Bulau
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Posts posted by Bulau
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Sadly, no! I never used SimProbe, but went straight to latest CumulusX! and SimLogger...but...had I known...
Now the post is gone, and this discussion is a non-sequiter.
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Undocumented feature of SimProbe?
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thanks for trying out and the feedback. It's really good to know what people bothers. I will leave the server running still for while, but I think I will shut it down finally.
Peter, what other factors figure into your decision? My opinion is only one opinion, and what bothers me may be a non-issue for others.
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There are pros and cons with everything. FSHost allows connection with domain name as well as IP. It really is convenient to just plug in a domain name that doesn't change, and not have to exchange IP numbers which are dynamic. A static IP would solve that, for a price. Also, if you intend to host for FSX and earlier versions of FS, then FSHost accommodates that. I hope to find out soon, just how large a crowd can be brought together for a multiplayer task using just FSX Direct IP.
The jittery movements are, of course, only apparent when you are close enough to see the other player. Unfortunately, that is one of the prime motivators for us to do multiplayer, and it's too bad there seems to way to fix it. Then again, it's not uncommon on a multiplayer task, to not be near the other pilots except at the start gate.
It's clear to me now, that even with FSHost, there still has to be something organized for multiplayer to happen. It's the closest thing we have to a dedicated server, but you still have to get the task somewhere first, and know who will fly and when they will fly.
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Is the Polar Gauge ready for release, Max?
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Tonight was our regular flying night with my friend, DC, and we decided to fly this task. We flew it twice, once using Peter's FSHost, and second time Direct IP. We noticed the jittery movement with FSHost, and it was pretty much a deal-breaker for us. Direct IP is rock solid.
The first try, DC landed out, and I flew too fast and ended up low, lost time regaining height and did worse than the flight from 30th January. Also crashed when landing due to playing with external views for video. The next try, I got a good fast start, but again crossed the start line a tad over, at 3032m. Forgot to save an IGC with Sim Logger, so I had to get one from Flight Viewer 2, which shows 36:55, 171.4km/h.
Opening it in Cambridge Aero Explorer, I can't get it to recognize the start, I think because with the Direct IP, we ended up with a takeoff from runway instead of the airborne start. No idea why that happened.
Are you still planning to run this as a multiplayer contest?
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Yep, we got a couple of weeks to come up with some good Open Class tasks, then!
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You mentioned the start time in the Readme, but it was not a factor. I simply flew conservatively compared to you, and had excess height at the finish, which I should have converted to speed earlier.
I have two suggestions, if that is not out of line:
1. Set and enforce a maximum start height. This helps to create a more equitable contest and discourages cloud flying where that may be a factor. Of course, then you must ensure that everyone can achieve that height before starting. In this case, it seems simple, as the starting location is right in some lift.
2. Create and include a .PLN file in the distribution. Although any aircraft can be used with the CAISet popup, adding a .PLN and making sure that flight plan is referenced in the .FLT file opens up the task to some other aircraft/instrument options, like the DG-808S, UKVGA_ASW28 and Ian's new XML instruments.
but it's your contest and you should set it up however you want.
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It appeared that you had thought about start height, because the flight began at a little above 3000m, I forget what exactly, but by slow cruising, I arrived at the start very close to 3000m. There was, of course, opportunity to gain some height before starting, then do a proper high speed start if desired, but I didn't try that due to unfamiliarity with the course. I have saved IGC files from both Sim Logger and from the FZ Viewer, and I'll try to remember to upload them tonight when I get home.
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Are you enforcing a maximum start height? (RL was 3000m) I thought I was under, but Flight Viewer says I crossed start line at 3070m.
Anyhow, 43:26 145.7 km/hr
What do we submit for scoring?
I had lots of extra height at finish, so should have been faster.
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...I don't measure bandwidth usage since I have never had more than about 7 on at a time.
Oh, I meant your ISP available bandwidth, i.e. upload/download bandwidth, "speed" not usage.
had in mind to have a funfly/contest for Dillingham, HI this coming weekend, but it's not coming along so well. And as far as the SOAR Ranch area, I think I really need to do a lot of flying the area a bit more to find out just what ridges (& what wind speed and angle) work the best for newer pilots......I've got two other servers set up as FunFly/Competition templates. I may turn them on so you can take a look at it. I do have the participants download the files they need, like tasks, bgl files, etc. When running a FunFly/Contest, I set the weather with FSHost so everybody gets the same weather.
What's your availability Tuesday evenings, from 8:30pm EST and after? (6:30pm your time, I think). I'd like to get some kind of hosting going in the next month or so, but still trying to understand all the details. I understand that you are catering to FS2004 as well as FSX, so that seems to add some additional requirements. At the moment, my plan is to host with FSX in mind.
In any case, it would be good to get together on teamspeak, and fly something that you have, just so you can walk me through the steps you have to take to get all the participants on the same page. Can be anything, old, new, borrowed, blue, as long as it can be done with FSX and no add-on terrain. I have CX! I'd like to discuss some of the ideas you have in mind as well. I think only my brother may be around this Tuesday, the 1st Feb.
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...the guide arrow was off by quite a bit...
I thought it was a "feature".
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Hi, Scott!
Can you tell me a bit about how your server is being used these days? I mean, how many people are using it, and when they use it. What is the bandwidth?
Are there any regular scheduled/organized contests being run? Looking over the forum here, the most recent event I can find was the SOARRanch Fun/Fly on April 23-25, 2010. Was there something since then?
Do you prepare tasks for the server, or can anyone prepare one to run? I just joined the 23456 one, and it seems people who join can set whatever they want for weather, season, time, etc., which means they can run tasks of their own design.
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I may have something in production right now that is from a real world glider competition that may get you through in under an hour. Some of the competitors were in the 40 minute range.
Sounds interesting! One thing I've done with the Rieti tasks, was to fly the World Class task with Standard Class glider. The World Class (PW5) are usually fairly short, like around 200km, so can be flown with Standard class in 2 hours or less.
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I have still set up my session, so we can try now.
Much thanks to Peter, who took the time to check this out. Fortunately I saw this post just before I was about to shut everything down. Connectivity is confirmed with my FSHost, and we could see each other, which I did not expect would work, since I only have the required ports forwarded to the computer running FSHost. Hopefully, this will not break down when there are a large number connected.
And also, thanks bruin! I just checked on the server by VNC and noticed you had made a connection a few minutes ago.
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I've read the FAQ, which specifically recommends to run FSHost and FSX on the same computer. On the forum, there are some old threads by persons trying to do what I'm trying, which is run them on separate computers behind same router, but they are all old threads and no report if anyone ever got it to work.
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Ok, I'm going to leave this thing running today. I will be able to check on it from time to time from the office.
If anyone has a chance please see if you can connect to it at:
8fsserver.dyndns.org
Thanks
The webpage works fine, just not the player connections.
NOTE: I still think my idea of running FSHost on a separate dedicated server is facing one last hurdle, and that is the requirements for FSHost machine, and players to have all the same ports forwarded. With FSHost and my game on separate computers, my router refuses to forward the same ports to two different IP. I gather this is really concerning the Direct Play range of 2300-2400, and I found out about some software on the FSHost forum that can split that range in two. If it doesn't work, then this idea is doomed.
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Thanks for sharing this bruin! Recreating RL tasks in Flight Sims has long been an interest of mine. I used to do it quite a lot in Condor, starting with the WGC2008 in Rieti, Italy. I think it is because I view Flight Simulators as "simulators", and not a "game", that I like to make things as realistic as possible, and what better way than to set up a task that real pilots flew, in a real competition, somewhere in the world?
Unfortunately, I usually don't find time to actually fly them however, since tasks in modern World Cup competitions, when the weather is good, tend to be very long flights. This one is 325km. If that were a thermal flight, I know it would take me 3 to 4 hours, which is a bit past my limit. But looks like, from wind and terrain, there might be quite a bit of ridge on this task, which tends to speed things up.
Getting good weather data is often the hardest part of this sort of project. I see your weather forecast includes thermal strenth, which is the one thing I have trouble finding and have to guess at. Sometimes the competitors IGC is a good source for that. I have usually used Weather Underground sites, since quite often they maintain historical data, sometimes going back a few years.
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Sorry, I forgot to say that it is run as an online contest, and so everyone uses the same time so everyone has the same thermals (if thermals are used).
Yep, I understand that everyone must set the same time to get the same thermals. I'm just not sure why you are sending them to a website for the time, versus just telling them to set the time to 2:00pm, for example. I'm thinking in terms of multiplayer. What we have been doing is distributing the saved Free Flight files, which includes the time and season, weather, etc.
The script.dat file is used by CumulusX! to place the thermals in FSX.OK, I'm not familiar with the scripts. I and my friends have just been using CumulusX! Autogenerated thermals with the default configuration. What does the script do that Autogen thermals don't?
I fired up FSHost tonight, and my brother and my friend could not connect (Session not found), but they were able to connect to Peter's no problem. I had forwarded on the router:
23456 UDP
6073 UDP
6112 UDP
2300-2400 UDP
80 TCP
However in the Windows Firewall, I had all the above, except I did not do the entire 2300-2400 range, but only 2300.
Reason: I could not be arsed to make one hundred separate exceptions for those, as the Windows Firewall GUI makes you do, while my brother and friend were waiting for me to finish! (I thought those ports were for FS2004)
Anyhow, I have since run a script which opened all one hundred of those ports, but haven't been able to test it yet, other than I just ran FSPortTest_1.5 and it says everything is OK.
Do the players also need to forward and open all of those same ports?
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I would be using the CAIset with both FS2004 and FSX participants. So the files that would have to be given would be the GPS-NAV.dat , the script file, instructions, and definitely a website that the FSX users can go to to get the time for that region.
OK, so GPS-NAV.dat has the task, and FSHost sends the weather.
And you tell them which airport is being used, of course.
FSX participants are responsible for setting time of day. Why a website for the time? Don't you just tell them what time of day to set for the task?
What about CumulusX!? Do you distribute a .cmx file, or just specify a default setting?
Ok, here's an odd thing, when I joined Peter's server, and also yours last night, I spawned at a local airport, Belleville, Ontario (CNU4), and I used a flight plan that had summer, August 6. Then I selected a Multiplayer Soaring Clock in CumulusX! of 6 hours (Peter's instructions), and when everything reloaded, I had autumn colours on all the trees. What is going on there?
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btw. can anybody tell me how to attach these screenshot as thumbnails ?
I click on the "Browse...". then the "Attach This File" buttons at the bottom of the compose post.
What are you doing? The insert image button at the top?
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Yeah, ok, maybe it was the time I read...I can't find it anymore. So that's good then if the weather gets read. I was about to connect to your FSHost earlier, then I got distracted talking to my brother on the phone. I did connect to Peter's and I suppose I did get his weather settings because the clouds were almost on the ground where I was in Minden.
What about CumulusX! settings? I guess that is still handled client side? Does your server use a CumulusX! soaring clock setting?
So, walk me through this, Scott...suppose you were going to host a soaring task that we would fly together. What are the steps you would take to ensure that we both end up in the same place, same time, aircraft, weather, CX! settings, etc.? Assuming I already know how to host Direct IP with save Flight Plans emailed to other participants, what is defferent or additional requirements when using FSHost?
What about the "jitter" issue I mentioned, with FSX, when flying close formation with other player? Have you encountered it?
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I had read about "jitter" issues with FSX and FSHost, so never explored using it at all. If everyone I'm hosting for is using FSX, is there any advantage to using FSHost, rather that straight FSX Direct IP? I'm thinking of giving it a try, just to see what it is like. I have a dedicated server that runs 24/7, so it seems an ideal platform for FSHost.
I don't understand how the weather is supposed to work. I see it's possible to set weather in FSHost, but then I read that FSX does not recognize that weather settings, and uses whatever the client has set. I assume then, we would still have to distribute the Flight Plans .FLT, .PLN, and .WX files, and everybody loads those so they have the same settings?
I connected to Peter's FSHost earlier, but got clouds at very low level, nothing like what was set in the flight plan I loaded.
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Never mind...Tow Plane is smart...I am stupid!
I was invoking it at the wrong time!
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Qualifying GP'10 Switzerland
in Races - Contests - Tours
Posted
OK, I can't figure this out. When I load this as a Free Flight (and that applies with FSHost of course), I get the airborne start that is configured in the .FLT file. But when I host it as a FSX Multiplayer session (DirectIP), loading the exact same Free Flight, we all start on the runway at Samedan. Why is that happening?