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Overtkill

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Posts posted by Overtkill

    Posted

    I was thinking that Co-location was one of 2 possibilities. Also, it would be wise to house the DB on a second box. I'd be willing to bet that we could get an actual company that hosts game servers here in the U.S. for far less than the current setup, and likely on their hardware.

    As far as the article mentioned above, it largely doesn't apply to this. While true in that the global speeds are improving, and per country they are on the rise, a majority of what is mentioned is misleading. You have to shop the hosting and internet service providers to get the best speeds/value for your buck. Not the country as a whole. Those numbers seemed to reflect on individual speeds based on what is provided to the public at the ISP level, which is also very subjective. And again, this doesn't apply since we are looking at hosting companies with a huge backbone to either co-locate with, or to rent from if the price is right. (bob) -I'll stop on that now.

    Again, I don't mind shopping around for the project. Like a few others here, I do this for a living as a SysAdmin, and I have co-located my own equipment with ISP's before (multiple Quake II/III servers back in the day, as well as content and database servers). I do not mind donating my time for this game that we all love. After this, I'll stop asking. No sense on being repetitive. We all love the game and only want to see the best for it in every aspect.

    Thanks!

    -Overt.

  2. Posted

    Hello,

    I spent a little while in 3DS Max over the past week or so, goofing off a little. I started messing around with a Jenquai station idea I had floating in my head for sometime, and decided to play with the concept. I add a little here and there. remove and tweak it a little every time I have a few minutes to get back to it. So this is by no means a hard effort thing for me, but something I may come back to every couple of days for a few minutes or maybe an hour.

    Anyway here is the link to a quick and dirty .jpg album of the results if anyone is interested:

    [url]http://creativepc.net/albums/EnB/jenie_station_01/[/url]

    I am open to any suggestions or good ideas, but bare in mind that this is a concept model. Its not lit or textured. My process (per my system when I managed a dev team in RL) -is to turn everything to various shades of gray after I create a primitive and shape it to a basic mold of what is being designed.

    Things to keep in mind when viewing this model:

    - Semi optimized mesh state. This means not completely smoothed, and faces/polies haven't been fully cleaned out yet because of its current working state.
    - Not textured. No textures have been applied. The model is currently a gray "bondo" appearance for modeling.
    - Scene not lit correctly. I applied 2 simple omni lights to get a little "effect on the station to serve to view the scale/shaping better.
    - Building this model is currently serving my own needs to keep my skills sharp for the most part. So its mostly for fun. :)

    Design elements:

    - Scale: This station is designed to be a "Jennie Super Space Station." To get an idea on scale, Jove's fury would easily fit inside the dome and main structure.

    - Multiple "rings" and shaping to mimic the style of the in game models. They are easily maybe 10 stories tall, and will have other elements (greebling) added, such as antenna arrays, and science stuff. :D

    - 3 Pylon towers were designed to be super sky scraper type towers. There would be 100's of levels from top to bottom.
    - Top of the Pylons would incorporate various landing pad type elements, and hence are shaped as such.
    - The extreme bottom is some SciFi greebling on my part for the mechanical and waste management system of each pylon.

    - Station Structure is also about 1000 levels of livable space. The idea here is to see the main structure full of lit windows and various greebles.
    - The top dome is up for debate. Either a solid structure or force field could be applied here. Either way, the idea is to house a small city under this dome (which is not built in yet).
    - The section 2/3rd's of the way down the main structure is the main landing and hangar facility. The protruding guide rails will be lit at the tips and will strobe (flash) in sequence for effect.
    - The base/bottom of the station is the main fusion reactor complex. Will be self lit with either a red or blue glow element in between some of the segments.

    - Connecting "rods" haven't been fully added. These are intended to be an interior shuttle and crossways between the rings and superstructure.

    Anyway, feel free to comment or throw any suggestions at me. I am very open to ideas. :D

    Thanks for reading...

    -Overt.

    Posted

    One more thought I had would be the number of machines needed to host the EMU. Hosting the DB and server side stuff should likely be done on separate boxes. Any help from the dev's? I would be interested in checking around for you guys on finding something both affordable and decent for such a project. If you guys want to PM me your spec's on number of machines, etc, I do this for a living and would be willing to donate my time and look into it further.

    As I said in another discussion on the legality of it all, with the company(s) in charge of the entire naming scheme in the US (Internic and ICANN both are USA organizations), and if there was an issue and a court order got served, they would gank the name and redirect everything at the source. Thus it wouldn't matter where in the world it was hosted. I wouldn't expect hosting in the USA to be any different than in Europe, being that most of nations there back the US in most things Internet. 1&1 is also has a US branch as well, so they are subject to the same laws and legal B.S. any any host here. I would bet any real difference in hosting in the USA would be the improvements in the way they describe above.

    Either way, I am both concerned and a bit happy the ENU team is looking into these changes. Should be a win-win for everyone.

    Thanks!

    -Overt.

    Posted

    [quote name='cappy' timestamp='1320015381' post='47839']
    Ahem... Well i did mention getting our own servers a couple months ago, and recall getting taken into the back room and ruffed up by one or two of the devs for suggesting this. I'm glad the idea was at least given some consideration. :)

    [Gloating mode off] ;) :blink:
    [/quote]

    Yeah, me too in suggesting they look into USA based servers. That's where I am guessing the legal shiz they are discussing is coming from. Hopefully they get serious and look into a nice Xeon multicore platform. I know they are expensive, but the horsepower alone and longevity would be worth it. I also do this sort of thing for a living so it will be interesting to see what they come up with.

    -Overt.

  8. Posted

    [quote name='Tienbau' timestamp='1318990483' post='47456']
    I used the same system as that of job mobs: after 40 mins, if no-one's interacted with the mob (targetting, fighting etc) it will evaporate.
    [/quote]

    lol... and maybe before that time if the player decides to hide out and hole up in a Starbase, maybe the mob could briefly undo the block to the incoming damage and still do them in. :)

  9. Posted

    An interesting read for sure.

    Couldn't a compromise on the timer and desired effects between the dev's and players be reached here? If so many are unhappy with it now, why not start a discussion for a counter proposal? It seems that we should not only strive to see EnB remade, but why not improve on what we can along the way? (I know its been suggested before, but I still had to say it)

    -Overt.
    • Upvote 1

  10. Posted

    Its been a hell of a week in losing people who were instrumental in the tech sector. Steve Job's being the first I heard about this week, next was these fellas:

    Dennis Ritchie - Was the inventor of the C programming language.

    [url]http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/saltlaketribune/obituary.aspx?n=dennis-ritchie&pid=154063273[/url]

    Robert Galvin - Motorola's CEO since 1959. He pioneered many gadgets that we take for granted today, including the cell phone. I saw him in a newer "Modern Marvels" episode and had the pleasure of meeting him in person. he was a cool old guy who loved going to work everyday. He spent a great deal of time working directly with designers and engineers on every product. He knew them inside and out, and loved working in the trenches with the people who helped make Motorola successful, and he did it as a working member of the team. More companies need CEO's like this guy.

    http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/saltlaketribune/obituary.aspx?n=robert-galvin&pid=154050933

    Thanks for reading...

    -Overt.

  12. Posted

    Hello,

    A few days ago, I got a wild hair and decided to go over my desktop customization, and decided that the white stock Net-7 icon stuck out a lot from my darker desktop. So I decided to make yet another custom icon. Well, long story short, I spent some time in it, and tried several styles to see which looked best on my desktop. I showed them to someone to see which they liked best, and the answer I got was "all of them." So I decided to post them here for anyone that wants to use them.

    Here is an [url="http://www.creativepc.net/net-7_stuff/index.html"]outside link[/url] to my web host, and to a quick and dirty slideshow that also contains a download link to a .rar archive containing all sizes and many variations of the icons. I didn't post the images and archive here because of the posting limitations in general with forum software.

    Thanks for reading...

    -Overt.

    Full link again: http://www.creativepc.net/net-7_stuff/index.html

  15. Posted

    Yeah, Kyp is correct about Vista. Try to get to Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate when you can. Its a much better OS in many ways.

    Something not touched on here is Internet Security software. Make sure you have an exception setup for Net-7 and the Client as well, then give it a whirl.

    -Overt.

  16. Posted

    Hmm, this might or could possibly related to the routing issues in the support area...

    I could do a traceroute as far as 1and1's doorstep, but the internal addresses used to reach any of the Net-7 or Emu host servers failed, and I tried tracing all 3. Someone, whoever deals with them should call and bite them in the rear and get some time reimbursement and some answers.

    Thanks for your reply Kyp.

    -Overt.

    PS. -If Chamberlain's issue is still on about the 135 ping, its likely a location problem. Egress from the states is in Texas (Dallas), and goes to London on the same provider, and that jump alone adds around 100ms to the ping simply because of the physical distance traveled.

  18. Posted

    I hear rumors that there is something in the works in the way of jobbing. I would love for a dev to pop in here and discuss this further. The limitations of the current system id frustrating to say the least. I can't count the number of times I have been at the terminal awaiting a refresh, and no jobs come up, or only 1 or 2.

    Personally I' d like to see the refresh from the server be a few dozen, and a possibility to sort per destination. I usually like to work out what jobs are going where specifics wit others jobbing, so that everyone has a destination of their own. Being a JE, I tend to take the furthest away in these situations. Also, if there has to be a refresh timer, the less we wait for the refresh, the better, since this is not live and its not ran by a company trying to keep players online as delayed as possible for the subscription money.

    Something else I see an issue with is the number of skill points given after reaching 150. I have the urge to become a builder, and with all the skills I need for my JE, it seems that there aren't enough to have both a well rounded character, and the means to build. As it is now, we have to sacrifice some needed skills to do that, or drudge through the post 150 blues of 1 SP a level. Most skills needed once you are up there take 5+ SP to go up a notch.

    Thanks for reading...

    Overt.

  19. Posted

    The current tatoo are out of whack in game. The scaling isn't correct (squished), and the alpha isn't correctly applied. I see the edges of several of them in the toon editor, so they aren't right (former RL game dev making this observation). Please test it first and get it right before patching everyone.

    Also, just so it gets said, many players feel that this is a move away from the actual core work needing to be done. Just mentioning it in market or general chat seems to draw out these comments by the players. I do understand that development sometimes requires a diversion to get away from the monotony of the day to day work, but please be aware of this issue. :)

    Thanks for reading...

    -Overt.
    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    Some excellent replies. Thanks for taking the time to address some of these issues, and to all for taking the time to further the discussion to enhance our knowledge on the turbo's.

    Thanks to TB for addressing the warp issues as well. I realize that geography also plays a major role, being in the western U.S. I am also curious to know what the average load is like on the server hardware (being a SysAdmin in RL). I'm not sure what else can be done on the TCP/IP side to optimize packet handling, and also to handle retries to prevent disconnects.

    Some (not all) of these warping issues in relation to mining can be dealt with by miners equipping their ships properly. Meaning for some types of mining, remove the RR+ and do not activate turbo warp, and mine with a Laz and Paw. A lot of issue is with the turn rate vs. the higher warp speed applied that a ship cannot turn the required amount vs. the warp speed. Maybe on the lvl 7+ paws, raise the turn rate some to help?

    I can't wait to see what TienBau comes up with to correct the remaining issue. Lately I seem to be able to face a targeted roid. and try to warp to it, only for it to still stop short by almost 2k, so 3-5k from the target is what I am seeing commonly as the stop distance. The bounce is understandable, but annoying in that the distance should simply stop, and not bounce at all. But that's my opinion... lol.

    Additional sites to mine would raise the quality of the game for many of us who like mining and hulking. Taking away from that only creates boredom and disinterest. More low to mid level sites in the noobie sectors would be cool, and further utilize these sectors as well. I do not understand the need to lower the quality of the game for us by removing or altering these fields. Many of us miners do our best to supply our guilds and the builders with what we mine and find in hulks. Lately, there is not only a lack of anything decent in hulk fields, the junk loot in them (landing gear struts, shield emitters, weapons - This has a direct correlation with loot prices) is not worthless, so they are frequently left behind. By making lowering the prices in game, it lowers the quality of game play in that we have too hard of time scraping together enough to properly equip our toons, and help others to do so as well. Please consider restoring the prices again to live levels, and also to put in more places for us to mine all levels of items... The dev's in live addressed this by adding them to the primary sectors like earth. and so forth... Putting them back in a similar fashion would serve to better our experiences in game. As it is now, the areas being removed or modified means less to go around, thus forcing many high level miners to move into the same few quality area and fields, and more frustration for everyone in that we can never get what we need, because someone has already pulled those resources.

    Again, thanks for reading. :)
    • Upvote 2

  21. Posted

    Hello.

    These are some comments and observations others have voiced in the past that have not been addressed. With a couple of ideas dropped in. :)

    They are:

    - Thrusters.... In live, it seemed like the acceleration of a player ship at impulse was based on a performance curve, and not so much a linear value. This would mean that the ship would reach top speed quicker for using devices such as the cats paw were installed, along with the added speed benefit.

    - Also, something that would be nice to see would be the effect of using reverse thrust to actually slow your ship at a faster rate. So if you want to stop, reversing thrust should stop your ship quicker than drifting to a stop. I think t does this to a degree, but not like it should IMO.

    - What I refer to as speed mining (warping from roid to roid), the stop distances are still too far away. As an idea, can't we consider to stop using the "bounce" effect altogether as a possible tweak for the warp distance glitch? This issue sometimes confuses the client enough to allow opening of a given minable without being at the correct distance, likely because of the bounce. -Stopping closer to the target, opening the roid, then bouncing back occurs.

    - And again, please increase the tractor beam speed to what it should be (nearly double than what it is currently). This one shouldn't be more difficult than taking a second to adjust the value assigned (from what I recall seeing in the older code).

    Other comments/ideas;

    - When will the turbo's begin to stack?

    - This ones related to the enhance devices, such as the Intolerance. I have some high end lvl 9 beams thanks to a kind and good friend. Some have the enhance weapons effects as the intolerance does. However, wouldn't it be feasible to stack this effect with the intolerance since I want to use/burn a device slot for this effect? Such an effect wouldn't be class specific.

    Thanks for reading...

    -Overt.

  22. Posted

    I say this so it get said again....

    It would be nice to see what was updated in the launcher window, even the mini-patch. It would be nice to be kept informed on what things were being tweaked. Also, if the server is down, please consider using the launcher web page to display information regarding the issue. Even a useful "we know about the problem" message would be very helpful.

    Thanks.
    • Upvote 1

  24. Posted

    Pop rocks are in the right direction. However there needs to be a timer put on the critter that pops out. I was in VT the other day in the morning, to discover such a critter let loose by someone who thought they would give the ridiculous a try. And they left it there for the rest of us to admire... FOR THE WHOLE DAY! I don't know about the rest of you but I don't go out mining with my combat gear plugged in. I showed up at the same field later that evening to find that special someone's critter being around, but someone else decided to play asteroid craps, gave it a whirl and spawned him a friend. Luckily a well equipped TE showed up looking for them and took care of said critters.

    Something I saw here I disagree with is the pristine field effect. I don't like it. But I know its not going away so how about we compromise and maybe lower the effect rate? Seeing it, is not only distracting me, but those who have to hunt around them, and this can get annoying.

    The Rogue Progen issue:

    The killer field in Lagarto, is, well, too killer. You guys might want to check on the mobs there periodically. The Rogue Progen patrols are borderline psychotic and are too high in number. The craziness was on no less than 3 or 4 times in the past day there, I was greeted with the howl of the lvl 48's beam, but after I cloaked, they decided to hang out instead of continuing on their merry way. One actually sat in 1 spot spinning and rotating. I found this amusing as if to hear him saying: "I know your still there little JenPie, come on out and fight you coward!" Well after a few laps around the field, he became annoying so I purposely de-cloaked to get him moving... Thats when I discovered the next issue:

    The shield nova on those wayward progen does not deactivate when you cloak. And the dampening field over this place sort of makes it a real bugger to get away before being fried.

    Also, I mine with a -0.0k sig, and yet these things can see me from over 6k away? And hit me from there with a beam? Wish my lvl 9's shot that far.

    Anywho, thanks for reading.

    -Overt.

  25. Posted

    I was thinking about the $$ donations for skill points this past week as a matter of fact... Great idea if the EMU needs the donations. It would greatly enhance the experience in game and keep the servers running. I am all for it!

    As mentioned above, We should put up a poll for this excellent idea. And its not like you are getting paid for work... Its still a donation and not a requirement to play the game. It only helps everyone involved. No different than giving to a cause and getting a t-shirt or a coffee mug as a way of the charitable groups' to say thanks for your help.

    Thanks for reading...

    -Overt.
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