SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUALLY..
 

Hi folks,

I'm trying to run my own, I guess you'd call it, PBW game using some free web server software and SE4.

But to test my settings, I need to be able to start SE4 in Host mode.

Can anyone show me how to do this?

Thanks in advance.

Rob aka dethgod74

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

Why aren't you using PBW? No other server is necessary.

Anyway, to answer your question, load a multiplayer game and when you get to the list of empires to log in, scroll all the way down to the bottom and select Game Master (Host). Enter the password and click login. Logged in as host, you can reset any empire's password to a randomly generated number (will not take effect until turn is processed) or process the turn.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

PBW already takes care of hosting in a very convenient manner. Why reinvent the wheel? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUALLY..
 

PBW is great for most purposes. However I can at least imagine a few reasons someone might want to run their own host. One would use a command-line syntax, I think, but I don't know what the syntax is.

PvK

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

Search for "command" in the history.txt file and you will find it at about the 5th result.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUALLY..
 

hello all,

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer. It's most appreciated.

The reason I'm 'reinventing the wheel' is we want to run the game at our own pace and on our own server. We're not being elitist or anything, it's just 4 old friends that can only get together every once in a while to game, even online. And a regular PBW game would probably not do.

If someone could tell me where to find plug and play PBW software for SE 4, I'm all ears. Is software for this purpose available as shareware/freeware or commercially?

Thanks again for your time!

Regards,

Rob aka dethgod74

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

PBW allows you to set what ever pace you want. You can easily create a game for just the 4 of you, then set it to "after last player upload only" for turn processing.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

Wrong pace is not a valid reason to not use PBW because you can set the game to have whatever pace you want. You could set a time limit for each turn of several weeks if you wanted to, or just set it to After Last Player Upload only which ignores time limits completely.

I would guess the reason you want to use your own server is to prevent other people from joining the game, and PBW lets you do that too. First, you can put a notice in the game description on PBW that it's a private game. If anyone ignores that and joins anyway, all players must be approved by the game host so you can just deny the interloper's request.

In summary, I simply cannot think of any possible reason not to use PBW that you're likely to run into. It has enough options to accomodate practically any play style, gives the host complete control over who is allowed to join, automatically creates a discussion forum for each game (by default only viewable by players in the game), provides turns by email (unless you disable that option in your preferences) and by direct download, and in general just has pretty much any feature the developers could think of that someone might want to use for running a game of SE4.

The only reasons I can think of to not use PBW are possible downtime and if you have a truly gigantic game. PBW's downtime is generally only a minor and infrequent inconvenience, and I doubt you're going to get a whole lot better without paying a lot more money than it's worth. As for large games, PBW has a time limit on how long it takes to process a turn and a size limit on the savegame file, but these are both high enough that very few games will ever run into them. The one game I remember this being a problem for was Return to (Micromanagement) Hell, where every player started with 10 homeworlds, all tech, and a private cluster of about a dozen systems isolated from the rest of the galaxy, and fleet sizes in the thousands of baseships were standard. The turns started having to be run manually offline when it started taking over 20 minutes as I recall, which is rather a lot longer than the longest most games usually take.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

Ive wanted to run a host mode on my own network also. I will try to find the answer.

I can see mentioning PBW but it doesnt seem like a good reason to not answer the question.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

Command Line Options:

Se4.exe "[Savegame path]" "[Password]" "[Player Number]" "[Mod path]" -nd

[Savegame Path] = Exact path to the savegame file.
[Game Password] = Either the game password if this is the host processing the turn, or
the players password if you want to launch directly into a player’s turn.
[Player Number] = The specific player number you wish to launch into, or 0 if this is
the host processing the turn.
[Mod path] = Override to the directory specified in the Path.txt file (this should
just be the directory name of the mod, exactly what’s in Path.txt).
You can leave this blank to just use the setting found in the Path.txt
file.
-nd = Optional flag which indicates if any error dialogs should be displayed
during the turn processing if an error occurs.

Note: To leave an option blank, just put two parenthesis with a space between them.

Examples:
Host processing the turn, with no dialogs.
Se4.exe "c:\program files\shrapnel games\malfador machination\space empires
iv\savegame\BigMulti.gam" "Master" "0" " " -nd

Player wants to launch directly into their game.
Se4.exe "c:\se4\savegame\mygame.gam" "mypass" "1" " "

Host wants to process a turn with an alternate mod path, and have dialogs be displayed.
Se4.exe "c:\se4\savegame\supergame.gam" "master" "0" "c:\se4\mydata"

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

Gandalf Parker said:
"I can see mentioning PBW but it doesnt seem like a good reason to not answer the question."

The command line question and the way to manually process in host mode were answered. I'm not sure what you are getting at here. There is no "roll your own PBW automated server" software to answer about. There were a few barebones backup scripts a few years back during extended down-time, but it was just a basic way to collect plr files without using email.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

The original question has been answered, we're just pointing out that there doesn't seem to be any point to it.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

Actually the PBW code was released awhile back if someone wanted to go that far. Im pretty sure I still have a copy of it.

Sorry douglas, I did overlook your answer.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

Uh, no it wasn't. And if you do I'd like to know where you got it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

One reason someone might want to run a game on their own server would be if they were using a mod that was changing a lot. We are a little slow with getting the mods up and on the server sometime and if you were doing mod testing, or just doing some kind of wierd game where the mod changes frequently you might want to run it on your own server where you can make changes on the fly.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

One reason someone might want to run a game on their own server would be if they were using a mod that was changing a lot. We are a little slow with getting the mods up and on the server sometime and if you were doing mod testing, or just doing some kind of wierd game where the mod changes frequently you might want to run it on your own server where you can make changes on the fly.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

One reason someone might want to run a game on their own server would be if they were using a mod that was changing a lot. We are a little slow with getting the mods up and on the server sometime and if you were doing mod testing, or just doing some kind of wierd game where the mod changes frequently you might want to run it on your own server where you can make changes on the fly.

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

Hi Gandalf,

Thanks for answering my question.

I tried the link you sent, it didn't work. Could it be that it was pathed to a drive local to you?

If the link was to a particular page or section of SE 4, if you could tell me what page or part, I'll look it up myself.

Thanks again for your time.

Regards,

Rob aka dethgod74

Re: SE4 Host mode... How to start host mode MANUAL
 

dethgod74,

see Gandalf's post after that one - it looks pretty complete. And/or see Fyron's answer (search in history.txt), and/or Gandalf's link, on your SE4 installation (the SE4 manual in your SE4 directory in the Manual subfolder, and also linked inside the game UI - if you have Deluxe, it's also SE4DeluxeManual.pdf ).

PvK