Tanks 'n Planes Unlimited Frequently Asked Questions

Game server

• What is Tanks 'n Planes Unlimited?
• How is TPU better than (or at least different from) other BF42 servers?
• Why co-op vs. bots?
• How can I see how many humans are playing?
• Why does the server crash so often?
• How do I change maps?
• How can I track other human players in-game?
• How can I get a bot to leave a vehicle I want to drive?
• How can I fix the 'Invalid CD Key error' when I try to join TPU?

Game stats

• Why am I not listed?
• Why haven't my stats been updated?
• I have changed my player name. Will it affect my stats?
• How do I stop others from using my player name?
• Why am I losing points?
• When are the stats reset?
• How do I make a suggestion for the stats?
• What do the stats column headings mean?

Map modding for TPU

• How were the BF1942 maps modified for TPU?

Game server

TPU is a dedicated co-op Battlefield 1942 game server. It is open for anyone to join. All you need to play is a Battlefield 1942 game client. To play all the maps in the regular rotation, you will need both of the official add-ons: The Road To Rome and Secret Weapons. The Battlefield 1942 client and the two add-ons can be downloaded via the Files page on this site. There's an excellent guide to setting up Battlefield 1942 on modern Windows PCs in the Battlefield subreddit on Reddit.

Although most of the maps have been modified to some extent, we have tried to make sure that no special downloads are required for joining the server. Modifications have mostly been limited to increasing the number of tank and plane spawns and swapping certain units for others (one type of plane or tank for another). More recent mods involve adding gun emplacements, moving ships around and adding subs.

TPU runs 24/7, with all of the standard (but modded) maps in the rotation, 32 total players and an Axis:Allied ratio of 3:1 for six hours, switching to a 3:1 Allied:Axis ratio for six hours after that, and so on. Make sure you always join or switch to the side with fewer total players. You will fight with a small team of humans and bots against a much larger team of all bots.

1. Most of the maps have been modified so that tanks and planes spawn much more quickly, and in greater numbers. No more walking! No more waiting! No reason to kill your team-mate to grab a ride! And you don't have to download anything extra to join.
2. The server software has been modified to prevent several server crash exploits.
3. The server software has been modified to prevent the current map from restarting when the second player joins.
4. You can use submarines (on maps that have them, like Midway). In the original game, subs could not be used in co-op mode.
5. Units (especially tanks and planes) have been added to many maps, making them more interesting.

Because some people prefer this kind of play, and I (the server admin) am one of them. Human vs. human fighting is nasty and leads to cheating, name-calling and general bad feelings. I would much rather work together with other humans to defeat a deadly, computer-controlled opponent with more soldiers.

In the game, press Tab. Under the column heading "#" you will see a number for each human player. Bots have no such number. You can always find me if I'm playing because my ping value will be zero.

One of the disadvantages of playing with bots is that it increases the amount of work for both the Battlefield 1942 server software and for the server hardware. Each bot adds a certain amount of overhead, which taxes the server's CPU a bit more. Worse, the parts of the Battlefield 1942 server program that control the AI (bots) are notoriously flaky. Bots get into weird situations that were not expected by the developers, and this can lead to crashes.

Use the map vote screen. Press Enter, then click the SCORE BOARD button, then click the MAP VOTE button. Scroll down the map list until you see the map you want, click on it and click the VOTE FOR MAP button. At least 60% of the players need to vote for that map for the vote to succeed.

If you want to see where a particular player is at all times, you can add him to your buddy list. Press Enter, then click the SCORE BOARD button, then click on the player you want to track, then click the ADD BUDDY button. Buddies appear on the map and in chat with a special colour (green).

One of the more annoying things about playing with bots in Battlefield 1942 is that they tend to hog vehicles. Sometimes, if you get lucky, pressing 'E' to enter a bot-occupied vehicle is enough to get them to exit. But usually that doesn't work. This problem was resolved in Battlefield 2: in that game, pressing 'E' to enter an occupied vehicle always forces a bot to exit. But back to Battlefield 1942: you can sometimes get a bot to leave a vehicle by pressing F6, F7 (ALARMS, BAIL OUT). But again, that usually doesn't work, especially if the bot is engaging the enemy. Recently, I discovered (at long last) a combination of commands that actually works: press F6 (ALARMS), then F3 (HOLD YOUR FIRE), then F6 (ALARMS), then F7 (BAIL OUT). The first command pair tells the bot to stop engaging the enemy, and the second tells the bot to get out of the vehicle.

This is a common problem for BF1942, and we've documented the solution here: Dealing with BF1942 Invalid CD Key errors (how-to).

Game stats

Have you played the required number of rounds? Your stats are logged but will not be listed until you have played at least that number of rounds on the server. As of 2021May17, that number is ten, but that may change.

Stats are updated hourly, at 42 minutes past the hour. So wait an hour, then check again.

The old stats system (the hopelessly obsolete select(bf)) tracked stats by keyhash, so player name changes had no effect. The new stats system (BFStats) tracks each player name separately. Obviously this is less than ideal, and we're always looking for something better.

You can't. And since your stats are tracked by player name, unfortunately if someone steals your name they can damage your stats. You can report this to the admins and the perpetrator will be banned and/or blocked.

Although as of 2021May17 the stats are still cumulative, we may institute a stats window at some point. If we decide to do this, the stats will show the last 30 days of activity. Every day you play, you will lose the next oldest day's stats. The reason for this would be to give everyone a fair chance at getting somewhere and to show how consistent you are. In other words, there would be less of an advantage for people who play much more often than everyone else.

By popular demand, the stats are now reset each year in January, and the previous year's stats are archived (but still accessible from this site).

If you think you have a suggestion that will improve the way the stats work then please feel free to visit the Suggestions forum and post your idea there.

Note that numbers are shown with the fractional part after a comma, rather than after a period, which might be confusing depending on where you live.

• Rank - your ranking with respect to the current sort order.
• Avg. Ping - the average amount of time for information to travel between your client and the server, averaged over the year's stats. In milliseconds.
• Rounds Played - total number of rounds played.
• Kills - total number of kills made by the player.
• Deaths - total number of times the player died.
• K D-Ratio - your ratio of Kills to Dealths.
• Kills Per Round - your average number of kills per round played.
• Score - the total of all your end-of-round scores.

You can sort the stats list in different ways by clicking on the column headings.

Map modding for TPU

All the map mods on TPU are server-side, which means that you don't need to download special versions of any maps to play on TPU. Making server-side modifications to BF1942 maps isn't complicated, but it is somewhat fussy. In other words, it's very easy to mess it up.

We've documented the process we used to modify the TPU maps, in two parts:

• TPU map modifications part one (Jeff)
• TPU map modifications part two (DarkRyda)