ClaytoniousRex

It's great to have you playing, Iceman! Yes, and a fix for at least one cause of this is on the way. Would you please post your system specs? Does this happen to you every time a game ends, on every server?

Actually, we've been able to run and play on a Mac Mini that sounds close to your "below spec" specs. I think it is 1.2 GHz with a Radeon 9200 and 1 gig of RAM, so it's a *little* beefier than yours but not by much. I'm quite willing to peek at your log and see if there's anything we can do to get you running. (Honestly, though, it's going to be pretty slow which might frustrate you in-game). First, try these settings: Turn OFF terrain VBO (by default it is ON) Turn OFF texture cacheing (by default it is ON) Make sure these are still off (should have been off by default): shadows, shaders, hdr, foliage. Try running that way and see if you can get in. If it's still a no-go, then email your Dropteam.log to support@tbgsoftware.com and we'll have a look.

Good news, Bonxa. We'll probably include it in the /lib dir ourselves from now on. Thanks, EMIG! Everything else looking OK on gentoo? Well, Mac, let's try it the brute force way first. Put this in your DropTeam/lib directory and try again: http://tbgsoftware.com/libslang-utf8.so.1 If that doesn't get us to the next dependency (which looks to be libgpm based on your ldd output, then that should be the last one) then we'll switch to a more analytical approach, Your efforts to get it running on a 64-bit system are very helpful and much appreciated!

Argh! Any coffee shops with wireless access you could go to? Maybe a university? Something!?

Bonxa, for running your own server, start with page 55 in here: http://tbgsoftware.com/PublicTestManual.pdf and after skimming that over, let me know what I can clarify or help with from there.

After creating your account, did you type that new username and password into the fields on the Account tab? If so, then the next most common mistake is to not realize that usernames AND passwords are both case-sensitive. People quite often enter a username and/or password with something capitalized when they register their account, then try to login without the capitalization (or with extra capitalization). If you're sure those don't apply to you, then tell me the username you have registered and I will reset the password for you and email the new password to you.

Extracting is a far better option than scuttling. By scuttling you're permanently losing that item from your team's inventory for the rest of the game.

You're right that it's not compiled for 64-bit, but our aim is to provide at least the vast majority of dependencies as precompiled binaries in the /lib directory. We hope that, at worst, you might have to install 1 or 2 packages (such as libaa) to get up and running. To see what's really happening, when you run ldd, this needs to all be on one line, not two separate commands as you did above: </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">LD_LIBRARY_PATH=../lib ldd ./SpaceVikings</pre>

It was left out of the Linux build, unfortunately. You can access it directly here: http://tbgsoftware.com/PublicTestManual.pdf Glad to hear it's working well and, yes, it's very useful to have your specs. Thanks very much!

You can use an RPM to install it on Redhat Enterprise. Get the RPM from someplace such as here: http://dries.ulyssis.org/rpm/packages/aalib/info.html (or whatever repository you like) then do something like this to install it: </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">sudo rpm -Uvh ./aalib-1.4.0-0.rc5.4.i386.rpm</pre>

Hi, Macavity. Can you go into the bin subdirectory and do: </font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">LD_LIBRARY_PATH=../bin ldd ./SpaceVikings</pre>

And since you have your own private horde to play with, feel free to shout if you want some help setting up your own dedicated server(s) there on on campus.

You're right on both counts about the password box. We'll clean that up.

Hi, Bonxa! Hordes of students sounds simply wonderful. libaa is the "Ascii Art" library. It's broadly available for all of the major distros as RPM, through Yum, Portage, etc. If you want to tell me what Linux distro you're running then I can point you to specific instructions for installing it.

We've tested with 81.78, so please let us know if updating to the 81.78 driver resolves the problem. What specific video card is it?

Specifically for you ATI guys, you must have Catalyst 6.2 or higher installed. This indicates that an OpenGL extension failed to load, which almost certainly means your video drivers are stale. Can you verify that you have installed Catalyst 6.2 from ATI's site?

There are three ways to play DropTeam but this public multiplayer test focuses on only one of them. </font> Public Servers - You can join a public server and play with whoever happens to be on at the moment. This is how you will probably play during this public multiplayer test, since our main goal with this release is to stress test the game's networking. This is a fun way to play, but it's not for everyone. The amount of fun you have is often related to the quality of teammates you happen to find.</font>Head-to-head - You can run your own server on a LAN or on the Internet to play against one opponent. This is my favorite way to play. Since there is only 1 human player on each team, the rest of the units in the game are controlled by AI. This leaves you in complete control of all of your units. The game plays more like a RTS in this mode since you need to coordinate all of the bots on your team. You're pitting your command skills against the other player's. You can play this way with this public multiplayer test release, but you have to put up your own dedicated server to do it. In the full release of the game, you can run a hybrid client/server box so you don't need a separate, dedicated server.</font>Private games - By hosting your own dedicated server, you can still play with dozens of people online, but you can limit it to those people who you *want* to play with. You can also decide which scenario to play, who is on each team, the game type to play, etc. This is a great way to play with a regular group of friends and hone your teamwork skills together.</font> When playing on a public server, obey this single golden rule if you really want to have fun: Talk to your team! 12 guys independently driving vehicles around and shooting isn't very stimulating. 12 guys coordinating an attack plan and supporting one another with different types of units is the most fun you can have online. It's up to you! [ March 16, 2006, 02:13 PM: Message edited by: ClaytoniousRex ]

Eventually it will be a universal binary, but not until some of the 3rd party libraries we're using become universal themselves. The upcoming public multiplayer test will not yet have support for Intel-based macs. It shouldn't be very long before all of our 3rd parties catch up and as soon as they do we'll release the universal binary version.

I *knew* that post was coming... No, Drusus, it's much cleaner to use: const int WEEKS = when it is done; instead of using the preprocessor. Tsk tsk...

Yes, LtCol West, we're looking at various types of smaller, autonomous units like that but of course they're in line behind infantry. We've worked very hard to make DropTeam extensible so dropping in new types of units is relatively easy (and as they become available they will be free downloads). We might even find some creative modders out there introducing this kind of thing before we have a chance to.

The Gamecloud interview was referring to the private beta testing that has been ongoing for a while now. This thread is referring to the upcoming public multiplayer test that everyone can participate in.

I understand your objection, PzKpfw IV. In fact, DropTeam does model reflection off of sloped surfaces not simply some kind of "higher thickness" by itself. Rounds that ricochet are literally modelled in the game so if your frame rate is high enough (or the projectile is slow enough) you can actually see them bounce off of the target (and potentially hit something else at *greatly* reduced effectiveness). It's funny that you should point this out because in the past I've always been uncomfortable with that simplified description of sloped armor, too. Yet here we are after all these years of effort and I end up slapping that same simplified description onto DropTeam's website. Oh, the irony...

Rollstoy, that very frustration you described is the reason we set out to create DropTeam in the first place. We know exactly how you feel! I think MattH's analysis pretty much hits the nail on the head (as usual).

You're going to love it, Rifleman. DropTeam is a layered onion: it's instantly accessible when you sit down to play using simple WASD + mouse just as you described, but that belies the fact that there are many layers of complexity for you to delve into. Eventually you will graduate from that simple formula of "driving and shooting" into issuing orders to the units under your command, switching to the tac display to keep track of the overall battle, using tactics and various weapons and systems in creative ways, sometimes not even bothering to directly control a unit but instead spending all of your time directing the actions of your team from the map, using observer mode to watch from other people's point of view, etc.

No, it isn't. This is like saying "it's impossible to breath in a vacuum, so this game won't work." If vehicles didn't bring their own air then that would be true. Likewise, if ammunition didn't use its own sealed propellant with oxygen, then it wouldn't fire. Yeah, I can hear horseback cavalry officers a 150 years ago saying "How unrealistic... a 65-ton metal fighting machine on tracks with 'chobham' etc - gee ... like THAT will ever happen!" So just to be clear, Kessel, if a game models a world where something has changed over time, such as a new means of propulsion that don't exist today, then your response is to roll your eyes and denigrate anyone who wants to play that game? Apology accepted.