Hello LFS Racers,

For anyone who runs a multiplayer server, we have released a new version of the dedicated host program in the form of a console application.

- Faster text updates when messages appear on screen, reducing packet delays
- Easier to run LFS hosts on Linux computers
- Improved protection against hackers

You can download DCon from our additional downloads page and you will find more information in the README.txt file that accompanies the dedicated host.

Differences in DCON compared with the old DEDI :

- It is easier to run LFS hosts on Linux servers because fewer Windows functions are called.
- There is no graphical output at all, so there is no real hesitation or CPU usage when updating the screen with new messages.
- You can enter text using the keyboard but it is invisible while you type. This is to separate stdin and stdout.
- When a player joins or leaves, some status information is output to the console including the selected track, a list of user names and the time and date.
- You can get a status message at any time by pressing ENTER without typing anything.

Other changes since the original 0.6E :

- More protection against hackers
- Network debug is always enabled
- More logging in the joining process
- Use of skin not found on LFS World causes player to be spectated

Fixes :

Live Host Progress Lap count was not cleared by /pitlane or /pit_all
Spectator to garage from lobby wrongly set LFSW status to "in pits"
Case insensitivity now works on high Latin characters in usernames
The hostXXXXX.txt file is now updated after using /maxguests command

- LFS Developers

Scawen, what changes have been made since the last DCON test that you put out (DCON5 I think)?

The last test version was TEST6 and this is in fact the same exe (18 June 2013).

Perfect. I won't need to update my server then

Horrraayy he is still alive

Hi Scawen,

Although we all appreciate your's and the team's work, are these really necessary? More protection against Hackers..surly this is just a "throw more bandwidth" at it, regarding the DOS attacks, as I was told?

I for sure, have been here since day dot, like a lot of people and little patch's like this, we all start to question why? surely a major patch, to bring back the original drivers should be higher on your list, please correct me if I am wrong?

I am not questioning the work you do, seriously, as me being here for over 10yrs proves that, just asking, in what order is your priority.

Glad LFS is not dead, and ur still paving the way for the best online sim racer, but please, let us know a schedule, as "its done when its done" is getting tired now after all these years? S2 came out in 200x. I paid for S3 back then, I know my choice, but can you imagine the interest I would of made on that ( not in an english bank of course )

If these patches are important, and more important than content, the please Scawen, explain why.

Again really appreciate your work, just questioning the time lines

Fordie

Fordman, I think it was more protection against people who have been able to join hosts without a username, or gaining administrative powers (without admin password). The DDoS attacks are separate from LFS and are to do with server architecture of the individual hosts and the LFS servers themselves.

A lot of us, for a long time have been requesting a better text-only dedicated server as Linux is the standard for hosting most things. The version that Scawen has posted reduces a lot of the Windows-dependent method calls, which allows WINE to run the dedi server with less issues. This allows more servers to be created, and even architectures around server hosting to be created that are easier to setup and more reliable.

Never mind that the time investment for patches like this is probably fairly low, while the usefulness for current servers (and in the future) is very high. Tyre physics, on the other hand, would be a high time investment (as we've seen) and the results – while having a large impact on LFS' future – clearly take much longer to be implemented.

Obviously the whole LFS community has begged the developers to build a console based server, which is more important than things like physics and content.

In my opinion DCON is a step in the right direction A progress report would be welcome (although this is actually one) but if there's no vast progress to report or if there is actually regress (concerning tyre physics for example) it seems logical not to communicate about it.

Yet I agree more news is welcome even if it's bad news. No news unavoidably lead to speculation but the forum can be such a hostile place for the LFS devs that I suspect Scawen may not enjoy sharing info bluntly anymore.

Discussing road maps or schedules is risky and should not be done unless the time is ripe. How often do you see devs giving release dates and not being able to comply ?

I suspect we just have to many questions, are to curious about things and that it can be straining for Scawen to respond to these sprees of demands/questions/suggestions/insinuations/insults.

Although I also wish for more frequent news, in the end I judge the end result and so far I'm more than pleased (Z28->0.6B->0.6E->0.6E DEDI DCON)

PS.: Scawen, if by any chance you are willing/able to give a mini status update on the InSim autocross updates briefly discussed in November, that would be appreciated.

Quote from Fordman :

Hi Scawen,

Although we all appreciate your's and the team's work, are these really necessary? More protection against Hackers..surly this is just a "throw more bandwidth" at it, regarding the DOS attacks, as I was told?

I for sure, have been here since day dot, like a lot of people and little patch's like this, we all start to question why? surely a major patch, to bring back the original drivers should be higher on your list, please correct me if I am wrong?

I am not questioning the work you do, seriously, as me being here for over 10yrs proves that, just asking, in what order is your priority.

Glad LFS is not dead, and ur still paving the way for the best online sim racer, but please, let us know a schedule, as "its done when its done" is getting tired now after all these years? S2 came out in 200x. I paid for S3 back then, I know my choice, but can you imagine the interest I would of made on that ( not in an english bank of course )

If these patches are important, and more important than content, the please Scawen, explain why.

Again really appreciate your work, just questioning the time lines

Fordie

hi fordman

quick question - is it a typo where you say you s3 back then or was an actual option to prepay for it available sometime.
i only ask as i wasnt around when it was first meant to released

thanks

The only thing you can do is put 12£ on your LFS account, and (assuming S3 is 12£), use that credit immediately when S3 is released without needing to wait for a payment to process. You can also add any credit to your LFS account for Hi-res skin downloads and extra skin upload slots as well.

Pppppfff this whining of 'oldies' really gets exhausting.

There is an official release of a dedi server option. Deal with it, don't like it? Go somewhere else. End of story.

Lower your expectations to no expectations and it can only can get better. Simple rule.

Quote from Scawen :

- Faster text updates when messages appear on screen, reducing packet delays

Not multithreaded yet? Because otherwise I don't see a connection between what's on screen and what happens on the network.

Quote :

- Improved protection against hackers

Hopefully. As this is really annoying for everybody when people join online servers with no names, speedhacks and so on. My guess is that there is not much protection against that on local clients?

Quote :

- Use of skin not found on LFS World causes player to be spectated

I think everybody will be happy about that

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Never mind that the time investment for patches like this is probably fairly low, while the usefulness for current servers (and in the future) is very high.

Sure, as people flee due to no updates in years to the game itself.

Quote :

Tyre physics, on the other hand, would be a high time investment (as we've seen) and the results – while having a large impact on LFS' future – clearly take forever to be implemented.

Quote from sicotange :

Discussing road maps or schedules is risky and should not be done unless the time is ripe. How often do you see devs giving release dates and not being able to comply ?

You mean like VW Scirocco for christmas? At least they did not say what year right?
I don't think we need schedules or precise dates, but at least some info and roadmap of what is on the horizon. So far it seems dead for a few years and that's just how it is. We see security patches here and there and removing some old bugs but that's about it. No real changes that would have bigger impact or bring new content. Not even opening the game for users to add content themselves.

And the game still freezes when a player joins mid race, it's been introduced with one of the patches and never removed again. Guess I will just turn off skins and see if that really helps.

Thanks for an updated dedicated server, I'm sure those who host servers will appreciate it.

It would be nice to remove some client side bugs though as well.
I don't think anybody expects new content anymore, so what ever is released, is released. Who wants tracks and cars probably plays other games now.

Quote from JackCY :

Hopefully. As this is really annoying for everybody when people join online servers with no names, speedhacks and so on. My guess is that there is not much protection against that on local clients?

Unfortunately this wont help much against speedhacks and other common things people use...

Anyway thanks Scawen for this DEDI update

Quote from cargame.nl :

Pppppfff this whining of 'oldies' really gets exhausting.

There is an official release of a dedi server option. Deal with it, don't like it? Go somewhere else. End of story.

Lower your expectations to no expectations and it can only can get better. Simple rule.

Excuse Me If you actually take your very precious time to read my post.....fully, it was actually a question, not a moan, and dawesdust_12 kindly answered it, in a proper constructive manner, thank you Dawes, appreciate it.

My expectations are non existent on here, always have been and always will be.

I would suggest you take a look at your expectations, on an open forum and the freedom of speech, and the right to ask a question. If you lower yours, you might not come back with inept statements...end of story

Fordie

We want to buy S3 licenses, just let us please.

Quote from bishtop :

hi fordman

quick question - is it a typo where you say you s3 back then or was an actual option to prepay for it available sometime.
i only ask as i wasnt around when it was first meant to released

thanks

hi Bishtop. Yeah, when S2 came out, you had the option, as you do now to put money aside for when the next release comes out, so you don't have to dig around for your Credit Card, or wait for pay day, as it was only speculation that each installment would be £12 each (S1 and S2 was), so I had the spare cash then, so I pre-paid/put money towards S3.

Fordie

Back on topic. Assuming a bare Ubuntu 12.10 server, what are the packages I would need to run this from said server?

Wine 1.something

Thats about it. Same as usual actually.

Quote from Dygear :

Back on topic. Assuming a bare Ubuntu 12.10 server, what are the packages I would need to run this from said server?

WINE - preferably 1.5.23 and higher. You can run the dedi from text console like this

Will an update on client side be necessary also ? Or it is transparent for the player ? Thanks.

Could this possibly mean that we'll see a real Linux host in the future?
I'd love to host a server and implement some nice rolling mini series to make casual racing more interesting... But with Wine, I'll still have to wait.

Quote from luchian :

Will an update on client side be necessary also ? Or it is transparent for the player ? Thanks.

No, the player doesn't see any difference apart from the skin thing.

Quote from Faultygearbox :

Could this possibly mean that we'll see a real Linux host in the future?
I'd love to host a server and implement some nice rolling mini series to make casual racing more interesting... But with Wine, I'll still have to wait.

Why is that? I'm interested to know what you could do without Wine that you can't do with it. DCon is supposed to make it work quite well / more easily with Wine than the old version.

There are some problems porting to Linux, not only that some parts of code (input / output - mainly sockets) would have to be changed and some language peculiarities would have to be dealt with (in hundreds / thousands of lines - I know this from when I rewrote the master server for Linux). The biggest problem is that some of the OOS checking would fail because the calculations that take place (when a car is built, for example) would have very slightly different results due to the different floating point optimisations used by different compilers. So some things would have to be done in a completely different way.

Quote from Fordman :

hi Bishtop. Yeah, when S2 came out, you had the option, as you do now to put money aside for when the next release comes out, so you don't have to dig around for your Credit Card, or wait for pay day, as it was only speculation that each installment would be £12 each (S1 and S2 was), so I had the spare cash then, so I pre-paid/put money towards S3.

Fordie

ahah, thankyou for explaining dude, appreciated

Thx Scawen,
I would love to see a forced option for H-Shifter, Clutch, and Wheel Rotation. The first two thinks are easy possible with LfsLapper but the forced Wheel Rotation must be done ingame. We have a Forced Cockpit View why not a "Forced Real Handling" option?
Its much more intensive when 20 drivers have the "same" Inputs.