Random mission selection = connection lost

[seawolf34]

Hi there,

Does anyone know why choosing the `random` mission in multiplayer would cause the other players on my server to get the`lost connection` error everytime I start the mission.

If I chose one of the preset multiplayer missions everything is fine & we can play online no problems, but obviously I'd like the use the random mission option as playing the same preset missions over and over again does get a tad boring!

Any help would be appreciated :damn:

[KlassenT]

Agreed, it does tend to get a little boring. Checking into one of the other recent topics, Asakura mentioned that the random mission generator (RMG) seems to work fine in 1.4, and Webster surmises that the engine overhauls from 1.4 -> 1.5 may have caused the issue.

As I recall, most of my multiplayer experiences have been within 1.5, and the RMG seems to work fine when there are two players involved, but three people will lead to a sync error about 75% of the time, and I've yet to get a random mission working with 4 skippers on board.

I'd go out on a limb and say that there's a timeout / TTL somewhere within the netplay engine which is being exceeded when the host tries to send the randomized mission profile to multiple clients, but I couldn't fathom a guess as to whether it's hardcoded or customizable. Even if it were an adjustable variable, I wouldn't have the first clue where to go poking around for it.

It's all speculation on my part, but the fact that it works with small groups and consistently fails with larger groups just gives me a gut instinct towards some sort of unseen 'limit' that's being hit, be it a connection timeout or surpassing an expected amount of bandwidth.

If anyone has any useful tips or tricks that I've somehow missed, I beg ya to let us know! I'm not sure how many times I can take the boys out to ambush the same convoys before I'll have a mutiny on my hands. :arrgh!:

Perhaps as a starting point, can anyone confirm 3+ member games working consistently within stock 1.4? If anyone knows a way to run multiple SH4 installations using the digital Steam version (I recall reading about a utility that lets you manage multiple installs, but I've no idea if it's compatible with digitl distributions), I'd be more than happy to set up a spare 1.4 in addition to my existing UBM.

I'd love to see Subsim credited with cracking the code on this one, and I'll help any way I can if someone has any ideas up their sleeve! :salute:

[KlassenT]

After rekindling the SH4 fire, my buddies and I have been trying random missions again, with limited success. Seems a bit more stable with 3 players now, though we haven't rallied four of us together at one time to play.

It's a strange explanation to be sure, but perhaps it was a long-standing server issue that's finally clearing up? Either that, or we've just been getting lucky... Any other reports?