ok, this needs NIV installed, (not included)

still alot of the old issue, but more playable !


http://ja2.h758491.serverkompetenz.net/Multiplayer-haydent/beta/
http://ja2.h758491.serverkompetenz.net/Wanne/MP/ (latest build)

http://ja2.h758491.serverkompetenz.net/Multiplayer-haydent/beta/readme_mp.html (readme)
https://81.169.133.124/source/ja2/branches/JA2_Multiplayer/merge (svn)


thanks a bunch to rowa for merging with latest svn 1.13 and NIV !

Please help testing the JA2 MP Mod by haydent:
Contact:
irc://quakenet/ja-galaxy
irc://quakenet/ja2-multiplayer

If I understood that correctly this is incredibly cool! Will test this out tomorrow.

This is some of the best news i've heard in a long time, Good Job Haydent!

Nicely done mate. Something the JA community has been wishing for since Deadly Games!

I tested the multiplayer version and it realy works. You did a great job haydent!
So the first step for JA2 multiplayer is done! Now it is only a question of time to have a fantastic JA2 multiplayer game ;-)

@haydent: If you need any help in coding, I would support you on that great project.

@all: The "Ja2_mp.ini" goes into the root folder of your JA2 installation. Next to the "ja2.ini" file

thanks for the offer, and its something im keen on, as there's a lot of simple work just creating calls/sends and receive/implements for what ever game actions can be integrated to enable as much of the features available from singleplayer... e.g. grenades, roof action, lock picking, synced structure damage and AI movements... etc. etc.

im taking an early Christmas camping trip for the next couple of weeks so nothing till after then , but ive allready made some advancements towards a "playable" release. with that id feel happy to open the code up to helpers. its just a bit messy and experimental right now, id like to clean it up and get to a release with these ideas features and some in code documentation:

->

*both players start a new game, connect to each other, set the battle sector, then hire their mercs for the match from the already implemented menus of aim and merc.

*as mentioned the server chooses an agreed apon start sector from the map and each team is heli dropped off for the battle, (this bit is almost done, with all sectors unlocked and heli droppable right from the beginning without omerta, ala quick battle- drop right on the queens nest )

*each team is considered as enemy to those mercs that should be allowing for turn-based combat with interupts ala normal single player but multiplayer (basically your network opponents are controlling AI disabled soldiers in the form of a hired merc chosen at start) ! perhaps hopefully having coop possible as well ...

Great news. This was the 1 thing i've been missing from Ja2.
If you can try to make it close to fully functional, well i would even pay for it.

Well done man!

nice to know... i guess we'll just see what we can do ... ps thanks for the rank

Great news!

Ooooh, delicious!

But how does merc selection is handled? Is it a first-come, first-serve basis or what? Seems the real issue with a multiplayer game is how to allow players fair selection of mercs.

Would be possible to code maps so that players would have specific objectives like in Deadly Games? One player has to hold position or protect an NPC from the other player, capture-the-flag games, stuff like that?

Can this be played via hotseat on one pc in turn based? I could get my girlfriend to play with me then. She loves to play with Ira:)

A chance to play co-op campaign would be super!

And in co-op could there be a way to make that characters from a different team would look like enemies in extreme range of vision? During night and rainstorms it could be a bit harder to tell enemy from a friend. It would make things interesting...

Just throwing ideas around in here.

I absolutely cannot wait to play an eighteen player co-op liberation of Arulco. Nice work.

haydent If you ever come to Portugal, Diner is on me!!!!

Thanks allot!!!!!!!!!

wow. best news in a long time. thanks a lot for the great work.

Great! I haven't yet tried it, but will try soon.

As I though, simple co-op was the easiest to get started with. I'm looking forward to a complete multiplayer mode.

so ? how it works ? could somebody explain it to me ?
It is good ? Somebody played already ?

Hey, congratulations! I can't believe how quickly you got it up and running. You'll be home for xmas right? I'll take a look at your code and help out where i can, but it seems like you're doing well already.

I can't wait to play a game against you!

p.s. don't forget about my model plane, it'd be sweet if you can get it all fixed up before i get home :-)

A thought on co-op, i do not think a co-op campaign would be very effective due to the time combat is small in comparison to time in mission.
However i really do like the thought of kicking my bro's butt into playing a co-op game vs'ing the red shirts on a map. With the huge map project, if they are successfully in making a very large map, with say 300 enemy soldiers on there, objectives or just cleanup, i see GREAT potential in brining a full type of game play in.

Now all i gotta do is find someone i can play...

Keep up the great work, and another hot x-mas is ahead for us

I have played

Its a very alpha release as the topic says, "proof of concept release".

It merges 2 SP games in one: you get the same enemys in the same positions in the 2 clients.

If one client kills an enemy, it will suddenly appear dead in the other client.

You are not able too see the other client's mercs yet, so you get the feeling that there are ghosts in the game (ppl dying all the sudden).

As the topic says its only a "proof of concept".

AND IT HAS BEEN PROOFED!!!!!!!!

lol. No it isn't, He has not yet dune any part of co-op, he simply does not allow one client mercs to interact with other client mercs.

if he did, it would be just an inch to get a death-match game ready.

to make it co-op, he will need to add the strategic screen to his multilayer code.

for what i have seen. He only has it working in the tactical screen.

To make one client's merc to interact with other client's merc (this is needed for co-op too) he will need to add a new faction to the tactical screen.

we have:
player's turn
enemy's turn
civilian's turn

he will have to have.
player01's turn
player02's turn
enemy's turn
civilian's turn

when he has this. he just has to make one player "not friend" to the other to have a death-match game ready.

Death-Match

this brings the question of respawning/reanimation. I'm pretty sure most players (me included) will be against any respawn/reanimation option, but when considering further gameplay modes/possibilities the idea is not so obsolete.

gameplay modes that *could* be fun

* coop (kind of obvious)
* capture the flag (this could be a blast)
* hunt (one or two hunters with supreme weapons, equipment. If one of the prey players kills a hunter, the both switch roles...)
* king of the Hill (deathmatch based)
* Mini-BF (=zone domination, teambased)
* objective destruction (team based)
* escape/evacuation

Oh wow. This is probably the best news I've gotten in... well, pretty much ever
Oh how I hope this concept will go ever so far.

Nice job, haydent. You've done this community a great service

Year, I dreamed for that sice I play Ja2.

I can't await a Deathmatch ore TDM Mode...

haha, how cool would it be to have a deathmatch game where one player controls a pack of blood cats (is that what they're called?), and the other player has a squad of shotgun carrying mercs :-P

could be pretty brutal!

@all: JA2 Multiplayer also works nice over WLAN ;-)

But how does merc selection is handled?

at starts it will be no restrictions for simplicity, ala either player can choose any available mercs,.

objectives... , can be no doubt coded in later

hotseat, not supported and not a focus

turnbased dr-d, yes that is the next thing, so the each player only controls their mercs and there is a turn based combat process...

i guess i could add in a new faction to the turn based scripting... maybe more professional than the "hack" i had in mind of making the opponent seem as enemy... have to look deeper into that part of the code...

Being able to add factions (as far as i have heard) is kinda messy in the code. However if you can unlock the secrets to adding factions, i believe there will be much celebration all around.

I think the problem with factions exists partly because there is no clean and consistent way to iterate over all teams and all members of a team. In my project I made some effort to improve the situation and I added some simple macros to iterate over team members. Of course there is more to do, but at least this is a small step in the right direction.
Stable multiplayer support in general is rather tedious, because there are several ad hoc ways to affect soldiers (set position, attack, get hit, etc.) and many global variables are involved.

-- This is translated by google, because my english is very bad ---

(Come form Germany!)


Hi folks!

What I see is another industrious an Ja2-Coop programming.

I am also in the process for about 2 weeks, I just use a different approach:

I write in 2 different languages, as I do with C + + only started a week ago.

All memory addresses which are needed by my server program can read and write.

(Because it contains the values of the soldiers, positions, etc.)

The server can either read the memory addresses, and in the Ja2 Coop version.



The Coop mode is only 2 player, but 6 soldiers in the team can be.

I am now when sending data to the player off, it actually works,

But an alpha, I will still not published.

At Christmas, I wanted to publish the time when I think as far.



The multiplayer is based on the Soruce code version of the 1202nd

If there is a newer version to download, then send me the address please.

If one maybe even speak German, and I want to help somehow,

Then he can write me happy!


I am sorry for my bad english,

I hope somebody can understand

This text.

sounds interesting... i got the email version first which had this extra:

Picture:

Memory Write / Read Memory Write / Read

Host -> TCP/IP-> Client

<-- Data <--

----------- Info -------- Info -----------
|Ja 2 Coop| <------> |Server| <------> |Ja 2 Coop|
----------- -------- -----------

im uploading mine to a svn today and then open to contribs.

as for factions , i easily defined three new teams/sides which get their turn in the action, im having a go now at the hiring of mercs and i guess the iteration probs you talk of would come into being able to send specific commands for a merc on one machine to the same on another when their uniqueID's are different on every computer and may be in different ubID slots ... ?

ubID Will always be a problem. The all merc ID was not prepared for multiplayer.

But you could take advantage of the multiple imp developed in 1.13.

So you could "copy paste" every chosen char stats(and data) to other char. That way you can have 2 "shadows" in the same game.

I would NOT have different IDs in each client. That will mess p things really bad

@haydent: Where do you upload your multipayer source code to svn?
Is this the location: http://81.169.133.124/source/ja2/branches/JA2_Multiplayer/

Please also post a litte "getting started" file where you describe the needed todo steps for implementing multiplayer functionality. That would be great.

i haven't uploaded yet as i need a resumable uplaod site, due to drop out with slow dialup and 7mb rar... if someone can suggest one thanks...

i thought i had added three new teams easily, but not ... they cycled through but i couldnt add merc to them, i thought i could , but it was just that the first new team i added had taken the place of the already implemented player_plan team... (so i scrapped the new teams thing for now) and will be sticking with your multiplayer opponents if opposed will be on the enemy team, or civ or melitia if friendly...

i got my merc adding working, was missing some #includes needed for the struct of tacticaladdsoldier ,

so i should have hiring of mercs and teams working in future

<>
But you could take advantage of the multiple imp developed in 1.13.

So you could "copy paste" every chosen char stats(and data) to other char. That way you can have 2 "shadows" in the same game.
<>

can you tell me more about this or point me to some code ? ...

ok, i just read the email with the svn login and am looknig into it now.. thanks

Just uploaded the source to https://81.169.133.124/source/ja2/branches/JA2_Multiplayer/
RoWa, haydent you should update it to the newest revision from the main branch.

OMG!!!! I have been waiting for this for sooooooooooo long.

What are the odds of getting multi-player co-op campaign going?

Thanks very much haydent!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know if a server computer would be a help to this project but I have an old Dell server I'd be willing to donate.

Please don't, that work is fundamental to a > 2 players game.

if we wana have a multiplayer team vs a multiplayer team( like 4 clients vs 4 clients ) we need to be able to add more factions to the code.

this can be dune with an militia turn but the middle-playing players would have to have an before militia turn and an after militia turn.

The way you take this step will be crucial to later multiplayer possibilities.

Please think it trough before hammering the existing code.

i have opened a new topic asking for IMP coders help.
With some luck, some one working in that group will come to help us

---Translated by google ---

Hi,

Here the concept of my coop mode as a picture:




Since I have determined the locations of each soldier
Jump to read, it is unfortunately not possible with other versions
of Ja2.exe to play, because it will give other addresses.



--------------


Hey haydent, you collect all the information through a feature?

Where can i download the MP source code ?

The https://81.169.133.124/source/ja2/branches/JA2_Multiplayer/
Site dosen`t work, because I haven`t a account.


I would like to see your work.

Unfortunately, I now find only a little time for my project, because I
Working all day long.

But of course I am working hard on it because if I have the time.

This site should work without any account in read only mode. Just try to enter the adress into Tortoise SVN and make a check out. Important: the address starts with https not http

for sure i want to have extra teams/factions and definately something to work towards, are you suggesting adding lan clients to the militia team or and new team all together ?

im at a cross roads with the ubID soldier selection .... you can get a merc's ubID from their merc profile ID, which is no problem and would work well when addressing remotes soldiers with new orders, but would only work with hired mercs and not the AI, therefore disableing possibilities of coop, which i was considering doing as this german guy sounds like it may come out seperately, but perhaps i will have another go at getting into the turned based scripting to create some new teams...

current progress done:

rough working process of:

start new game, join lan server, hire mercs which arrive instantly at desired sector, when all clients ready, prebattle interface pops' up (red screen), goto sector, all clients get to place their mercs from the overhead/map tactical gui screen in preallocated edge, when all done and ready, away we go ...

ps no server needed just yet...

oh yeah, the other problem was that all the soldier slots are taken/assigned between the current number of teams, so either one needs to reduce the size of some of the teams or increase the max soldiers of poss ??

The least of least( to be in a good way) you have to be able to call any turn when ever you want, exemple:

normal:

player turn
enemy turn
militia turn
civilian turn
--- end of cycle ---
player turn
.....

what need to be working:

militia turn (friendly player 1)
player turn
militia turn (friendly players 3 and 4)
enemy turn (hostile players 5, 6 , 7 and 8)
--- end of cycle. ---

As you see, militia turn is called 2 times in the same cycle, after end before the player.(assuming that the current player is player 2)

Gotthard works on increasing team size / max soldiers. The source is located under https://81.169.133.124/source/ja2/branches/Gotthard/NewMercs/

just a quick update of progressions over here...

am hoping and looking likely to release "beta" 2-4 team "playable" version soon b4 christmas... been working on it alot, and have implemented 4 new teams , hoping to have coop too, obviously lots could be implemeted but im not going all the way just yet, more of a quick hack and some working fun for friends... as feel my approach may be as not be as though-rough as say if you had a central server version of the game running that is streaming itself to the client who are streaming back their changes/controls... (my current one is more like a peer-to-peer analogy which im finding has its drawbacks with this engines complexity...

Hayden.

I'm eager to try it out Keep up the good work, Haydent.

ok, we got some more here for you ! and im looking for testing and feedback.

'Some' of the changes:

*4 team turn based action with upto 5 mercs per side !
(4th team has display issue, hopefully soon to be fixed)
* Hire your mercs from AIM and MERC,
* Place Bobby Rays Orders !
* Initiate and Utilise the Pre-Battle Interface and Tactical Placement GUI (overhead merc placement)
* Damage Divisor , for longer action
* Disable AI
* Choose sector starting edge
* Co-Op Partially implemented (more to come)
* extended documentation readme.html
* UI tweaks to speed menu actions and game setup

--- * * * ---


Once again thanks go out to lalienxx for helping this along with SVN space (which is now up to date) and web/ftp hosting for the documentation and .exe etc...

http://ja2.h758491.serverkompetenz.net/Multiplayer-haydent/pre-beta/
http://ja2.h758491.serverkompetenz.net/Multiplayer-haydent/pre-beta/readme.html
https://81.169.133.124/source/ja2/branches/JA2_Multiplayer/

----

hmm i should try this out if i find some free time from work.