TPU (Tanks n Planes Unlimited)

Apparently there is a new crash exploit targeting Battlefield 1942 servers. So far I have not seen any evidence that it has been used against TPU, but it's probably only a matter of time. Please let me know if you witness any unusual crashes or anyone claiming to to able to crash the server. There is an unofficial patch that I will apply if TPU gets hit.

Details are here: http://www.bfmods.com/viewtopic.php?t=1204

Sisko has been hard at work putting together showcase videos for TPU. I've posted his first one on the 'Files and links' page under the 'Videos and other media' heading. This video shows off some of the fun changes DarkRyda has been making to his Race Track map. Check it out!

Here's a quick link:
http://jrc-core.com/files/Sisko_TPU_video_01.flv

The Internet connection here has been intermittent in the past couple of days. It's up right now, but there's no way to know how long that will last. I'm posting this while I can, just to let you all know that if you're having trouble connecting to TPU or the TPU BF2 server, that's why.

We got a bunch of snow on Thursday and everything outside is alternately frozen and wet, so the problem is almost certainly related. Just now I went outside and hammered on the main cable junction box on the outside of the house, and that brought the connection back. For those of you scoring at home, that's called "percussive maintenance".

Anyway, I hope it lasts. The cable company can't be here until Monday afternoon.

The CRTC has reversed their earlier decision and rejected UBB. This is a win for consumers, but the full range of implications won't be known for some time. Meanwhile, Shaw Cable has been subtly changing their billing system, although so far those changes have been reasonable. On the other hand, here in Canada we pay more for Internet access that most other countries, so we still have room for improvement. You can read all the details on Michael Geist's blog.

Now that Google is allowing non-person entities to have Google+ pages, I've created one for TPU. There's not much there right now, but I'll be adding to it soon. There's a link to it in the right side column of this web site.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/109146339717465223830

Update 2019Feb07: Google+ is shutting down, so the TPU Google+ page will disappear soon.

Next Wildcard Wednesday (October 19) TPU will be running a new mod: Battlefield 1918. This World War I mod has been on the TPU request list for a while. None of the maps have been tweaked for TPU, so you can't count on getting a ride when you need one, but then WWI was less about tanks and planes than it was about trenches and machine guns, right?

You'll find download links for the Battlefield 1918 client files (there are three of them) on the Files and links page.

Over the top, boys!

UPDATE: Vitry Classic and Midway maps removed from the cycle due to reported problems.

The DarkRyda map pack's version of The Race Track is set up to run for a long time, but it turns out to be too long for TPU. We've adjusted the ticket count and countdown rate so that it eventually ends. Some of you may also have noticed that The Race Track is now available for voting on regular BF42 and BG42 days on TPU.

The ticket countdown rate for both Wake and Tobruk have also been tweaked so that they are somewhat less epic. Both maps were running very long, which is both awesome and somewhat tiring. The current rates on those maps are a compromise.

As always, let me know if you see any issues with the changed maps.

I just added a new poll that asks what we should run on Tuesdays. Current Tuesdays are DCFinal all day.

I'm going to set up next wildcard Wednesday as another DR day on TPU. That's October 5th. I figure we should give it another shot right away since there were a few glitches last Wednesday, and to see if even more people jump in.

I think I have resolved the problem with the wrong maps appearing on the map vote screen, so that shouldn't happen. The scheduler problem that occurred at 6am PST, when TPU switched back to FH, should also be resolved. I will also try to tweak the server setup a bit so that there are some limits, but that's a bit tricky because of the mixed modes.

I'm going to try automatically switching to (and back from) the DR day announcement list. There's no way to do this with BFSM or its scheduler, so I'll have to cobble something together myself.

Coral Sea still won't be in the rotation as it was causing crash loops. I know there are a few different versions of this map out there, so if anyone has any suggestions for fixing this, let me know.

If you have any other ideas for tweaking DR day next Wednesday, drop me a line or post a comment here.

UPDATE: To keep things moving along, all maps on DR day will now have a 60 minute time limit. I also added Gazala CTF. DarkRyda tweaked CTF mode for Gazala, Berlin, Stalingrad, Kharkov, and Bocage so they now have more tank and plane spawns, just like in regular co-op mode on TPU.

UPDATE 2011Oct05: I just watched the server crash repeatedly trying to run Caribbean Inferno. I switched it to the next map and it seems to be okay now, but I will probably need to remove it from the rotation. Since this is one of the maps in the DR map pack, I'm going to take a closer look to see if I can figure out what's going on. Stay tuned.

UPDATE 2011Oct06: Apparently Stalingrad CTF was causing client crashes so I removed it from the DR day map rotation.

Gamespy flooding of TPU on UDP port 23000 seems to be under control, at least for now. I can see flood traffic arriving at the router sporadically, but it's all being dropped. Research shows that TPU is not the target of these attacks, but rather was being used as a reflector in a DRDoS (Distributed, Reflected Denial of Service) attack against one or more other servers.

Below are the IPs I am continuing to block. If you are aware of some reason why any of these should be unblocked, let me know.

78.145.117.49
82.21.203.53
85.234.149.219
94.76.216.44
109.70.148.51
220.25.130.98
89.176.28.198
24.110.31.66
76.111.53.176
184.106.242.223
66.8.194.174
81.19.212.130
96.31.86.166
69.14.213.132
72.10.172.39
67.215.65.132
184.4.130.120
74.72.216.160
108.65.237.65
208.167.232.92
64.120.251.131
209.246.142.73
24.184.255.80
69.175.48.194
64.79.109.136