[PA1930]

Hi everyone!

So today I've set up a nice "event" with some friends of mine to play on ORTS multiplayer. Before than today, I've only tested the multiplayer with one or two friends. Nothing bad happened as far as I remember.

Today we were maybe 10 players and I've set up some AI trains to make the simulation through the route more enjoyable.
Although it was a great afternoon spent playing around with trains on ORTS, there were a few bugs that I would like to point out:

->Some players sometimes had some problem, I don't know why, and ORTS crashed and made them go out of the game. When they tried to come back, ORTS wouldn't let them play again with their same name, because that name already existed on the game. Though their trains would get uncontrolled and act like the train on Unstoppable, because it was literally unstopabble. I've tried to even throw one of them to an end of the line... and it then just got there and reversed and continued at full speed anyways. I've tried to remove (if what is that function for...) but I couldn't remove any trains at all.

->Something that bothers me a bit is that I can't find a way to set someone else as well to control signals or make junctions through the Control+9 window where I was controlling everything.
I was the one that was in charge of controlling the signals. During hours of the game, nothing bad happened but at some point I got an error (saddly I don't have the log file...) that ORTS made me get out of the game and of course, when I tried to go in again, it didn't let me because of my nickname being the same as one existant. So we had to end our game at that point.

My current suggestion about this of leaving the game and go back in again, is that you should be able to re-take your train no matter if your ORTS crashes or not, maybe defining a password or something. I'm not sure how many of you from here play OpenTTD, but for example there, you can set up a password for your company name and you can re-join the game whenever you want.

As for the other problems, it would be great if I could set someone else to control signals [and for instance, if I had the problem I had, my other friend could put me controlling signals again after I would get again to the MP session], and it would be great that one who controls the game, could actually remove any trains. Curiously, I had no problems with AI trains. :)

Thanks for any help in advance and for your attention. :good:

[Csantucci]

Hi Pedro,
I saw on tsimserver that at a moment there were 12 of you connected! Wow!
Only some first answer basing on my experience more than on my sowftware knowledge before entering a MP session myself:
- AI trains on a MP session in general cause clients to stutter and even to freeze. Rob is working on that, and I hope that a release fixing that will come out
- it is already possible to set "helpers", that is to enable other players to set signals and switches, even if sometimes after some time they loose part of this ability. If I remember well tere is an "assist" button on the F9 window. First select the player from the vertical bar at the right, and then click "assist"
- in theory if the server (or if you prefer, the dispatcher) crashes, the dispatcher functionality is automatically passed to another player, that gets a message on the screen stating it; in practice often this does not work well
- in general it should be possible for a player to reenter the game with the same name, if he didn't make things like cutting the train or similar, and if he reenters in the first 2 or 3 minutes, he reenters where his train was at the moment of crash. Anyhow if he is denied to reenter, he should be allowed to it after these 3 minutes, because his phantom train should completely die. If this does not work there is effectively an ORTS problem. In this case you could try to put the player out of the game and see if the phantom train disappears.

[PA1930]

Hi Carlo! Many thanks for you reply!

Great to know that Rob is actually working on something to avoid AI trains to stutter or freeze other players. Maybe next time I shouldn't set AI trains? I need to test that. It was also my first experience with AI trains. Do you know if ORTS acts the same way when only putting loose consists on the route?

I didn't know actually what the "assist" button would do so thanks for clearing that one up!

i didn't know that the "dispatcher" would change someone else if the original dispatcher crashes or something. Well, it's a matter of telling the players that if that happens, that somneone who gets the ability of being a dispatcher, clicking on the "assist" button after I get in the game.

As for reentering... I believe that even after those 3 minutes it was impossible to enter. And I'm telling you, as a dispatcher, it was a bit weird (but fun! :) ) to control a runaway train without control (actually, I already had 3 of them throughout the map) and I was rather amazed when I saw it getting to an end of the line and go back again at full speed.

Maybe that "removing" trains fuction should really be working, because I couldn't do it. Those players who complain that had a crash on their side, on my side their trains were running still and their names were still there. When I clicked on their name and pressed the "remove" button, nothing happened at all.

[Csantucci]

Hi Pedro,
yes, I suggest you to avoid AI trains in MP sessions by the moment. Loose consists (that have to be added only by the server) instead are OK and add possibilities to the MP session.

[Csantucci]

Pedro, I hope you won't bother if I too use this thread to signal strange OR MP behaviours and to ask for comments and solutions.
Two malfunctions happened to the server player.
This is the first one:
 OpenRailsLogBUG.zip (2.45K)
Number of downloads: 259
A crash can't be seen, but there is a strange error indication "Unknown KeywordLOST in ORTS.MultiPlayer.Message.Decode(String m)
in ORTS.MultiPlayer.ClientComm.Receive(Object client)" . In fact LOST is not the name of a MP message, but where does the message come from then?
This is the second one, that caused a crash:
 ERRORE DISPATCH.zip (1.5K)
Number of downloads: 255
The insufficient memory indication seems strange, because the route isn't so memory consuming, and we players checked memory consumption with the HUD display not much time before the indication.

[PA1930]

Csantucci, on 10 November 2013 - 10:01 AM, said:

Pedro, I hope you won't bother if I too use this thread to signal strange OR MP behaviours and to ask for comments and solutions.
Two malfunctions happened to the server player.
This is the first one:
OpenRailsLogBUG.zip
A crash can't be seen, but there is a strange error indication "Unknown KeywordLOST in ORTS.MultiPlayer.Message.Decode(String m)
in ORTS.MultiPlayer.ClientComm.Receive(Object client)" . In fact LOST is not the name of a MP message, but where does the message come from then?
This is the second one, that caused a crash:
ERRORE DISPATCH.zip
The insufficient memory indication seems strange, because the route isn't so memory consuming, and we players checked memory consumption with the HUD display not much time before the indication.

Not at all, Carlo!
And actually, as for that first problem, it also happens to me and I think I have complained about it as well (in a different topic, even!) but no feedback was given.

As for when you mention about the "Loose consists (that have to be added only by the server)", what do you mean by "to be added by the server"? Is there any other way to place loose consists rather than creating an activity with such loose consists? Or it is just one way to say that it is possible to do it with the activity and the loose consists and that doesn't cause problems?

[Csantucci]

Hi Pedro,
of course the way to add loose consists is to run an activity with such consists on the server. What I wanted to exclude is that also the clients would run an activity with loose consists.

[PA1930]

Csantucci, on 11 November 2013 - 05:24 AM, said:

Hi Pedro,
of course the way to add loose consists is to run an activity with such consists on the server. What I wanted to exclude is that also the clients would run an activity with loose consists.

Ah, that I know! :pleasantry: Thanks for clearing that up!

[JTang]

Checked the server log, could not find one with "LOST", so will dig deeper to see what's the problem.

[Csantucci]

Pedro,
with release 1869 that is downloadable now (pls. notice that a 1867 is displayed) it should now be possible to manage AI trains introduced in the server in MP sessions, without freezes on the client side. Of course the feature has to be practically tested in real MP sessions, but it is worth the job.