Let's Play CTF & Entropy! Round #9!

[Lady Silver]

Hello again Descent 3 pilots! This week we're playing CTF and Entropy!

Date: Friday November 13th
Time: 10:00 pm EST
Place: CTF in Polaris
&------Entropy in Seleg Prime

We will start with CTF in Polaris, moving on to Entropy in Seleg Prime afterwards.
For those who may not know, Polaris is a large level, so, the more the merrier! Spread the word!
These games can be found using the Descent trackers, but I will also provide IP addresses later on.

Please let me know if you plan to make it; I like having an idea of how many pilots are coming so I can lure more pilots in with the numbers.

This invite is also being posted on the Descent Champion's and the Descendent Studios forums.

Thanks goes to Krom for once again hosting the servers for us!

LET'S PLAY SOME CTF & ENTROPY!

[Lady Silver]

Foil, there is only one method I know of that effectively removes rust from ones beloved Pyro_GL.
I hope you can join us again.

"You seem a decent fellow, I hate to kill you."

[Behemoth]

I'll be there.

[Lady Silver]

Just do me a favor and blindfold yourself? kthxbye

[Foil]

"You seem a decent fellow, I hate to kill you."

"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to die."

I should be able to make it.

[Lady Silver]

Cool!

[Krom]

Ok, I've configured the servers and checked on an odd issue I was noticing: The ping time when I was testing the servers was a constant 15 MS which seems pretty odd for a gigabit LAN when both computers are plugged into the same switch. So I dug around a bit and it appears for whatever reason the D3 server frames per second setting wasn't taking, leading to the servers running at their default 50 FPS. Changing the global default in d3server to 0 and then changing it back seems to have corrected it, so there may be a small improvement in ping stability for all players on the next round.

I'll fire them up tomorrow morning and double check that everything is running as it should after work.

[Lady Silver]

Thanks Krom! This is Polaris, so the smoother the better! I appreciate you going through the extra trouble for us.

Ok, Descenters: so far 7 pilots have RSVP'd and hope to make it, 2 others might make it, and 2 more normally do make it without any communication at all.

So, including myself, we are looking at an 8 player game at the very least. But it might be a 12 player game!

The server can hold up to 16 pilots. Don't you want a 16 player Polaris CTF game?!?!?
I do.

See you Friday!

[Foil]

FYI, Krom, the server fps shouldn't be above 500 or 1000 - dedi D3 servers can start doing wacky things at server framerates above that, even when you have the CPU horsepower for it.

[Krom]

So which is it? 500 or 1000 (999)?

For no apparent reason, the servers seem to bounce around between capping at 60 fps and running at whatever limit -framecap is set to. Each server consumes about 5% CPU when running at the full framecap, but then for no reason shortly after launch they will drop to 0.5% CPU and appear to be capping off at ~65 fps (hence the LAN ping showing 15 MS intervals), then they will rise back to 5% and pings will return to 1-2 MS intervals again. Well, they are running anyway, and appear to be functioning as desired for the moment.

(-framecap 0 works also, but I immediately discounted that as a viable option since it makes each server consume the full 100% on whatever processor core it is running on and I suspect since 999 = 5% CPU, then 50% CPU would equal somewhere around 10000 FPS and if a game it going to have timing related glitching, that kind of framerate would definitely cause it.)

[Behemoth]

Can we have some servers put up for 1on1 to 20?
just standard 1on1 maps like indika 3, kata, athena maybe?

[Foil]

I'll put those up on the DRH when I get home, unless Krom would like to set them up.

[Lothar]

I may or may not be there. Warmaster is in town and I haven't seen him since Chifest '99. If we connect I'll be playing D1 all evening; if not I'll jump into D3.

[Lady Silver]

Fair enough. I hope to see you there Lothar!

Game is in only a couple hours!
Here are the IP's:

Polaris: 69.131.84.7:2096

Seleg Prime: 69.131.84.7:2095
Here is a link incase you need to download Seleg Prime: http://sectorgame.com/d3/downloads/?nav ... y&file=684

We meet in Polaris!

Kick the tires and light the fires; Prepare for Descent!

[Max_T]

I'll be there.
Don't expect much.

[Lady Silver]

It sure has been a long time Max T! It will be great to fly with you again.

Don't worry, I'll just aim for the rust.

[Foil]

Krom, when your Polaris server started filling up tonight, it crashed, not sure why.

I ended up putting up the game on my server (the other usual Friday night activity wasn't heavy, so it was okay this time), turned off the LAN options to conserve bandwidth, and it seemed to hold up okay for 8v8.

P.S. Behe, the 1v1 servers you requested are up.

[Foil]

P.S. That (8v8 CTF) was a blast.

[Krom]

Yeah, when I checked the PC it was crashing with an access violation. I rebooted and tried clearing all the compatibility settings on it.

[Lady Silver]

Wow

I got my wish, and it was wonderful

We had a full house last night with 16 pilots! Thank you all so much for flying with us! I haven't played such a large game of CTF
in I don't know how long.

8 vs 8 CTF in Polaris was great! Hectic, but so much fun! Our game lasted 2 hours, and ended by timing out instead of by one of the teams hitting 20 points. It was a close game, which is always the best kind; my team lost by only 1 point, 13 - 14.
Our base always seemed to be swarming with baddies. There was hardly a time when the flags actually rested in their home bases; they always seemed to be in someones ship, often being taken and dropped several times before a score was actually made. It was crazy!
It definitely helps to have your teammates on mumble with you. The following is rough transcript from memory of a few different pilots on a few different occasions last night:

"The guy with our flag is outside the base! We need someone out here with MD or Vauss right away!" **Scramble.Respond.Enemy flag carrier shot down.** "Nice Job!"

"I have the flag. They are on my tail and I'm low on shields; someone get ready to pick it up!"

"Our flag carrier needs to get inside; Thorne is out here and he has good Vauss and MD"

"Base has 3 enemies in it still, do not go in there yet!"

**after dying in a fight vs flag carrier** "Enemy Flag carrier is in the basement!" "I'm on it!"

It took a little while, but we learned to work together as a team pretty well. It was a great experience.

Here is a list of everyone who flew in the games yesterday:

Alexander
Behemoth
Dravis
Dues
Fireball
III Icehammer
Joshem
Lady Silver
Max_T
Mental Floss
Money
RIP Foil
RIP Rooster
Ryusei
Sergeant Thorne
Tiger
VEX Tebo
Wats
Zero

That thar is a lot of pilots

After the game, we had so many pilots left who still wanted to play that we didn't want to move to Seleg Prime (max 10 pilots) for fear of leaving someone out! That is not a bad problem to have. So we ended up moving on to Veins instead. I wasn't able to stay in Veins long, unfortunately, as it was getting rather late. But Dues says it was another fun close game.

Nice to fly with so many familiar pilots again. (Also nice to meet new pilots, too, JosheM!) Thanks guys!
Descent is a great game; you guys make it Excellent!!!

Until next time, I'll see you in the mines!!

[Lady Silver]

That was a blast, Foil! Thanks for joining us.
You know, rust actually sticks to some people...

[Lady Silver]

I haven't decided what to play this Friday yet. Any Ideas would be welcome!

Krom, did you figure out what the problem was with the server? The BreakOut server the week before was just fine.

[Krom]

I set a bunch of stuff back to how it was the week before, but the only way I'd know for sure is to test it... Might be a good idea to have a backup server just in case.

[Lady Silver]

Rooster, Behemoth and I came up with our next game plan. Look for the invite soon!