15.x we've broken it ... A lot of inconveniences appeared for modders when we separated mods loading logic for the singleplayer/multiplayer servers.

The singleplayer server loads mods from "Documents/AtomicTorchStudio/VoidExpanse" (ModsConfig.xml and folder "Mods" inside), the core mod loaded from the "Core" folder near the game executable. It works exactly the same way for the game client also. Thus the singleplayer server and the game client are using the same ModsConfig.xml, "Core" and "Mods" folders.

The multiplayer server, on the other hand is looking for mods in the server folder or one folder upper - depending on where the "Core" folder is located, so the "Mods" folder and ModsConfig.xml should be nearby the "Core" folder.
This is done in case somebody wants to run a dedicated server, maybe multiple dedicated servers, each with different mods setup on each. So we can't use the share "Documents/~" folder.

But it seems to be a reall disaster for modders. Too complicated...

I have two ideas how to fix it and keep ability to run dedicated servers with custom configs:
1. add the ability to make the game work as it was before - just create file named "portable" near the game executable. So the game will store all data near the game executable;
(or) 2. add the new launch argument for the server "--dedicated", so if you run the server without it, it will use the default config and Mods from the "Documents/~" folder (as the singleplayer client and server do). On the server startup, we will notify user about the current configs/mods location and about this new launch argument.

Which one seems to fit best for you? Or maybe you have other ideas?

Regards!

[Hammish]

Moving forward into launch arguments is a bit beyond my ken, but I can toss out some general ideas at least.

Might it be worth looking into just making a Config directory for the game?  Instead of having multiple varying copies of modsconfig.xml over, just create a ModsConfig directory with different named configuration .XMLs inside it.  So as an example inside my ModsConfig directory I might have a config file named 'CoreConfig.xml' that just loads Core, and I might have a config file named 'HammishConfig.xml' set to load both Core and BTC.

If I'm visualizing it correctly changing to a structure like that might allow you to both store all the data in the same location for both iterations of the server and make it far easier to manage server setup if a person can just use the name of a profile in ModsConfig as a launch argument.  Using the above example, if someone just launched the server with no argument it would default to just using CoreConfig, whereas they might have the option to use the argument -HammishConfig to launch using the mods as configured in HammishConfig.xml.

It doesn't seem far off from your 2.) idea, actually, just going in the reverse direction.  Breaking it into a directory and creating multiple custom-named config files might save you some pain down the road, though, if you ever do a GUI for multiplayer servers.  It's also more intuitive to me, being able to assign a custom argument so I know exactly while mod profile I am loading at a given time, but... anything having to do with intuition, everyone's milage may vary.   Worst case, I'd say just go with option 2 that you mentioned, even if it's just a short-term bandaid fix.

[ai_enabled]

Thanks for reply. We're considering all options and decided to implement the "--dedicated" running argument. Update is available now (v0.15.3).
So now you can easily test mods - just place your mods in "Documents/~" folder, set mods config nearby and run server as before. Of course you can use the GameLauncher for that.
The "--dedicated" argument is required only if you want to host a dedicated server, which is isolated from "Documents/~" folder data.
Regards!