Admiral Kirk

Ill have to agree with freak and others on this. Having been thier when this was all happening, Twister certainly wasnt the games only problem, but it was one of the biggest. Thiers AMPLE evidence in MANY differnt online games, that cheating does do a very good job of killing a game. Diablo 2, Allegiance (almost same story as SS), many others. Ill never quite understand the mentality of one who cheats. Mistake me not, I dont blame Sage386 for making it, I can understand the curiosity in that. I blame him for releasing it, but at least that I can understand (wanting recognition for his work). But for those that actualy used it? No clue at all, stupidity is the only factor I can fathom. At any rate, cheating in general was certainly one of SS's largest factors determining its health. Mabye not Twister specificly, but cheating in general, most certainly.

You could always file a DMCA takedown notice with the ISP hosting the site. This would of course, put you at the level of whatever it is that pond-skum eats, but most ISPs will follow a DMCA takedown notice with little or no evidence. And since, as doc said, you have almost no actual legal recourse, this is pretty much your only choice. And dont bother with Network Solutions, thier just a domain registrar, theyll just tell you to go pound sand. Thier are various and sundry ways to find out who the ISP is, depends on how far down-stream the actual site provider is. Anyway, good luck ^^.

Because Ctm doesnt resolve host names, it uses direct IPs...

Continuums problem is the holy client authoritative protocol. Itll always be easy to cheat in Ctm, weather the source is out or not. The only thing thats difficult about continuum is initiating the encryption protocol with the server, this makes it VERY hard to write bots that can pose as continuum clients. The actual encryption itself is fairly weak (as in, listening to an encrypted stream, one could likely decipher its contents fairly easily). Thier are also many anti-debuging methods in Continuum itself, however this is HARDLY full-proof and its actualy not that hard to gain access to Ctms memory space. Harder than just some regular joe program for sure, but not impossible. Thier is realy only one way to fix the cheating problem, and thats to redesign the entire protocol to be server authoritative and then make constant updates to the client (at least once a month or more). This is how the profesional MMOs do it. Server authed protocol makes almost all types of cheats impossible, allowing almost nothing more (for SS anyway) than aiming bots left. And constant changes to the client (and subtle changes to the protocol) will make those obsolete faster than they can spread. But unfortunatly that ammount of work is pretty much unpractical for a voluntear community working with a closed source client. Thier is another game out thier, Allegiance. Thier client and server both are entirly open source, thier community consists of less than 10 developers, however they have a better handle on cheating then Ctm does ^^. So open source CAN work, just not with this design. Unfortunatly all these discusions are mostly academic. Can the entire can of worms be redisgned to work with a completely open sourced client/server? Ya, will it? No. The endevour is way more work than any developer would be willing to put into it I think. Priit and Grel are the only two who have made any earth shattering contributions to the game, and even thier work would be considered tiny compared to what would be required to redesign the game properly. Basicly, everytying will plug along pretty much as it has for the last several years, and every time the hole can of worms almost dies due to cheating, Priit will come back, save the day, mabye stick around for a few more updates and then leave again. And for a rediculously old 2d asteroids game, thats realy not that bad. I doubt that something with the cult following that SS has will ever realy die, but I dont think itll never realy evolve either. But honestly, thats not such a bad thing, SS is realy more about the people than it is the game. Its a fun game with a tiny learning curve that almost anyone can pretty easily pick up, and its filled with people you can talk to ^^. Aaanyway, thats my $21.42

As far as the 10th chat is concerned, I dont expect support for that to be terribly forthcomming as it only works on ASSS and not that many people have 10 chats I would suspect ^^. As far as the scrolling down on you, try using your mouse wheel that tends to work better with that crappy !@#$%^&* RichEdit control. As I said above im working on a new custom control to replace it and that anoying scrolling problem is one of the things I expect the new control to fix. But creating a custom control from scratch isnt the easyest thing in the world, specialy a scrolling, word wrapping text control ^^. And even more so when your so busy your head is spinning But I dont plan on giving up! Ive actualy got at least half of the custom control done. It displays text, word wrapps and scrolls properly. The only few things I have left to do realy are Text Selection and Copy to Clipboard and thats about it. Of course those arnt exactly trivial problems either but its comming along fairly nicely. Anyway ill try to keep everyone updated with my progress.

Does it crash your system imediatly, or does it crash the system after having run for a few days strait without being shutdown? The reason I ask is because the RichEdit control that makes the primary chat window is your usual hidious windows coding and has major issues when the data inside gets too large. Thier was at one point a routine that would erase old text at the top but it doesnt seam to work correctly for anyone but me So in the later versions its disabled. The control _might_ cause strange things to happen if it gets over 64mb large (thats a LOT!!! of text btw). I am working on a new custom control to replace that richedit POS but ive been extremely busy with real life work lately so I havnt had as much time to work on it as I would like.

firefoxmyths.com is just a bunch of FUD. Sounds almost like MS FUD too. Almost every "myth" that they reveale is either stupidty or a misrepresentation. Not to say that opera isnt better than firefox. I personaly use the fox and opera both on my computers. Im not sure realy which one i like more, i think i like them both but ya that site is stupid ^^

The timers in C++ (win32 api timers) are perfectly accurate down to 10ms, below that its OS dependent and not garunteed. But thats a hole crapload more than I can say for VB Not to mention if you want better resolution you can always jump to using multimedia timers which are accurate down to .01ms i believe. 100us right? something like that. And i didnt mean the string functions were incomplete, i just ment they were slower than horse manuer and as for vb7 ya, i didnt realy take that close a look at it but MS seams to be ripping off Java left and right for pretty much all its new coding languages. !@#$%^&* it certainly didnt invent C++ just wrote its own version of it. Im waiting to see how D comes out, but for now C++ is my language of choice And drake, if your having a problem keeping your entire program in your head at once its your design not the language. I work the same way as you, i keep the ENTIRE structure of any of my programs in my head all at once when im working on it. The secret is to efficiently use classes, modulerisation and object orientation. In a properly object orientated code base its very easy to keep the entire design flow in your head for the most part. But !@#$%^&*... why _arnt_ you writing down your program flows? Does do!@#$%^&*entation not mean anything to you?

Ok sure, if you go through the imence amount of work thats involved in byp!@#$%^&*ing the VB6 runtime modules and using the win32 api directly from VB6 ya you can write a stable app that will come close to being as fast as a C++ app, but at that point your practicly coding C++ anyway so might as well use the more powerfull language And yes, i definetly agree that at least 70% of VB's bad wrap comes from the fact that its so easy to create a program that will actualy _do_ something that the majority of VB coders are complete amatuers. However thats not all of it. I do know VB6 and VB7, and have tried both. VB6 is just plain horrid no matter how you look at it, the runtime library is terrible, timers dont always work, the built in string functions are horribly inefficient. Array access functions are sickening, the list goes on ^^. VB7 is a little better but not by much. The problem isnt the language itself but the runtime library microsoft wrote to be used with it. Infact the problem is almost entirly microsoft Also another serious stab for VB is that its 100% unportable (and no, WINE doesnt count). VB6 is realy only good for GUI prototyping, that is something its incredibly good at. Beyond that, nothing realy.

Yes, we have several VB apps running our FCC testing labs as well. Thats actualy my job at the moment, to rewrite them all in C++ so that they actualy work without crashing or taking 60 years to compute a simple value Although I must admit as to the crashing thats more the fault of the VB coders than VB itself, its just that the original coders were so mindnumbingly stupid that they couldnt even be bothered to check for simple things like "Does the file actualy EXIST before we try to open it ^^".. morons... Thats ok though, I finaly got one of my rewrites past QA and everyone is suitably impressed, it may not look as pretty but it works 100x faster and has not crashed ONCE throughout all of QA and the last several months that its been in use. Im certainly not saying that VB doesnt have its uses, it does, just that those uses are prototyping and small rare-use utilities. Not production applications ^^.

try irc.freenode.net #sheepcloning I idle thier almost every day and Snrrrub makes an apperence thier at least once a month sometimes more sometimes less ^^ right now hes spending quality time with his gf so hes not on much

Actualy I do have inline !@#$%^&*embly in some of my programs but then portability becomes a !@#$%^&* because !@#$%^&*embly is architecture dependent. Pure CRT C++ on the other hand can be written such that it will compile on both win32 and linux with zero modifications.

Whoever mentioned VB6 needs to be shot burried, dug up incinetated, disperesed over the sea, the sea filtered for the ashes the ashes put into a coffin and burried in an asteriod that is fired at a sun somewhere giving it just suficient m!@#$%^&* to go supper nova.... And whoever related C# to C++ also needs to die in a hole... C# is a rip off of Java and thats about it. C# sucks just as much as Java does, infact probably more. If you want a _real_ programming language use ANSI C++ with CRT Librarys. None of that ATL or MFC bullcrap. Just strait up C++, its the only way to go EDIT: Oh ya, and good job on the nifty program!

Gameplay: If you see catid again, tell that bum to get back on #sheepcloning me and Snrrrub havnt seen him in years ^^

Yes I understand how cyclic pings work... However, in order to send the ICMP data to a host thats further down stream (hops forward) it must go through all previous hops to get thier. Now note the Min numbers.. The smallest ping at hop 6 is the smallest ping at hop 7 is 10. That is to say that a ping send to hop 6 has never come back with in less than 80ms... However, it seams that a hop has gotten back from hop 7 in 10ms at some point. In order for that to legitimitly happen (as in no traffic shaping involved). Either thier would have had to have been a _very_ short momentary lack of lag allowing the ping to hop 7 to traverse hop 6 in less than 10ms and then said reduction in lag would have to never happen when sending icmp packets to hop 6. Or the routers do packet shaping and give directed icmp packets lower priority but p!@#$%^&*-through packets normal priority. At any rate, its all academic

That kind of trace should be impossible ^^. You cant have a _lower_ latency to a host that is after a host with higher latency in terms of hops... The fact that it jumps from to 10 says to me that that program doesnt test very well, either that or the hosts give low priority to ICMP traffic and greater priority to p!@#$%^&*-through traffic, in which case trace is totaly useless. Might also expain the ploss on the trace that might not show up in actual game play.

wow, seams like all the old time coders are returning, w/b ziggy

0.15 Beta and later had a broken *getfile function (added 16 bytes of random binary data to the end of any recieved file). Also 0.17 Beta had a debuging function left on. Anyone using 0.17 should upgrade as soon as possible and then go into thier SubChat2 install directory and delete the Packet.log file that is most likely a 100 megs or more by now, depending on use. Check the change log on the subchat2 website for other relevent changes.

Parragraphs are for the week... Real men dont need parragraphs ^^

I can help with a few of those questions. Firstly, he definetly has a router, his IP is non routeable. The problem is probably either the operating system, the NIC, the ethernet cable going to his router, or the router itself. Or possibly a HUB if thier is one between him and the router (usualy only if you are sharing your connection with several other people). The most common reason for packet loss is usualy a bad/messed up router, or a bad NIC. First course of actoin, is to make sure that you have powered down your computer, and unplugged your router for at least 5 mins. The router is the important part since many DSL routers are of low quality and dont react well to interfernce on the lines (usualy caused by lightning storms) and tend to get all fudged up until they are reset by a complete power down. If that doesnt help, id sugest the other likely candidates which are Viruses or Ad/Spyware on your computer, you can do a virus scan at http://housecall.antivirus.com and you can download an adware scanner at http://www.lavasoftusa.com. Failing that you start to get into the diagnostics that cost money, such as replacing your NIC/ethernet cable and other such things. Thier is also a possibility that it is your ISP as SOS mentioned but that is fairly uncommon although it certainly wouldnt hurt to call and ask (as long as they dont charge you ).

Change Log: Version: 0.17 Beta (+) Added ability to Register new users with SubChat2 (!) Using "?go" now takes you to default Public instead of your defined default arena (!) Fixed Arena Login Packet compatability with ASSS Version: 0.16 Beta (!) Fixed Client Side commands (?login, etc are no longer imporperly interpited) (-) Removed bulky VIE Checksum file (reduced EXE size substantialy) (Thanks Catid/Snrrrub!) Version: 0.15 Beta (+) Added Filtering to MultiLine Paste (Filters out begining and ending empty lines) (-) Changed ReConnect delay from 30 seconds to 15 Seconds (-) Removed Packet Flood detection (was constantly malfunctioning on file sends) (-) Slowed down *putfile sends a little (!) Improved some protocol routines (Reliable recieving more efficient) (-) Changed No Data detection to 15 seconds instead of 30 (!) Vastly improved efficency and speed of BigChunk handling (*putfile and *getfile) Version: 0.13a Beta (!) Fixed Automatic ReConnect when you are Disconnected due to No Data (!) Fixed Overwriting text with Paste (would always add to current string) Version: 0.13 Beta (!) Fixed HTML Logging bug (Logs didnt look quite right) (-) Changed mID to be based of Volume Serial Number of the Drive Subchat is running on (!) Fixed constant Disconnect messages after using menu to perminetly disconnect (+) Added support for // Team messages (Only ' was supported before) (!) Fixed an Issue were a user who was in arena/zone then left wont recieve your Remote Messages (-) Now reports your TimeZone to the server, instead of reporting EST always Version: 0.12 Beta (+) Added Progress Bar support for Map File Downloads (!) Fixed Map Checksum errors when changing arenas too fast (+) Added ability to paste multiple lines of text at once NOTE(1): MultiPasting while text is already in the Say box will result in the text in the Say box being outputted imediatly before the MultiLine Paste. NOTE(2): MultiLine Paste will take the chat form of whatever is currently in the Say box. (ex: 'Test) means all subsequent paste lines will also be Team Chat NOTE(3): If you enter just a ' or /, etc. That empty line will _not_ be outputted, however all subsequent paste lines will take that chat form. NOTE(4): And finaly, be WARNED, this is an easy way to get kicked for flooding, SubSpace is much less tollerent than IRC. (!) Fixed multiple problems with MultiLine Paste (hope I got them all ^^) Version: 0.11a Beta (!) Fixed UserList Right Click (Caused crash due to lowercase name lookup change) Version: 0.11 Beta (+) Dont process an empty chat line (User pressed enter with nothing in chat box) (-) Changed About dialog box to be more informative (still more info to add later) (+) Remote messages will now find local names even if you get the CaSe of thier name wrong. Features of SubChat2: - Full featured SubSpace Chat Client. - Use Up/Down arrow keys to navigate through previous chat messages. - Typeing a double colon (: allows you to scroll through names used in PMs and Remote Messages. - A remote message (:name:) sent to a user in your current arena is interpited as a PM and translated as such for you. - All text is color coded and the colors can be changed by going to Settings, Colors. - Fully operational Directory Server support, When in the Settings dialog box, click the Zone List to get a list of zones from the selected directory server. - Optional Time Stamps for all messages. - Right click menus on all names in the Name List, gives additional information and allows certain actions. - Staff Command support, turn on Staff options in the Settings menu and certain staff options will appear in the main menu and in the right click user menu. - Advanced File Transfer support, when files are being transfered to/from your client, thier is a progress bar and the files can be saved/sent from/to anywhere on your harddrive. - Advanced Chat Logging, using ?log or ?logbuffer logs all proceding chat and chat history (with ?logbuffer) to an HTML file using color coding that matches whatever you have your client set to. - You can set the Font of your client to any windows font (Changes all chat and user list names) - Supports AutoConnect to connect to the server as soon as the program is started. - AutoCommand field allows commands to be issued automaticly upon connection to the server. This field also supports a few special names such as and that are automaticly replaced with the current date or time. (Allows for automatic dated logging every program execution) - MultiLine Pasting. You can now paste directly into the Say box multiline clipboard content.

Impressive ^^ Looks easily portable as well. Nice work, consider open sourcing it? Id love to see some examples of SDL, ive been considering getting to know it for awhile now.

Sweet! Works like a champ! Thanks Cerium!

Yess... Now I see. The first PW response comes with a response of 0x01 and reg of 0x00 then you send another PW packet with New User byte set, and then it response with a 0x00 and reg of 0x01. And I should assume it will come back with something other than 0x01 if the user name given is entirly illegal? Ok.. I think this is all making sense now, lets see if I can get it working ^^

That all looks right. Only problem is that Byte 19 never comes in as 1, even when I attempt to login with an unknown user name. Byte 1 does come back as 1 but Byte 19 is still 0. Here is my understanding of the password Packet Offset Length Description 0 1 Type byte 1 1 Boolean: New user *1 2 32 Name 34 32 password 66 4 Machine ident *2 70 1 ConnectType *3 71 2 Timezone bias 73 2 ? 75 2 Client version *4 77 4 ? memory checksum, Set to = 444 81 4 ? memory checksum, Set to = 555 85 4 Permission ident 89 12 ? And ya know... As im sitting here typing out this reply.. Mabye it has something to do with that New User Byte up thier in the password packet? Is that important? And if so, how might one determine if the user about to be logged in is a new user? Or should that bit be set on a subsequent password packet if we recieve a response of 1 (unkown user)?