It's a new year, so I figured it was a good time to reset the stats. As of 8:30am PST, the stats have been reset. Any games played since the last stats update at 4am PST today will be applied to the new stats data.

Don't panic, all your old stats are still available: just click the [archive] link to the right of the main Statistics link at the top of the left sidebar.

Now let's see what all the newcomers can do to unseat DarkRyda and TenciousMojo as "kings of TPU!"

Due to unintended idiocy on my part, I failed to notice that the instructions for installing Battlegroup 42 say that any existing BG42 folder should be deleted before installing a new version. In my defense, the BG42 installer should check for existing folders and offer to remove them or at least warn the user. Anyway, the result of my error was that some BG42 maps on the server were using a mixture of new and old data and those maps were causing client and server crashes. The old files have been removed and the maps previously removed from the rotation have been reinstated. Please let me know if there are any more crashing problems with BG42 maps.

There has been a lot of interest in the 'kink' flying challenge on TPU lately. Kink is a BF1942 clan with a focus on flying. You may see players on TPU with the kink tag. Anyway, kink has a test that involves flying under bridges in a certain order on the Battle of Britain map.

For those interested in running the course, I've uploaded an image of the Battle of Britain map with the course marked (courtesy of TenaciousMojo - thanks!)

You can find the map in the Downloads section, or by clicking this direct link to the map:
https://jrc-core.com/files/BattleOfBr...ngeMap.png

UPDATE: Mojo added details for two other challenges to the map already posted and made another version of the map for a fourth challenge. The second map is also in Downloads but you can also find it here:
https://jrc-core.com/files/BattleOfBr...geMap2.png

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the IP address for TPU changed yesterday.

New address: 174.6.224.147
Old address: 174.6.245.193

Please update your game client software as necessary.

UPDATE: The Game-Monitor.com people are a bit behind on updating server info, so they haven't registered the new IP yet (as you can see to the right).

UPDATE: I finally gave up and resubmitted TPU to Game-Monitor.com so now it's working again.

An early Christmas present from DarkRyda, the Wake Island map on TPU now sports a B17 at the island airfield. Enjoy!

Over the last few days, TPU has once again been affected by excessive GameSpy traffic coming from a few specific IP addresses on the internet. There are a few possibilities: a) a misconfigured or misbehaving server monitor or GameSpy client; b) a DDoS attack against TPU; or c) a DDoS attack against some other site that is attempting to use the TPU server as part of the attack (GameSpy-enabled servers like TPU can be used to propagate DDoS attacks). If anyone has more information on what might be going on, please let me know. For now, I'm blocking the offending addresses as soon as I detect them. The good news is that I found a way to block IP addresses that doesn't require rebooting the router, so TPU players won't be affected.

Here are the offending IP addresses (note that these may be spoofed):
66.96.240.87- 66-96-240-87.hostnoc.net
111.125.160.154 (Australia)
67.171.212.25 - c-67-171-212-25.hsd1.or.comcast.net
8.17.251.4 - sanjose.colocrossing.com
188.165.202.100 - ks310582.kimsufi.com (France)
109.70.146.223 - server.saxondata.co.uk (UK)
99.198.97.162 - server.g4tc-us-razor.com (repeat offender)
72.29.89.127 - ns2552.dizinc.com

TPU is now running Battlegroup 1942 version 1.7 on Sundays (upgraded from version 1.6). The "How-to and files" section now lists links to the BG42 1.7 client files (all five of them).

Subs are once again available on the Midway map on TPU. Japanese bots still sometimes try to swim from their sub to land, but rarely. The Jap sub is along the western edge of the map and the American sub is on the eastern edge. You should be able to spawn to their decks.

Well, this is embarrassing. The most recent changes to carrier planes and Midway seem to have messed things up, causing both server and client crashes. Those changes have been reverted so everything should be back to normal (no crashes). Unfortunately, that means no more subs on Midway (for now). But we'll keep working on those pesky subs. Please let me know if there are any other problems.

Mojo has been hard at work on the subs at Midway and carrier planes. Since we can't seem to prevent bots from spawning at the subs at map start, there are now landing craft nearby. Bots jump into the landing craft and head off to attack the island. It's goofy, but it works.

As for the carriers, Mojo has added more plane variety to their decks, including - get this - a B17 on the Allied carrier. It's surprisingly easy to take off on the short deck. Fun times.