Quote from Racon :

The dedi host doesn't load the track model, it doesn't know where the ground is.

Couldn't the insim get that info from player that would be requesting it? Just like it does with PMO_SELECTION (if I understand it right).

Massive lag and eventual server crash just now on FM FOX Friday server... looks like DDoS

Quote from sermilan :

Massive lag and eventual server crash just now on FM FOX Friday server... looks like DDoS

People always can attack servers nothing to do with master server and with this patch

Quote from RC-Maus :

People always can attack servers nothing to do with master server and with this patch

But what about "More robust multiplayer system", aren't we better protected from those attacks now (I'm really a technical noob, so don't mind me asking )?

Just means Devs took care about their web and I think they made dcon tries to connect with master server more frequent.


But when someone attacks the server where the host is running on it easy goes down. (one dosser easy to detect but ddos u get so many ip's impossible to know (and infact every nub can do it))

Quote from Degats :

...

Thank you for your extensive explantation - That help me to understand such things a little better.

Quote from sermilan :

But what about "More robust multiplayer system", aren't we better protected from those attacks now (I'm really a technical noob, so don't mind me asking )?

When you are playing online in LFS, there are two servers involved. One is "master" server of LFS devs, validating your license and collecting data about actual race-servers (their addresses, mode, configuration, available cars, etc), allowing you to search for some server. The other server is the actual game server, where the race is going on, and belongs to people who provide game servers.

Now if you attack the master server, and force it to choke on the traffic or crash, basically nobody can connect to any game any more. If you attack particular game server, then only the players trying to play on that server are affected.

The latest patch was about strengthening the master server, so there's no single-point-of-failure bringing down all games/players.

Thanks guys for your explanations!

Final straight, latest weekend of August is coming !!!

Quote from Flotch :

Final straight, latest weekend of August is coming !!!

But almost whole next week

do not consider the week working days, it is so much reserved for "standard companies" working only from Monday afternoon to Friday morning

With mirrors enabled the game is effectively rendering 4 views instead of 1, so inevitably this causes rendering time to take longer. Enabling AA will also increase rendering time.

As LFS is single threaded I guess it is not processing any network packets while rendering, so that increases latency.

Scawen, I have a question.
in the next version only comes the graphics to with it also comes tire physics?
Today I was asked about this in an LFS community and I did not know how to answer it

Far more probable as per Scawen's posts that there will be the graphical update first (alone), then the tire physics will be in the plan.

Hey, I just wanted to pop in to say I was playing with the updated layout editor today.

I have mixed feedback. I will start with negatives so I can end on positives:-

# Negatives

## A. Fine tuning the height of objects is problematic

Why:

1. When an object is placed with o key, the X, Y and Z controls are not available.
2. Pressing PgUp, PgDown causes the object to deselect and create a new object unexpectedly. You then need to delete the other object.

## B. Selection States are confusing

Why:

When an object is placed with o, it is highlighted as though it is selected, however the move controls are not activated. The movement controls only appear when you click the object, which changes the selection color..?

## C. Losing selection when pressing space is not favorable


Why:

In the new editor, the screen can be crowded with 'Selection hints'. A creator like myself who wants to edit a layout will press Space just to see how the layout looks.

Before hand, when you pressed space again, your selection would be kept and you could resume. Now you cannot and it consumes time to get your selection back again.


Fixes:

1. Unless you can explain a tangible benefit why objects are no longer selected when placed, I suggest undoing this change, and automatically selecting the object when it is placed, like before.

2. Do not forget selections when pressing space - We use this just to see our layout without the visual clutter briefly - not to stop editing.

Okay, that's all my criticism.

# Positives

## The new selection boxes are good.

Keep them because before it could get really confusing to know what you had selected when there are just blue dots and often you would select the wrong thing without knowing.

## The keyboard shortcuts are good

I appreciate being able to raise and lower objects with pgup/pgdown.

Ctrl Z + Y is greatly appreciated too.

I think I'll keep an old copy of LFS around for layout editing now, because the object selection thing is actually a show stopper for someone like me as it significantly increases the amount of fiddling required to get objects into the right position. I really hope you can do something about that.

Have a good one,

Tommer

Just saw this old threat and thought maybe a good idea to build in a check if offical lfs.exe is loaded. Maybe makes it harder to crack the system


Edit: I mean before next update release

Quote from tommer :

Hey, I just wanted to pop in to say I was playing with the updated layout editor today.

I have mixed feedback. I will start with negatives so I can end on positives:-

# Negatives

## A. Fine tuning the height of objects is problematic

Why:

1. When an object is placed with o key, the X, Y and Z controls are not available.
2. Pressing PgUp, PgDown causes the object to deselect and create a new object unexpectedly. You then need to delete the other object.

## B. Selection States are confusing

Why:

When an object is placed with o, it is highlighted as though it is selected, however the move controls are not activated. The movement controls only appear when you click the object, which changes the selection color..?

## C. Losing selection when pressing space is not favorable


Why:

In the new editor, the screen can be crowded with 'Selection hints'. A creator like myself who wants to edit a layout will press Space just to see how the layout looks.

Before hand, when you pressed space again, your selection would be kept and you could resume. Now you cannot and it consumes time to get your selection back again.


Fixes:

1. Unless you can explain a tangible benefit why objects are no longer selected when placed, I suggest undoing this change, and automatically selecting the object when it is placed, like before.

2. Do not forget selections when pressing space - We use this just to see our layout without the visual clutter briefly - not to stop editing.

Okay, that's all my criticism.

# Positives

## The new selection boxes are good.

Keep them because before it could get really confusing to know what you had selected when there are just blue dots and often you would select the wrong thing without knowing.

## The keyboard shortcuts are good

I appreciate being able to raise and lower objects with pgup/pgdown.

Ctrl Z + Y is greatly appreciated too.

I think I'll keep an old copy of LFS around for layout editing now, because the object selection thing is actually a show stopper for someone like me as it significantly increases the amount of fiddling required to get objects into the right position. I really hope you can do something about that.

Have a good one,

Tommer

Couldn't have said it any better. I'm also using an older version of LFS only because of the layout editor, which I always found it much easier and quicker to use. I've really tried to get used to the new editor but I simply can't.

I haven't tried out newest one yet properly due lack of interest... but I should not be hard. So... now I gotta try!


EDIT: Indeed, it feels odd and editing will be albeit slower. But not impossible mission!

Quote from RC-Maus :

Just saw this old threat and thought maybe a good idea to build in a check if offical lfs.exe is loaded. Maybe makes it harder to crack the system

Well, that's the point of "cracking" process, to remove all similar checks. The more (and more non-obvious, buried deep in the other code) checks you add, the harder the cracking process is (but then also it may get more difficult to make it bug free, or modify some parts of game later, and developing clever-enough checks is often time consuming).

Modern systems like "denuvo" go to a lengths where part of game code is transformed from binary back into custom interpreted language, encrypted and it's being executed inside custom virtual machine provided by the protection framework, using all kinds of self-check, polymorphic self-alteration, and similar (other SW using most of these techniques are rootkits/viruses ... hmm, just saying, not implying anything), to make removal of these checks difficult.

(I'm not asking Scawen to work on these, I believe it's wasted time, if somebody is skilled enough, game designed as LFS (with dedicated server executable available, i.e. all vital code parts are available to regular customers, so the cracker can start there and just remove checks) is sort of "easy" to crack ... makes me just wonder, how somebody skilled enough doesn't feel ashamed, and what is the motivation. The game itself is super cheap already, and you are supporting three (two and half) developers directly, no big corporation, etc... how can people still pirate game like this is beyond my understanding, I would feel so ashamed). (the whole "lfspro" situation is just pathetic, especially when they start to whine on forums, they use all those pathetic excuses, like from a book, pure raw definition of pathetic people ... but they will probably never in their life realize, what they did, so they will never ever understand how dumb they are)

Quote from Ped7g :

Well, that's the point ...

I'm not a programmer so I perhaps can't see it in a programmers way. But I understand what your saying.


The question is how skilled are the hackers. So maybe making it bit harder is just enough.

And I don't understand it at all. I mean why spending money hosting a illegal masterserver. Like u say LFS isn't expensive. And this behavior is destroying the comunity.

Really have respect for Scawen. Not sure if I would have had motivation to work further on LFS.

It's the evergoing race between devs and crackers - whatever you do to add more protection,will be cracked at some point anyway,so it's up to devs to decide how much time is worth to hold crackers off for a week or two.
The good part of LFS - you cannot join online hosts without aproved account,so the most important aspect (online racing) is denied to crackers,they're forced to use IP hosts instead,which has some drawbacks to their users (no skin downloads,no stats,no simple click and join method). Unfortunatelly some were able to simulate LFSW to provide online racing in their own environment - again an evergoing battle,where devs were able to shut some of them down.
Anyway - most of the crackers will never buy licence,I have heard many reasons like "I'll never pay money for just a game" (which is the most funny one,as they're usually running the games on expensive hardware purchased exclusively for gaming) or "I have no money","I have no bank card" etc... So the complete riddance of cracking won't bring much earnings to devs.

Also, anything can be hacked, cracked. Nothing is safe. It's just a matter of keeping those ***** in their own crap servers

I don't know how the crack works but if I had to assume then it would be packet sniffing from a real activation, then replicate that on a controlled environment. Also if you say the game is so cheap why don't you buy S3 for everybody?

Quote from benjamin.torres :

Also if you say the game is so cheap why don't you buy S3 for everybody?

I could, but I don't want to.

Quote from benjamin.torres :

I don't know how the crack works but if I had to assume then it would be packet sniffing from a real activation, then replicate that on a controlled environment. Also if you say the game is so cheap why don't you buy S3 for everybody?

Not so easy how it imagines. It's will give you the oportunity to simulate masterserver but without authorization (login and password) and protection your account. Without that you will get tons of crazy people in servers who you can't ban. For make authorisation you need look deeper into the game. Assembler and debugger this is your friends to a long time...