PBW now supporting SE5.

[Phoenix-D]

Geo, you shouldn't have to define a mod version for each game. Say someone wanted to use the Balance Mod. Fine, stick it in the Gametypes folder.

Once the first turn is made and uploaded, PBW will do the rest automatically; every time the savegame is loaded, it checks to see if the mod folder is there, and if it is, it uses it.

The only wrinkle is the mod folder name must be exactly the same on PBW and on the host's computer, but that's not a big deal..

Someone else wants to use the Balance Mod? No problem, its already set up. The only problem is mod updates.

[geoschmo]

As a test of this I went ahead and added the Balance Mod version .99 to the server gametypes folder. I guess that's all that has to happen. I've never tested whether or not running it from the command line actually pulls from the correct mod folder however. Have anyone verified this running from the command line? If you want to let PBW try and process yours turns that would be cool. I am assuming you would have some way of knowing whether it actually used the mod and not the stock files?

It does look a little confusing as there is still only one version of SE5 showing on PBW even though it's setup for the mod to work. What I will do tonight is add a version ID for the Balance mod, but it will point to the same .exe the stock files pull from. Then if it's working right the savegame file should know where to get the datafiles from.

Then the only issue becomes one of updating when Kwok updates the mod. I'm assuming that if I update the mod on the server and you don't update your pc you will get some sort of version mispatch error when you try to open the next turn. Is that correct?

Geoschmo

[Phoenix-D]

Haven't tested it, so I'm not sure. I'll stick my game into auto-run and see what happens..

[geoschmo]

Well it appears that the PBW server auto-processed at least one turn, and I didn't hear any earth shattering boom form the general direction of my garage so that much is ok.

Actually I had tested that much myself and was confident the turns would process fine. I'm curious though whether it seemed to use the mod data files correctly.

I'm also curious to see how long it's going to take to processes games once the empires get large and complicated. In SE4 it's not uncommon for epic games to hit the 20 minute timeout after 100 turns or so. Hopefully SE5 won't end up being more resource intensive and seeing games time out sooner. We'll see what happens in that case.

Geoschmo

[Phoenix-D]

Looks like its running all right.

Now I just have to figure out simultaneous play in SE5.

[Phoenix-D]

Several turns processed without issue. It does seem to take longer than SE4, which isn't surprising. The thing that concerns me is the PBW server timing out, and potential save-game size issues..

[geoschmo]

I think the limit is 10 MB for uploads. That's probably only a concern if you have to run a turn offline and upload it as a manual replacement. I can't imagine a .plr file coming close to that.

The turn 20 minute turn timeout could become an issue. We'll have to keep an eye on that.