Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Hello new to Space Empires and from what little i have ventured into the game i would have to say i love it! Had a couple friends come over to play lan game with me, i have 3 computers networked here at home. Lan games played out fine my friends loved the game and have now ordered and received thier copies.
Now comes the problem. We are trying to play tci/ip games and cannot seem to get the game to work. I looked at the sticky thread a step by step help in configuring tcp/ip ports etc. Well we did all that and still none of us can host a game.
Basically I set up my host pc they connect, i see them in the tcp/ip game screen it tells me they are connected. Then the next few minutes they get a message saying failed to connect to host but i still see them connected on my end.
We have tried everything, i have re-routed my ports settings 10 times and still nothing. Can anyone offer some advice or help on this matter. Im sure its something small becasue we are basically connecting half way there or i would not see them come into my game at all. Something i believe is not allowing them or me to send the rest of the infromatino that needs to be.
I have tcp and udp ports 6716 thru 6720 open forwarded to my ip address. I am running Windows XP pro with the internal xp firewall off. There should be nothging as far ast his wrong i dont believe.
Anyway please someone help. I would love to get this going i have a nice server built and would love to start hosting some tcp/ip games for people.......if i can get my connection to work. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

I guess i ll have to keep bumping until someone helps me out! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Bump Again

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

First of all, be a little more patient. Posts are not always answered within 10 minutes. Though, if you come into the #SE4 channel on Gamesnet IRC, they can be. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Are the ports forwarded to the internal network IP of your computer? That is where they should be sent if you are behind a router. An example would be 192.168.0.1.

[ December 30, 2002, 23:31: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Thanks for answearing. And you are right i should learn to be more patient http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Yes in my port routing tables, I have this ports opened to my host pc computers ip address. I do believe that is right in my setup or they would not be able to connect halfway to my host pc. Like i said i can see them connected and the game says there connected but after a minute they get a message on there end that they cannot connect to host.. but i still see them as connected on my host pc.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Easiest way to handle this would be to setup a private game on the PBW server and play from there. I, myself, have not attempted tcp/ip setup from outside my network, or I would tell you how I did it.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Can you give me the link to this games net irc....i would like to find a live chat also.

Thanks,
Krom

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Thanks Gandalph....i have done that. It works good but i would rather play tcp/ip and not have to worry with the PBM service etc.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You must first have an IRC client program, you can find a good one at www.mirc.com, then you connect to gamesnet with the IRC prog, then you join channel #se4.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Well Fyron tried to help me tonite thru irc channel...thanks for the help. Still not working though. Tomorrow going to try and uninstall the game and reinstall see if that helps something could have got corrupted with all the mods ive been trying lately.

If you have any multiplayer fix or nightmare stories that could shed some light on my problem please post here.... thanks .

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

GenTopGun
I tried several times. I could not get it working. guess we could see what our systems have in common.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Ok Ghryphon thanks for responding.

Lets see.. my system.......
WinXpPro runninga an Alacatel Speed Touch Pro router/modem combo has built in hardware firewall...i am not running any other firewall except for the xp firewall but it is turned off.

My router/modem config i have to do differently than a person with a Linksys etc. I have to setup what is called a telnet session in a command prompt to reroute port setting etc. Opening ports is a bit of a headache with my system. But it does work. I have to reroute ports all the time to play games on the interenet and 100% of them time it works. But with SEIV it has not.

What i have do is just go into my telnet session and create a forwarded port to my internal ip address of this pc. I have 3 pcs networked at home eache with its on ip. For example the lan ip for this pc is 10.0.0.2. All i have to in the telnet session to route lets say the two ports that SEIV uses:6716 and 6720, is create a udp port directed to that lan ip of 10.0.0.2. Thats it. And like i said it has worked for ever other game i play, NWN, Civ3PTW, etc, but this is one game that it does not.

It has to be a simple problem though. When i host i can see players join my host pc, there namea nd all and it says in the tcp/ip box, that they are connected, but after a minute the player gets a warning box saying it could not get connected to host. When i try to join as player same thing, they see me connected but my pc cannot establish connection to host.
So basically im getting connected about halfway and something is stopping or blocking the full connection. So i dont know, maybe im just not meant to play this game by tcp/ip http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

I suggest emailing MM with this.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Man, I wish I knew how me and my brother fixed this.
We had the same problem, I would host the game and I could see him connect on my end, but at his end it said 'could not connect to host'. We played around with some things and finally got it to work. But I cannot remember how we did it. It has been along time since then. We just recently tried it again but now it isn't working again.
I know one problem we had is I am on a home network and the internet is put through our server in our basement. At first me and my brother were trying to connect and he would put in my IP addy that I get when I run ipconfig in the command prompt. But then I decided to get my actual IP number and that helped with the problem. I am pretty sure that is what fixed it for good.
But its not working now, we think, because he has got a router and we cannot figure out a way to get around that just yet.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Thanks again for the replies. As far as your suggestion Ragnorok, when we try to connect we do use our acutal ip addresses provided by our ISP provider. Meaning when they try to connect they do not type in the 10.0.0.2 which is the lan ip i have for my host, they type in my acutal ip address. Probably shortly i just go get a linksys router and dump this piece of crap of modem/router i have.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

You did not alter the Source IP lines at all in SE4, did you? Doing so is not a good idea.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

I have had better luck hosting from a Win98SE machine... I don't know what OS's you have or how many computers you have, but I would suggest trying to setup a PC (with 98), just for the purpose of hosting and see if that fixes your problem (Dual boot if necessary).

I also noticed a problem with a PC with a VPN software installed (for access to corporate network). I don't know if this is a factor, but the above solution might fix your problem.

KirbyEF

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Fyron...no i havent messed with those but since you mentioned them where would i find those source lines at?

Kirbyf.....right now im running winxp pro..i ahve 3 pcs networked....see my writup for additional info....as for VPN software no i do not have nay running i dont think..as far the win 98 se.. that might be a possiblity..all my pcs are running xp pro at moment i may change one over to test that theory of yours.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

It is in the screen where the player selects a nick and a host IP to connect to.

I host and play from 2000 with no problems. XP is the next generation of 2000, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

[ January 01, 2003, 08:16: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

No. I havent changed that either. That is true..about win2000, however in xp they did change the kernal somewhat that xp runs off of, including some of the network code etc. One of my friends has 98 still on a laptop he is going to try and get it going and host a game today see if that changes anything.
Im on a quest now to solve the tcp/ip woes of this game one way or another!!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

GenTomGun ,
Sorry I have not responded sooner. I hope someone finds it.

Ragnarok
"Actual IP Address", where do I find that?
Thanks.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That's the thing. I don't know. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif When I found it then it was sent to me in some justsaywow crap or something like that that showed my IP address with it. The way I can find my IP now is the SEIV by commitee forum. (Since I am one of the mods. there I can look at peoples IP addresses. So I just looked at my own IP addy and used that. Other then that I don't know where you can find it.)
If you want me to give it to you just jump over to that forum real quick, post in the Political Ministers forum (mine) and I can email you your IP address.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

Mephisto, may that makes since and i have thought the same thing about my hosting receiving Messages but not sending out properly, however I am postive that my ports are opened correctly as per the book. The SEIV rulebook in back just says that you need to open udp port 6716 for Messages and port 6720 for file streams.

Re: Please Help!!!!--Multiplayer
 

You can get your IP-Addresses by opening a DOS-box and typing "ipconfig" (with w2k). It should show all the available IPs for your PC (LAN, PPP-Adapter...).
My two tips for the problem would be:

1) First, try your local IP (LAN), not the one from your ISP. If you have a NAT (Network Address Translation) anywhere in your system activated, it will translated your local IP into one for the I-Net and vice versa (roughly spoken).

2.) Make sure the host can sent packages out, not just receive them. This would explain why you as the host can see the players (they can sent you packets) but won't see any response (your packages never leave the firewall).