I do appreciate the help. I spent the weekend nuking a UT2004 server and website for invasion that I ran. I was getting hammered by that server reset hack and that was pretty much the last straw for me. I've been playing MH exclusively now and aside from admin maintenance I couldn't tell you the last time I really played invasion.

This week I'll begin setting up a public mirror for UT files. I have forum capabilities, 600GB of space and unlimited bandwidth so the framework is there. I'm not really wanting to do forums per se, there are already people who have that well covered I think I might need a small area where I can discuss whatever is being worked on at the moment, especially if I can get a couple of coders to hop on. I've used SMF so putting one in place there won't be hard.

As you think of ideas, let me know. There is already an anti-boost included but is it inappropriate? I've seen players self boost to pass some of the bt stuff. I'm going to attack the netcode issues first though. MH is inherently unstable and that part HAS to be fixed. Every admin I have spoken with has expressed frustration at that.

Thanks for your help!! This is a really great board, you guys have some fine members and informative posts. First-class job.

Sorry to hear about the attacks on the invasion server, that really sucks. Chances are it probably came from some third world country. I would have just banned the entire country if it was me.

I can setup a forum section on here for you if you'd like.

Antiboost is a good idea, but make it to where users can turn it on/off on themselves. I also think some antiboost code will still not work if you're in mid jump on like a BT section, it'll cause you to pause in place then fall, instead of completing the jump. Maybe setup something like the "who pushed me" mutator, to where if a player does do that it'll cause them to suicide as well; xx number of times and they'll get kicked/banned automatically.

The only thing I do request with the addition of all these new features you'll be adding. Make it so that if the serveradmin doesn't want to use it, they can disable it.

This board used to be sooo much better, but ran into some issues towards the end of last year/beginning of this year.

I appreciate the info. I ran over at work today and I'm just getting home to get settled. I'm going to start on the MH netcode tonight. I'll let you know what I find.

I'm curious as an admin of a good server would you prefer several versions of MH to choose from or one with configuration? It takes longer to build in configurations but they give flexibility. OTOH a server version that is hard coded tends to be more stable if it's done right.

Well, I'm off to a hot cup of coffee, a stack of .uc printouts and a notepad of error logs.

I like everything all bundled on one package. Normally means less chance that something could go wrong. Although I do see where you are coming from. Just fixing all the "problems" with MH then making mutators that will add functionality to the game type that admins can add as they see fit. Just means more downloads, more things you have to edit in the ini just to add new stuff and a higher chance that something might conflict with something.

Where as if it's all bundled into one package and turned off by default, then the server admins can just change a few things int he INI to have what he wants added and configured the way he wants and it's done.

OK here's first impressions (and I'm very surprised)...

It looks like MH is not so much the problem. MH seems to be pretty stable as a mod engine. It appears it's more the maps causing error cascades that eventually crash the server.

I've been looking at errors and comparing them with the maps opened in ed and a good number of maps are a wreck once you dig into them. Spawns not using creature factory, 1500 monsters jammed into a room with movers, mylevel alterations to the monsters without thought to the engine demands.....ugh. This may change my focus.

Now I'm thinking of finding maybe 8-10 rock solid, never error maps and running them in short rotation on my server and see if I get any crashing.

This was something I had a feeling of, since I have noticed that it's normally the same maps that crash when the server goes down.

Yeah, it really looks that way. I ran all the logs and cherry picked 4 maps that never error. Not one server burp and I bashed the hell out of it.

It makes me wonder....what now? Do I start cataloguing what makes maps error out? Man, I'm glad you helped me out before I spent a week fixing something that wasn't broken.

Going that route (finding out what makes the crappy maps crash) could take a long time and it's really no one's fault except the mapper(s) who made them in which case 90% of all the MH maps are total shit anyway

2 quick fixes I have seen is to make sure creature factory was used and check monster's default sight distance. It would be pretty easy to {fix} a few favorite maps but 400+?.....Pass (lol)

I'm going to maybe try to write a mod that limits sight length but I don't hold much hope of it trumping the map in the mod chain. Almost always the map calls the final shots, as we can see with the problems here.

It might work. One thing I was hoping to get out of this was something that could start logging stats for the MH servers.