Hacked Tables....

[Road_Dancer]

Yeh, looks like someone has just altered the tech room descriptions of some of the weapons away from retail, but the actual damage stats are unchanged as far as I can see.

[[dw]-hunter]

The damage listings in the tech room are not related to actual damage caused in the game.

I never said they were, but thats what i have been looking at this entire time, so if the weapon table hasent been altered, then what table has? and why?

[Road_Dancer]

The format of the weapon table has been altered greatly, to allow for new features (such as beam capable fighters), but the actual specifications for the weapons have not changed. As the file checking will most likely simply perform a CRC or similar, it won't be looking at the weapons themselves, but the 'shape' of the files as a whole. As the 'shape' doesn't match, it's a bad file (sit! DOWN! ohhh, errrrr... not that kind of bad...).
So validator on the server needs to be updated with the new 'shape' of the file, so that it will recgnise it. This would need to be done anytime there is a revision to the table made by the SCP, which may happen if there is new feature implemented...

edit - To Clarify - The important thing to bear in mind is that the tech room has no relation to the actual damage the gun does, therefore, the SCP Kayzer at 10, and the Retail Kayzer at 6, is immaterial, and should not be used to make judgements on game balance issues - only the table can be used for that.
The SCP tech room having different values is effectively a typo that has no in-game effect. Look on it as PR from the manufacturers (Now washes whiter then wh... Wha? It's a Gun?... errr, just say it's more zappy then!), but it's not 'cheap' as it's the same stats. Perhaps the GTVA got sold some counterfeit Kayzers, like overclocked Athlon 2500's being sold as 3200s!

[Linkel]

Thats sounds brilliant, so why arn't we using SCP for multiplayer then?  Having to move the files elsewhere is bothersome.  i wish there was a more "collective" effort going on between the SCP and Fs2NET devs.  It seems a bit disjointed at the moment.

[Road_Dancer]

From what I've garnered, and I fully expect to be corrected on this, it's at least partly to do with fs2netd being seen as a stop-gap until PXO is resurrected.
At the end of the day, all these guys (and gals?) working on SCP and fs2netd are volunteers, so unfortunately for us, sometimes the real world intrudes (what's this 'real world' then? ), slowing down projects, or just plain restricting the scope in the first place.

[[dw]-hunter]

Thats sounds brilliant, so why arn't we using SCP for multiplayer then?  Having to move the files elsewhere is bothersome.  i wish there was a more "collective" effort going on between the SCP and Fs2NET devs.  It seems a bit disjointed at the moment.

Theres a build called Toms build, its based on the retail build, it cant use SCP tables so we run 1.2 tables. Toms build is much more stable on multi-player then SCP, however you run regular 1024 retail graphics on it, because all toms build does is modify the multiplayer, nothing more, which is why its more stable... not to mention toms build has some cool features along with it, very usefull ones too. I have nothing against SCP, i use it too on multiplayer every so often, usually to test SCP missions for other people, but sometimes just to have fun with new graphics. But i dont mind the 1024 graphics so I usually use Toms on multi, i grew up on the 1024, ive been playing multi for 6 years.

[Road_Dancer]

Hmmmmm... I'm guessing that the PXO project is aiming to have both the 1.2 tables (and therefore Tom's Build) and the SCP tables validated. I wonder how much work it is to do the same for fs2netd? The big problem I actually foresee for validating the SCP tables, is the speed with which the builds come out. I guess the best work around would be to have a seperate "\online" Mod install of the latest official build just for multiplay, then you can tweak the "\mediavps" stuff as much as you like for single-play or multiplay beta testing...

[[dw]-hunter]

The big problem I actually foresee for validating the SCP tables, is the speed with which the builds come out. I guess the best work around would be to have a seperate "\online" Mod install of the latest official build just for multiplay, then you can tweak the "\mediavps" stuff as much as you like for single-play or multiplay beta testing...

which is another reason that validating scp tables isnt the best idea. Because that they are made for single and they may change quite a bit to accomodate addons to the newer builds. So then you would have a crap load of tables to validate... Not to mention the coding to have PXO tell the difference between scp and retail tables. But the code shouldnt be a problem, it sounds like a simple task to me but I'm no programer... SCP Tables will most likely be validated though, no matter what, its just up to taylor to decide to update them constantly, or just plain out decide to stick with 1.2 to solve the problem.

[karajorma]

The 3.6.7 tables haven't changed since September. I don't see much hassle simply validating the latest official set.

[Road_Dancer]

That's good to hear Kara. What tables does PXO/fs2net check?

[karajorma]

From tvalid.cfg

ai.tbl   valid
asteroid.tbl   valid
credits.tbl   invalid
cutscenes.tbl   invalid
fireball.tbl   valid
help.tbl   valid
hud.tbl   valid
icons.tbl   valid
launchhelp.tbl   valid
lightning.tbl   valid
mainhall.tbl   valid
medals.tbl   invalid
menu.tbl   valid
messages.tbl   invalid
mflash.tbl   valid
music.tbl   valid
nebula.tbl   valid
pixels.tbl   valid
rank.tbl   invalid
ships.tbl   invalid
sounds.tbl   invalid
Species.tbl   invalid
ssm.tbl   valid
stars.tbl   valid
strings.tbl   invalid
tips.tbl   invalid
traitor.tbl   invalid
tstrings.tbl   invalid
weapon_expl.tbl   valid
weapons.tbl   invalid

Looks like all of them All the old retail ones at least. No sign of it checking the ones the SCP added yet.

[Road_Dancer]

Excellent...
If that's the case, I can't see any reason that having the 1.2 and the SCP tables as valid would cause any problems.
Given what we have to do to get the game working in the first place, a little bit of effort to setup a seperate multiplayer folder that only uses the offical files, while keeping any WIP builds seperated is no problem.
Hmmmm... If the SCP ever gets to the point of being able to provide installable packages, then that could be even be built in... and the next official build would simply be like a patch file for most other games.

[taylor]

It doesn't need to validate all of the tables anyway, just the ones that would affect multiplayer.  The change to FS2NetD to have it check only the important tables is already on my todo list, and I'm partially through with coding that anyway.  That crap it does now is just wasteful.


The new PXO isn't going to have table validation in the FS2NetD sense.  Table validation was originally (ie, retail) done on the user end, not the server end, and table validation is completely useless for SCP at this point.  Additional table validation may be added for Tom's build to use or something, but otherwise there isn't much point since it doesn't send that detailed info over the network (it only says hacked or not).

Newer SCP versions will employ a per-item validation (if I ever get it working).  That is, not the tbl, but the individual weapon/ship entries will be assigned a CRC and validated by the PXO server against all clients/hosts in the game.  The PXO server itself doesn't actually keep track of the CRCs, it only checks to see if everyone is basically compatible or not, so it won't require any sort of updating to keep validation working.  This is really the only way to keep it working with mods and what not, since PXO itself can't really be expected to always keep up with every SCP version and mod version in use at any given time.

[Keleus]

How about a major change - server side weapon/ship/etc stats that override tables? And only the stats that matter to MP? That way SCP (or you) can do whatever you want to your tables and when you join an MP game the server forces you to use it's numbers.


In the long run figuring this out opens more options for MP (server-side mods once the framework is in), and likely would cost less effort than constantly adding table "signatures" - which is essentially what CRCing them is.

And... whether SCP does do gameplay changes down the line, it's up to the servers to choose what they want.

[taylor]

How about a major change - server side weapon/ship/etc stats that override tables? And only the stats that matter to MP? That way SCP (or you) can do whatever you want to your tables and when you join an MP game the server forces you to use it's numbers.

Then we'd have to always maintain current values for FS2 and all MODs, plus anything in development.  Sorry, but it ain't gonna happen.

It could be a possibility host side, but retail wouldn't support it so that couldn't really be considered a good solution for general anti-cheat protection or even compatibility preservation.

In the long run figuring this out opens more options for MP (server-side mods once the framework is in), and likely would cost less effort than constantly adding table "signatures" - which is essentially what CRCing them is.

The new PXO, like the old PXO, isn't going to do any CRCing though so that isn't going to be a concern.  Remember that there is really only one "server", that's whoever is running PXO, everything else is host or client and that's where the actual games are.

Host-side mods would by no means be an effortless task.  Transferring mod data and keeping all of it build and cross-platform compatible is a major undertaking.  Perhaps it's an idea that can be seriously entertained in the (distant) future, but it's not even a remote consideration at this point.

And... whether SCP does do gameplay changes down the line, it's up to the servers to choose what they want.

SCP isn't going to make gameplay changes which affect normal play (unless it's by mistake).  Even if something is running on the host/client that may present a compatiblity problem the code should adapt to the changes and keep incompatible players out.  This will be mod based, mission based, and feature based compatibility detection and it will be done on both the host and client sides.