Welcome to jdrgaming.com Thursday, March 28 2024 @ 03:11 PM PDT

A wish list for TPU

I don't like problems that I can't fix. I've bashed my head against everything on this list and come up empty. If anyone out there can help, please do. I'll be eternally grateful.

[1] Eliminate Battle of Britain annoyances: first, get rid of that damned siren at the British bases. Second, stop bots from getting into jeeps at the British bases and just sitting there. This must be done so that no client map download is required, like all the other mods on TPU. I was able to remove the siren but the modded map had to be on client computers to work.

[2] BFSM source code: I use the excellent BattleField Server Manager (BFSM) by Kevin Lockitt to manage the TPU server. Kevin stopped development of BFSM years ago and his web site is long gone. There are a few bugs I'd like to fix, and a few changes I'd like to make, but I can't do that without the source code. I've tried to contact Kevin a few times but he has not responded. If anyone out there knows how to reach him, let me know.

[3] Changes to BFSM. An option to force human players to one side would be nice, although that may be difficult without modifying the BF1942 server itself. A fix for the January 1 scheduler bug would be great. I'd like to see more robust Gamespy protocol handling.

[4] A fix for the 'even teams' problem. Occasionally, a TPU map starts with an Allied:Axis ratio of 1:1. TPU should always run with an uneven ratio, typically 2:1 or 1:2. This one is a mystery.

[5] A way to prevent the map from restarting when the second player joins. I think this one is buried deep in the BF1942 server code, so we're probably stuck with it.

[6] Figure out what's going on with the apparent Gamespy DDoS attacks and deal with them permanently. Every few days (or sometimes weeks), TPU starts seeing floods of Gamespy server queries from one or two IP addresses. Alarm bells go off here and I block the offending addresses. The IP addresses are usually different each time, although there have been some repeat offenders. Some of them are game servers, some are gaming web sites and others are just ordinary users. It doesn't appear to be a coordinated attack against TPU. My hunch is that it's just misconfigured software. On the other hand, the Gamespy protocol is often used as a tool in DDoS attacks, so perhaps TPU is just seeing collateral damage.

[7] An alternative to the increasingly-flaky Game-Monitor.com.

That's it for now.