Dedicated Server/Session

[tindolt-zz]

Can we get some dedicated stuff that will be hopefully better on desyncs?

[mattthewaz]

I'm interested in researching this, but I encourage others who are interested to do so as well.

[MilanDierick]

This won't be included in the next release, we are going to focus on fixing up the vanilla experience first. This will be added on the road map though, since dedicated software should really help with larger player counts.

[mattthewaz]

I have started a branch on my fork for this project. At this point this project is for research purposes. I'm hoping to learn what limitations will get in our way by putting in an appropriate framework for running the server in a standalone application.

I'll be handling this in steps:

• Read in ServerSettings from ini file. This will cover all the options a Host can select on the HostWindow. It will try to be be useful to the person running it by informing them if there were issues reading in the file (missing file, missing property, etc.)
• Create and display a listing of Replays, Saves and Autosaves, and allow user to select a file (or quit)
• Take the information accumulated so far (ServerSettings and SaveFile) and start the MultiplayerServer on a new thread.
• Enter a loop on the main thread that listens for console commands. For simplicity's sake, this will behave exactly like when a user types a command into chat. Will add additional commands if need be to support saving full replays or quitting.

So far I've completed the initial implementation of the first step. See https://github.com/mattthewaz/Multiplayer-1/tree/dedicatedServer

[rmgr]

I've been thinking about how this could work. I'm sure there are terrible repercussions I haven't thought about but what about instead of reverse engineering the entire game to run the simulation, the server acts as a gateway which uses the first person to join as the "host". Otherwise wouldn't you basically need a working copy of the game to host a dedicated server?