192 replies to this topic

[Aelyshe]

I have been playing "Rise of Flight" for a little over a month now. I enjoy this flight simulation immensely and look foward to any free moment I get to participate. I also look forward to participating on the "Tactics & Teamwork" server out of Great Britain. This server seems to attract the most mature and skilled participants of the "ROF" community and I always have a great time flying with and against them.

Since my introduction to "Multiplayer" mode, I have often had to suffer the presence of a bunch of "Planks" known as Squadron 54 or 54th Sqdrn. During both play and spectation, I have often seen these 54th tosspots disrupt a perfectly good game with team-killing and ground ramming. The 54th also use the in game text chat for expressing various profanity as well as ethnic and racial slurs. The two main perpetrators of these shenanigans are "Lt Karr" and "Lt Garnier" (they also use the nomenclatures: Mechanix, Zash, Winters2, JWCubPilot, Aussie, VikingRedBaron, and VikingPride).

Last night, the 54th (most notable, Karr and Garnier) were up to their old tricks on the "Tactics and Teamwork" server doing nothing more than disrupting every game they could by team-killing, ground ramming, and all the usual profanity and racial/ethnic slurring. In one mission alone, Karr and Garnier both made the fatal mistake of trying to team-kill yours truly.
With the assistance of "Xavier Himmelstolz", I easily dispatched the both of them(funny, they often make the claim they are actual pilots and yet neither of them can perform the simplest of combat manuervers).

After the above mentioned mission, both Karr and Garnier were unanimously banned from the game. Of course they kept coming back under different names and pulling the same old stunts.

I am not trying to stir up any drama with this post. If anything, I am trying to give a heads up to all my fellow "ROF" participants as well as those who host servers to watch out for these 54th idiots and to perhaps ban them pre-game so as to avoid any disruptions. I would also like to know if there are any proper channels I can go to in order to report these troublemakers to get them permanently banned if they do not change their ways. In the meantime, if any of you have had similar experiences with the 54th, I ask you to reply to this post and tell of your experience. I figure if enough of you do reply, the moderators, as well as the "Powers that be", will take notice and then take appropriate action against these 54th jerks so that we can all go back to enjoying a good game of "ROF" that is free of troublemakers.

All The Best

Aelyshe

[Masaq]

A:
I'm personally aware of both the players you've named and have had run-ins with them myself. Thankfully I was able to log into the server console and simply kick them, without requiring a vote

I'll also be asking epoch if there's a way we can find a more permenant method of banning somene…

Great server!
I have some feedback and criticism though..

- Most of the missions have very long flight time, perhaps you could shorten that down?
- The take-off time limit can be quite annoying on some maps as well as stressful if it's lagging -and you have to wait for the lag to settle down.
- Too few missions as pointed out earlier
- The fix for mission descriptions doesn't work
- The server sometimes lags really badly when there are around 30 players (I think, might be more or less)..

Otherwise it's a nice and stable server, I like that you have a lot of different planes included on all missions.

Thanks for the feedback. With regard to each of your points in turn:

Flight times - most of our members and our playerbase prefer the slightly longer feel to missions. We're not out to provide a dogfight-style server, we like having missions with a slight feel of realism to them, preferably requiring players to cooperate and work alongside each other with an objective other than just "attack enemy aircraft". I think it's unlikely you'll find many short furball type missions on the server - some, but not many. Sorry if that's not your thing!

Yeah, I understand the timeout can be tricky… we'll look at maybe upping that to 4/5 minutes.

Yup, too few missions… but trust me when I say that making a good, functional mission is tricky and time consuming. Any help from anyone with an understanding of the mission editor is welcome - assuming missions play well and have plenty of varied planes and scenarios - we'll test and add them (giving credit to the authors as needed!).

Look to Neoqb for fixing that in a more permenant way; sorry

Finally, I'm not entirely sure if that's the RoF server process or the fact it's co-hosted alongside an ArmA2 server and a Project Reality (BF2 mod) server process. However, the RoF server process doesn't regulate bandwidth to each client currently, so it's very easy for any server to get laggy. We're lucky, frankly, that we can get 20+ on without a hitch. I've raised some of the admin-side issues regarding MP with Neoqb in private, and I've been thanked for the feedback and informed that they'll take points like this on board.

Hope that answers some of your concerns


Masaq

[Sensenmann]

Just a heads up.

I have posted my mission over at the Tactics & Teamwork forums. Look forward to your review.

http://www.tacteam.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2606

[sturmkraehe]

What happens? It's 21:15 Central European Time on September 21st, 2009 I see 14 players on server. I try to join with my test account testkraehe (still too crappy pilot I am). I choose Order since outnumbered slightly. Mission starts loading and when finished I find myself back on main screen without message.

[Masaq]

Apologies, the T&T server will be down for 10 minutes or so from now whilst I update the server to 1.007.

New missions and some fixes for current ones will be loaded onto the server at the weekend


Regards,


Masaq

[Seiseki]

What happens? It's 21:15 Central European Time on September 21st, 2009 I see 14 players on server. I try to join with my test account testkraehe (still too crappy pilot I am). I choose Order since outnumbered slightly. Mission starts loading and when finished I find myself back on main screen without message.

That happens if you load the mission while the server changes mission..
It's quite annoying, yes.

[Chill31]

For T&T Mission Makers

would you guys be able to make a mission with some Recon Planes to escort?

More AlbyD3 and Sopwith would be awesome

[Masaq]

Got D12 and Dolphin both up on a new recon mission, made for us by Sensenmann

[Seiseki]

Masaq"]Got D12 and Dolphin both up on a new recon mission, made for us by Sensenmann

Awesome

[tofu]

Just wanted to say thanks. Great server and pilots. I don't get online often (limited time) and my flying skills are a bit short. But, I am slowly figuring it out… and your server is a great place to jump in, fly a few missions, and have some fun!

Maybe someday I will shoot down my first bird. I got close last night

[Seiseki]

Hm, the server just crashed on the new mission..
But it's been acting wierd all night though with random disconnects..

Edit: All the new missions seems to be crashing the server after the mission starts..
The planes seem to spawn on top of each other and then each player is disconnected.

The mission descriptions work though!

[CALewis]

Aye I posted that on the main TT RoF forum too. Heeelp

Also after 2 crashes, on one mission it went incredibly laggy for everyone not sure if someone was doing something on the server at the time or the missions were messing up.

[Seiseki]

Yeah, there were two sessions where everyone was lagging constantly from the start, and there were no more than 5 players playing..
No clue why, when the server changed mission it stopped.

[CALewis]

Yeah, it was much better last night. Still some oddities but certainly better.

Oh and THANKS for the great server and help T&T! Much appreciated.

[Masaq]

You're welcome. We're transferring RoF over to the new server today so performance should stay improved, and the problem with the new mission downloads should be sorted soon also

Attached Files

•  Pilot Mod.7z   1.77MB   0 downloads

[MattM]

I guess i'll definately try your server again tommorow. I'm getting to frustrated by the sniper AI, need some realistic dogfights.

[Masaq]

Transfer to a new box complete, apologies for the delay - it took much longer than the promised 5 minutes - I forgot to edit the startup.cfg and so it couldn't get itself running for a fair while.

It is now running, some intensive usage over the next few days to really test it would be helpful - feedback is desired and welcome.

Thanks again to everyone who enjoys playing on our server - it's great to see that so many do enjoy RoF like we do, and well, maybe T&T'll even gain a few new members thanks to it?

Regards,


T&T Masaq

[Chill31]

For a more entertaining on line experience…

Reduce or eliminate the Flak. Its way too accurate for it to be fun.

In its place put more machine guns which are more likely to damage than completely destroy your plane.

I know its not historical, but neither are flak aces

[Seiseki]

I like the new recon escort mission, where one both sides escort and kill recons..

However, it takes a really long time before the recon planes show up at the waypoint, perhaps if you could reduce the time, and maybe add a few other way points in the path which the recons travel.

[SLI=choy_10=]

It is necessary on one scout, and much more above.

[Sensenmann]

I like the new recon escort mission, where one both sides escort and kill recons..

However, it takes a really long time before the recon planes show up at the waypoint, perhaps if you could reduce the time, and maybe add a few other way points in the path which the recons travel.

Thank you. I am glad you like the new mission.

As far as the time it takes and the number of way points:

There are six way points for each recon flight, and I spent a great deal of time tweaking these way points to make sure events play out according to my design. My intent was to move the recon flights through their course in such a way that it would create opportunities for conflict at various points while not giving one side an advantage over the other. Also there is a bit of a race going on in that, if neither of the flights is destroyed, the first one to reach the "safe zone" decides the rounds victor. Again, timing things so that neither side had an advantage was key in my design.

The recon flights start out disabled at the beginning of the mission and are not enabled until a minute in. They start in the air with the Central Powers being a little higher at 750 meters, as opposed to the Entente at 500, due to the slower climb of the German craft.

The first way point has the recon flights passing (at about 1000 meters) near the aerodromes from which the escort flights roll. By this point only about two minutes of mission time should have passed.

The second way point is placed just before the recon flights cross the front, this the location of the ESCORT point on your map. The Entente flight is at 1500 meters and the Central Powers is at 1300. At this point we should be about five minutes into the mission.

The third way point is placed across the front at 2000 meters. The altitude is important as I placed AAA in the area, for added danger and realism. The recon flights will be just within the range of the flak and can potentially get hit by it(saw this once during testing). The PATROL icon on the map is placed on the flight path between the third and fourth way point, closer to the third. By the time the recon flights pass through this area the mission should be about ten to fifteen minutes in, depending on whether they have gone evasive due to interception or not. This is by design as this about the same amount of time it takes for hostilities to begin on most of the T&T missions.

The fourth way point is a key point in that both flights are to reach this point at the same time (again, depending on how badly they are being impeded). This is untended to be their mission objective as it puts them at a close approach to the forward aerodromes (from which the intercepting flights take off). Once they pass this point they accelerate to a higher speed and egin a descent to 1500 meters while heading back across the front to way point five. Total time passed should be around the twenty minute mark by now.

While crossing the front the recon flights pass just outside of 1.5 kilometers of each other. This was done so that, depending on how things played out up to this point, there is an opportunity for the players to meet up in the middle. For instance, if one side has eliminated the enemy recon flight they can come to the aid of their escorts and help get their recon flight home.

The fifth way point was positioned on the friendly side of the front at 1500 meters in such a way as to ensure the near pass mentioned above. If the recon flights get this far the total mission time should be close to 25 minutes.

Way point six is the "safety zone" for the recon flights. It is a long 10km flight and its sole purpose was for that last desperate push for the teams to take the recon flights out before the mission ends. Once the flights come within one kilometer of the way point the mission end sequence begins. Total time of an unimpeded flight during testing was just over 35 minutes.

The mission should, at most, take around 45 minutes if one of the recon flights makes it safely home. Of course, if both recon flights are destroyed, the mission is to continue until all the scouts from one side are brought down. I have seen missions run over an hour on the T&T server when no time limit is in place, so expect some rounds to run longer than others.

In essence, if everyone follows the "orders" even remotely closely, one should find action within the first ten to fifteen minutes (which, again, is about average for the T&T server). How long the action continues, and how intense it is, really depends on how many players are on and how well coordinated the sides are.

I hope this lengthy explanation helps you to find the action sooner so that you find it a bit more enjoyable in the future.

[Morq]

First of all S! to fellow aviators from Tactics&Teamwork server and of course to T&T crew.
My opinion about new missions (that is train and recons) will be slight different.I think that terrain of the new mission is too big-people are getting lost and it hard to find the "hot spot" of the action.Wouldn't be much easier just adding few new planes to the existing straightforward missions like CAP and so on? Maybe they're simple-but I've never seen the same mission everytime I fly over there-too many players on the short section of the front making it everytime unique fight.Also-everytime enjoyed "fog mission"-it seems to be gone…
I just only hope that in the end it will not turn out to be server with missions "destroy general's car and You win the war" only…with the same repeating pattern.
Just my 5 cents.Hope the words of criticism didn't offend anyone.I really enjoy T&T server-this is the only thing which keeps me flying RoF, honestly : )

[Masaq]

Fritz - the Fog mission is still in there - I've just rejigged the mission order to make things a little less samey - people knew the map rotation by heart

The new recon mission is certainly a little more challenging in terms of finding and killing targets, but it's possible (with plenty of players) to have a really good round on it; you can have some lovely intense fights on it whilst trying to press home an attack on the two-seaters as their escorts try to push you off. I'll maybe lower it down the batting order, so it'll be played when the server picks up some trade rather than as a start-off mission.

We've definitely got some plans for some quicker, 20-minute type furball missions - two of them are just in the process of being bugfixed, and should be on the server by the end of the week. I will of course update this thread when they're on.

Thanks for the feedback and I hope you continue to enjoy the server - it's always good to hear people are enjoying RoF thanks to the little service we can offer to the community

[Masaq]

Some new missions are on the server; I've done some extensive editing to the way we had missions saved and stored on the server so now all missions *should* be downloadable by clients connecting - I've double-checked and it seems to be taking place ok.

Thanks for baring with us on this one folks, hope you enjoy it. I'll be able to work on another new, relatively brief dogfight-style mission over the next day or two so the maplist should continue to grow a little.

Do please continue to let us know here or at http://www.tacteam.org">www.tacteam.org if you're experiencing any server-specific problems.

Regards,


Masaq

[Seiseki]

The Devs should pay you guys
This server is pretty much the best aspect of RoF at the moment
Although I'm not that much of a single-player guy.

[Masaq]

I have now updated the server to include the Homedrome's SkinSharing Tool - available at http://www.rof-tools.de">www.rof-tools.de

If all players on the server start using this tool - quicklink: http://tinyurl.com/rof-skintool">http://tinyurl.com/rof-skintool - then those custom skins can be used on the server.

All other skins will still create a white-skin, and risk crashing themselves or others to desktop, however if you've got this tool, you've got the skinlist up to date - then you're good to go.

Hopefully this is something that can take off… it'd be good to see more alternatives in use!


Regards,


Masaq

[sturmkraehe]

there's a thing that puzzles me for quite a while concerning this server.

Opposite (German) side almost always wins. Even in pure dogfight when Order side has more kills than opposite side. Opposite side leads order side by a factor close to 10.

Can we find the reason and perhaps find a remedy so that each side has equal chances to win the mission?

[Masaq]

there's a thing that puzzles me for quite a while concerning this server.

Opposite (German) side almost always wins. Even in pure dogfight when Order side has more kills than opposite side. Opposite side leads order side by a factor close to 10.

Can we find the reason and perhaps find a remedy so that each side has equal chances to win the mission?

It's entirely possible there are some glitches with the mission logic for one or two.

For several of the missions however it's quite simply because on the ground-attack missions, the Order never bother to actually complete the objectives - ie, destroy the train or the factory.

[sturmkraehe]

Ok. Would it be possible to have same type of mission for German side so that they have also to attack targets? I understand that this changes who's order and who's opposite. I think you can help ppl find their side when naming the missions accordingly.

For instance one mission where German side is order, the mission name could be:
factory01_GermanyOrder so that allied know that allied side is opposite.

[Masaq]

Ok. Would it be possible to have same type of mission for German side so that they have also to attack targets? I understand that this changes who's order and who's opposite. I think you can help ppl find their side when naming the missions accordingly.

For instance one mission where German side is order, the mission name could be:
factory01_GermanyOrder so that allied know that allied side is opposite.

We have one - the foggy mission is german attack on the AAA and balloons.

We're certainly not about to start swapping the sides around though. One of the reasons people like T&T is that you know which set of planes you're going to fly when you join either Order or Opposite. It's actually possible to make missions where the orders are given to the Opposite side, anyways.

It's one of the ridiculous points about how Neoqb have set up that bit of the game lol.


More missions *will* come - it's just rather a lot of work to make them worth flying, so they come quite slowly

[Sensenmann]

I believe the current naming convention of the sides (Order, Opposite) on the T&T server is fine as is. Having Order represent the Entente and Opposite for the Central Powers simplifies the confusion of selecting the plane types a player is looking to fly. The mission objectives define the offensive and defensive sides well enough.

I am currently working on a couple of missions, one of which puts the Central Powers in a ground attack role (though my making these does not necessarily mean they will make the server list, that is up to Masaq). Plus, there is a mission already on the server, 1918 Somme attack, the one with the low, heavy cloud cover, and fog, in which the Huns are to attack the AAA in the city.

The biggest issue with putting the Germans in the offensive role is that none of the current planes carry bombs, and so they are limited to soft targets only.

It is possible to utilize AI controlled two-seaters as bombers (I think DFWs carry bombs), and put the players in escort roles, but my Wild Goose Chase mission demonstrates that the AI generates some lag and I am not certain where this is coming from or how to resolve it.

I have considered a mission where the Entente are on balloon defense, but the current ease of balloon destruction would make this a exercise in frustration for the defenders. If neoqb makes the balloons more resilient and also has them crank down upon approaching enemies, this might be a more interesting possiblity.

[sturmkraehe]

AI planes augment the number of planes in the air so I think this could be a reason. As a dev team member pointed out on a different thread there is still some buffer memory limitation that can cause errors when there are more than 30 planes. I could imagine it can cause performance probs too.

Actually I don't mind if one side always has the attack role. The problem is that it obliges ONE side only to counteract the ordinary virtual pilot's mindset while the other just has to shoot down planes or not at all to win the mission. That takes away quite a bit of fun when playing on the allied side.

[Seiseki]

I saw that one of the missions had a different background on the lobby screen instead of the standard forest scene, it was a destroyed village in no-mans land!
It's funny how I was rather amazed by a simple change like that, more such things would be appreciated since it spiced things up a bit

[DR_Cartouche]

hi all, just a little word to say hello to all funny and fairplay pilots i meet on your server.

i'll fly exclusively in full real mode since now, so just want to thank you for that great game experience on thet T+T server !! And see you soon all if you want try without icons and GPS, that a really exiting experience

Good Fly and Good Hunt All !!

and remember to play for fun

[Masaq]

Good to hear from you Cartouche, glad you're enjoying the server


Just to let people know - by clicking here:

http://www.rof-tools...cht.aspx?sid=37">http://www.rof-tools...cht.aspx?sid=37

You can view the current status of the server; if it's running, who's online, who's in what plane, what mission is loaded etc.

Hope you find it helpful, and I'll be putting the link both on the T&T website and in the intial post in this thread.

My thanks to Longarth and the others at RoF-tools.de for this handy little application.

Regards,


Masaq

[Seiseki]

Could we perhaps get a few missions where you start in the Air?

I find it a bit unbelievable that both sides take of at the same time and fly towards the same spot and battle, like moths drawn to a night light.
For example, any bombing raids and such, the attackers should start in the Air with the defenders scrambling to intercept them..

[Masaq]

T&T has been updated with 1.008 and a new mission (and two slightly different variants of it) kindly donated by WWBrian.

Enjoy!

[WWBrian]

Masaq"]T&T has been updated with 1.008 and a new mission (and two slightly different variants of it) kindly donated by WWBrian.

Enjoy!

You forgot to mention …

" that include the Camel and Dr.I."



p.s. I'll clean those up (I didnt test the mission at all) and send new version.

[Masaq]

LOL, yes, yes I did…


So yeah. T&T now includes hot camel action!

[Seiseki]

Gah, I'm getting game server connection lost errors all the time tonight and when I finally manage to join: "game server connection lost" before I manage to take off xD