Lobby Issues in Alpha Centauri

[Garisberry1988]

Hey guys,brand new here.Been playing the game as a singleplayer for a couple of years and recently revisted playing it again but this time i want to play with my friends online.
Basically we uninstalled reinstalled legitimate copies of the game,patched and repatched and reinstalled or games...

The problem - Hamatchi would let us see each others games but would timeout whenever each of us clicked Join ok to join "mygame" or whatever we called it.

Gameranger would let me get as far as to get into his lobby and him into my lobby for the game the server BUT only the person who joined could see themselves in the lobby and after a time the host would get an error message.

We opened ports and fiddled around with firewalls and firewalls exceptions etc.
I've been wading through many forums and havn't found anything on this error yet.Any ideas guys?

 

[Petek]

See if anything in this thread helps.

Petek

 

[Garisberry1988]

I've tried that page already read through it a few times .Its so strange exact same versions of the game and firewalls aside and still the most we can get is a lobby that lets you in but your invisible to the host for a minute before server goes funny.

 

[Petek]

You might want to post in that thread (or start a new thread there) and describe your problem, including what you've already done. DrazharLn appears to be the best qualified to troubleshoot MP connection problems.

Petek

 

[vyeh]

You might want to post in that thread (or start a new thread there) and describe your problem, including what you've already done. DrazharLn appears to be the best qualified to troubleshoot MP connection problems.

Petek

Garisberry1988,

DrazharLn is also registered here. He last came here a week ago. You can save yourself the trouble of cutting and pasting by linking to this thread when you post in that thread.

Here are some questions that might help in troubleshooting:

Are you both using the same operating system?

Have you both checked to see that you are using the same version of Hamachi and Game Ranger?

What happened when you and your friend tried to join an existing network?

Hamachi networks:
[network name], [password]
"Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri", "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri"
"Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri b", "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri b"
"Labyrynth", "Labyrynth"
"Sntml's Chaos Under the Big Dome", "garland"

 

[Garisberry1988]

Hey guys read all yer replys but didn't want to come back and reply myself until i had tried everything again,so i did.Reinstalled,tried without patches and with patches over Hamatchi and Gameranger but to no avail.I've invested a good 5-8 hours over a couple of days but no luck.

Not to sound any bit cocky or whichever but im no newbie when it comes to games and multiplayer etc.But to my dismay the game just won't budge it won't get past the lobby and refuses to see the person who joined.

I've been using the same versions of gameranger and hamatchi also my pc and laptop both run w7,i've opened ports etc.,firewalls you name it.We've never had problems with any other games over lan in my house or with any of my friends online.

So basically i host a lobby or either he hosts or my laptop.Connect.Get into lobby.Host can't see who joined.Person who's joined can see the host.Game gives a connection error after a short time and gives up,asking to continue solo or to drop the server.

Thanks for all the help guys,really,wasn't even sure if i would get a reply.
Very much appreciated .

I've read the threads,i'll float around the site for another few weeks and hope someone knows what the problem is.Thanks again guys.

 

[bdanv]

have you tried by-passing one/both router(s)?

 

[Garisberry1988]

Today was a good day..because me and my friend finally got Akpha Centauri working over Hamatchi finally and probably would run over gameranger also.My friend was messing around with his ports on his firewall and found the settings kept disappearing on him.He downloaded the new firmware and it let him save the port settings and hey presto the game worked .

The reason why my laptop with my pc over lan was because i didn't foward the ports for my Laptop ASWELL as my Pc.So case solved and closed...

If you can join a lobby but the host can't see you it's more than likely is the ports.Foward the ports for both machines,check your firmware etc.

I hope anyone who has this trouble will overcome it with the info.Thanks for the suggestions forum

 

[Petek]

Thanks for taking the time to report your solution. I also hope that your tips will help others with similar problems.

Petek

 

[chuft]

I would be interested to hear if you get it working on GameRanger because we couldn't and neither of us even uses routers or hardware firewalls.

 

[Scott Kevill]

Hmm, with GameRanger, it should be either all or nothing. That it partially works means it's not a network problem.

I have an idea what could be causing it, and I'm going to investigate further.

(I'm the developer.)

 

[Scott Kevill]

After lots of investigation, this is what I found.

With SMAC and SMACX for me, the host crashes back to GameRanger the moment the joiner enters the lobby. This is different to what others are reporting and it's not what used to happen for me, but it's probably related. I suspect something is a little unstable/sensitive with SMAC/SMACX using Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay, as none of the other DirectPlay games I tested suffer from this.

When I changed GameRanger to force SMAC/SMACX to use IPX for DirectPlay instead, everything worked perfectly, every time.

I tested SMAC by itself from a fresh install plus the "SMAC_Win2000_XP_Compatibility_Update_v1.03f.exe" update. I also tested SMAC after installing SMACX and the "Sacxpv2.exe" update. I also tested SMACX. All had the same problem, and all worked perfectly with the fix I made.

As part of this fix, I've also made it so that GameRanger automatically does the ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1 change as well, for anyone that has forgotten or is unaware of it.

The fix will go into the next GameRanger client update.

Something else that may or may not be in the FAQ. If you uninstall SMAC without uninstalling the SMAC 1.03f update (not obvious unless you look in Add/Remove Programs) then the next time you install SMAC, you need to run the update twice. Once so it "removes" the update that it thinks is still there, and twice to actually install the update.

 

[chuft]

Thanks Scott. I sent you a report on this recently on GameRanger, glad you found time to look into it.

I will test it soon with some friends.

 

[bdanv]

thank you, Scott!

The fix will go into the next GameRanger client update.

any idea when this is going to happen?

 

[vyeh]

I suspect something is a little unstable/sensitive with SMAC/SMACX using Internet TCP/IP for DirectPlay, as none of the other DirectPlay games I tested suffer from this.

When I changed GameRanger to force SMAC/SMACX to use IPX for DirectPlay instead, everything worked perfectly, every time.

I tested SMAC by itself from a fresh install plus the "SMAC_Win2000_XP_Compatibility_Update_v1.03f.exe" update. I also tested SMAC after installing SMACX and the "Sacxpv2.exe" update. I also tested SMACX. All had the same problem, and all worked perfectly with the fix I made.

As part of this fix, I've also made it so that GameRanger automatically does the ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1 change as well, for anyone that has forgotten or is unaware of it.

The fix will go into the next GameRanger client update.

Something else that may or may not be in the FAQ. If you uninstall SMAC without uninstalling the SMAC 1.03f update (not obvious unless you look in Add/Remove Programs) then the next time you install SMAC, you need to run the update twice. Once so it "removes" the update that it thinks is still there, and twice to actually install the update.

Which FAQ?

There have been some threads with issues about messaging issues during TCP/IP play. Could you look at this thread (it also has references to two CFC threads) and tell me whether your fix in the Gameranger client would also solve these messaging issues).

I will send you PM on another issue.

 

[DrazharLn]

As part of this fix, I've also made it so that GameRanger automatically does the ForceOldVoxelAlgorithm=1 change as well, for anyone that has forgotten or is unaware of it.

The fix will go into the next GameRanger client update.

Something else that may or may not be in the FAQ. If you uninstall SMAC without uninstalling the SMAC 1.03f update (not obvious unless you look in Add/Remove Programs) then the next time you install SMAC, you need to run the update twice. Once so it "removes" the update that it thinks is still there, and twice to actually install the update.

Thank you very much for taking the time to look at this problem, I used GameRanger for all my Borderlands gaming about 6 months ago and I found it a great system then. If GameRanger now works consistently and well with SMAC/X then that will be a huge help to anyone wanting to play fast online games.

In fact, once some people have tried it out, I'll probably scrap my Hamachi FAQ (or mothball it) and replace it with a much simpler one for GameRanger.

The most annoying thing about the v1.03f update is that it doesn't need an installer at all; it works fine if you just extract the files.

You may want to take a look at the work being done at CGN in the Alpha Centauri forum.

Sorry for the slow reply, I'm busy with exams at the moment.

 

[Scott Kevill]

That GameRanger update is now live. Give it a try and see if it helps.

 

[DrazharLn]

Myself and bdanv tested it, works fine. I'll update my guide soon.

 

[Garisberry1988]

Hey guys i havn't got a chance to play over gameranger myself but curiously i remember it let us get along further into getting a game going when all was acting up.But was definetly nice to play the game again with my friend.Been playing on and off on singleplayer still .You guys are doing a great job here at documenting everything.Keep up the great work guys.All the best.