Hello T&T

[TX-Thunderbolt]

Just wanted to drop by and say hi. Thanks for a great server too.

I've made a suggestion over at the RoF forums, but would like to go ahead and list it/them here as well. I hope I'm not out of line. I'm a RoF beta tester (along with several of my squad) and we are in the process of setting up a new quad-core, high-bandwidth server too(though we're still a month or so away ourselves).

Nonetheless, on with it then;

1. Would it possible to enable AI aircraft in your maps? In the event there are only 2-3 pilots on, it would be more fun to have more to do as well as deflect a gangbang if outnumbered. The hardware requirements are steep, I know and the upload bandwidth requirements are stout as well, but if possible...

2. Can you cut the mission debrief (post mission statistics page) time down to 10 seconds or so. That screen allows users to check stats and usually it only takes a few seconds to see who did what. The wait times in RoF multiplayer are one of the big drawbacks and people really don't want to sit idly by in front of their computer watching their life wile away. Doing so would also increase the number of mission cycles in a given time frame.

Anyway, just a couple suggestions that I hope you consider and if I'm stepping out of line, please just disregard.

S!


TB

[Tanner]

Not to pile on, but I will agree that it would be nice to see AI planes filling in the empty slots. Perhaps there is a specific reason that it is set up this way. This is about the only server that I play on. Thanks for hosting it.

[MadTommy]

Hi,

About AI planes, there are a few problems with this. Our intention is to run a multiplayer server. With mission ending when all players are dead, we don't want players to be fighting AI whilst everyone else is waiting as a spectator, as this is what happens with AI planes on the mission. So i think that would have a negative impact on players waiting.

Also as you said it can be very heavy on resources not to mention the hassle with mission creation.

On the time waiting on debrief.. we could cut it down a bit but not to 10 seconds as that would not give the dserver.exe time to load the next mission, as this appears to take approx. 40 seconds.

Thanks for you suggestion, will consider the AI planes, but presently we are concentration on Player vs Player not Player Vs AI.

[TX-Thunderbolt]

Thanks for the reply and explanation MadTommy. If the mission-load requirement needs more time to load, then that makes sense. The only other area would be the report ready screen where once all pilots have reported as ready there is a 30 second countdown. Could this one be reduced as well then? In some of our smaller 5v5 scenarios, we've had the timer as low as 5 seconds with no issues. That may be too low for some players but that could also be because they are conditioned for the current 30 second timer. They would likely become just as used to a 10 or 15 second timer.

It would seem that once players have reported they are ready, a minimum wait time would be better.

Just looking for some possibilities to speed up the mission cycle.

I'll look into the 40 second mission-load time requirement and see what can be done there too from the developer's side.

As far as the inclusion of AI is concerned, I completely understand your intentions and agree with them to a degree, but considering the mission cycle times are mostly limited to 15 minutes anyway, it would seem that having many players waiting on one rogue to battle (or fly around aimlessly searching for) some AI would be a small trade off for the increase in action and team balance. But thanks for your consideration.

Thanks

[epoch]

The reason we (or rather I) set the ready-up timer to 30 was so that anyone not able to get a plane on one side would have time to try to reconnect on the other.

If everyone who gets a slot is self centred and ready's up - not thinking about the empty planes on the other side and the fact people may wish to reconnect and use them - then you end up with unbalanced teams. Indeed, I had thought that 30 seconds was in fact to little!

[TX-Thunderbolt]

I understand that. Please don't misunderstand my intentions. I really just want to explore your reasoning, not contest it, and hopefully contribute to what is right now the best multiplayer RoF server available.

Surely some players ARE selfish and may ready up without thought for the others who might not be in yet. The reality is, 30 seconds isn't enough to completely switch sides ( I know, I've tried plenty when they've been unbalanced). The best way, it seems, to monitor that right now is for a few players to wait until it seems there are no more people readily attempting to join. A big caveat to all efforts towards side parity right now is the fact that many people seem to get dropped indiscriminately and have to rejoin from the main screen which obviously takes longer. That's not a server issue as much as it is a program issue and that too is being worked on.

Again, thanks for your consideration and replies.

[epoch]

We'll have a look at the lobby and mapchange timings, and see what compromises we can come to.

[Tanner]

Thanks for you suggestion, will consider the AI planes, but presently we are concentration on Player vs Player not Player Vs AI.

Makes sense. That is what I thought the reason was. In most cases, it seems there are a fair number of players on the server such that the AI filling slots is not much of an issue.

Thanks for hosting the server.