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.

Omaha Beach on TPU now has more heavy tanks at the Axis base. There's also a plane at the Axis base. Yes, that's right, a plane. It's west of the fence, almost out of bounds. It's tricky to take off, but possible. Of course there's not a lot of room to fly around, except over the channel. Thanks, Mojo!

TPU has a new Cassino map thanks to DarkRyda. This new version of Cassino has PAK40s that respawn, more unit variety, better tanks and more tank spawns for both sides.

DarkRyda also provided a new version of Santa Croce, with Shermans, M10s, Mustangs and Spitfires for the Allies; Tigers, Pz IVs, BF109s and Stukas for the Axis, along with more tank spawns and spawn points.

The Yak9 in Battle of Britain has been moved away from the AA tower at the eastern airfield.

Subs in Midway have been tweaked to try to fix the bot spawning issue. Landing craft now spawn to the initial sub locations, so that bots can make it to land without drowning. We're still looking at ways to improve this.

Wow. I just tried Forgotten Hope 2. I had to update my BF2 to version 1.5, but that in itself was a good thing, since 1.5 finally no longer requires the original disc to play, and apparently all of the add-ons are now free to play as well.

But FH2 is awesome. WWII combat, with all of the advantages of the BF2 interface and bots. I'll be looking at hosting this.

There have been sporadic problems with the responsiveness of TPU because of a lot of GameSpy traffic being generated by 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).

I'm blocking these IP addresses when I see them, but unfortunately that requires rebooting the router, so any current server connections are dropped. I will try to time the reboots to occur between maps.

Here are the offending IP addresses (note that these may be spoofed):
99.198.97.162 (server.g4tc-us-razor.com)
96.42.17.206
69.162.99.35 (a high profile game server in the US)
69.162.99.38 (a high profile game server in the US)
208.64.121.101