L.C.

Please, tell us. I hear this all the time.

Still waiting for Google to make a deposit into my bank account so that I can verify my AdWords billing setup.

Why? :?

Nope, no other way. Usually .vdf's are plaintext, but shortcuts.vdf is oddly enough not plaintext. Created http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12459059#post12459059 anyway.

Hi. I am a developer. I am a darn scatterbrained animal. User need to tie loose ends for me. /F/ail. I am not sure what you mean, Grav. Just say it.

They don't need to be converted. Where would the logic and sense be if I released it as such? Just backup your original sounds and graphics folder, delete the original folders, then extract the sounds and graphics folder from the ZIP archive to your Continuum folder. If you get a prompt to overwrite, you are not doing this correctly. Continuum will read non-BMP formats perfectly fine. The only graphics that are required to be BMP and with a .bm2 extension are menutext.bm2, ships.bm2, and tiles.bm2 (open Continuum.exe/fix.dll in a HEX Editor and you will find this is hardcoded) -- which are already like this in SubspaceFX. SubspaceFX has been tested adequately for quality assurance and convenience of installation.

Ping! This is kind of important..

SubspaceFX [HQ] Download (5.23 MB): bluetoast.org cdn.bluetoast.org hlrse.net Developer Edition (6.27 MB): bluetoast.org cdn.bluetoast.org hlrse.net Summary: - Original SFX of seven to ten times the bitrate quality than included with Continuum - Original GFX with richer and more realistic color qualities - Removed compression artifacts noticeable in some graphics - A few extra bongs (27-32) from older Subspace/Sniper clients that never made it up the ladder Description: This graphics and sounds replacement contains the original sounds and graphics of Subspace. About all sounds are 7x higher in bitrate quality than originally included with Continuum (and if you did a comparison, you would definitely prefer the original sounds). In comparison, Continuum SFX for the most part sounds muffled, drone-like, slightly slowed or sped up, and skewed -- usually in different combinations per sound. I do recall that the victory music, however, is indifferent from the original bitrate. A good chunk of graphics have been restored to original quality and colors. Some of the graphics included with Continuum contain GIF compression artifacts (such as the repel graphics), and other graphics have color palettes that are dumbed down, lowered in contrast, and lowered in saturation. Some of the originals have much richer and realistic color palettes; most notably (from memory) are explode1 and explode2. Lastly, some of the original imports have been slightly photoshopped to have the same "shape" as Continuum graphics while restoring original graphical and color qualities. That is, the original repel did not have as much transparency in the center of the repel animation as it finished its animation (compared to Continuum's repel contours). Obsolete Information

Subgame2 should be supported by Discretion no matter what. Obviously Subgame2 won't be able to support everything, but you can add an extended LVZ support by having Discretion interpret certain files contained within LVZ's. An LVZ might contain a discretion.ini file, which could identify certain things such as how many thruster graphics spawn from each ship and where. EDIT: Perhaps for the sake of compression, one could ZIP up Discretion configuration files and include it in an LVZ, and Discretion would decompress this ZIP file and read the contents. Continuum would simply ignore these files since it has no use for them. Of course, if a zone is running Subgame2 for Discretion, it won't be able to support more than 8 ships and spectator mode, more than 10000 frequencies, larger map sizes, advanced wormhole functions, etcetera. But you shouldn't lock Subgame2 users out of Discretion.

Translation: SubSpace console-style.

Continuation of http://www.ssforum.net/index.php?showtopic=24065 Google AdWords advertising Current Balance: $0.26 (insufficient funds) Current Daily Budget: $3.50 (forced) Current Status: Paused (only 6PM-10PM) Formula for Daily Budget: Current balance / 30 Daily budget is updated every day; current balance is equal to the daily budget of the day before subtracted from the balance of yesterday. This will keep the advertisements going for quite a while. Download the Excel 2007 sheet here. Donations: Date Amount ($) Donor 11/27/2009 4.16 L.C. 11/29/2009 25.00 L.C. 12/05/2009 10.00 L.C. 12/06/2009 15.00 PoLiX 12/22/2009 100.00 Xog 12/28/2009 4.19 Russky 1/7/2010 97.21 Evasive (Facebook advertising) 1/7/2010 2.79 Evasive 1/21/2010 30.00 Xog You can send donations to subspace@hlrse.net or subspace@bluetoast.org via PayPal. Contact me if you would like to donate but cannot do so through PayPal. I can give statistics/reports access to anyone who is interested. Information on creating your own advertisement Standard list of keywords I am using To access Google AdWords: Go to http://www.google.com/adwords and login with the e-mail address you provided or used to PayPal a donation. To access Google Analytics: Go to http://www.google.com/analytics and login with the e-mail address you provided for Google AdWords or used to Paypal a donation. Anyone who donates I automatically invite to the Google AdWords, and likewise I add them as a user to Analytics; you may have to register a GMail e-mail address if you do not already have one. Archived information Facebook Advertising (1/10/2010 to 1/12/2010)

In case anyone does not realize, those photos were taken with high exposure on a tripod. To me, it looks like a missile out of control. According to reports, it is a confirmed missile launch by submarine by Russia, and that the missile failed in stage 3. http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/12/11/0410258/Russia-Confirms-Failed-Missile-Launch-Caused-Norways-Light-Show They also say that it was a "misfire." (This is up to you to judge.)

While you have a good worry, Synister, as I too had the same worry (see my first reply to this thread), I think less and less that this would actually be a problem. If you took a count of all the bans as a result of hacking and cheating, how many of them actually still play (based on gut feeling)? Same question (but based on what you would do if you were banned for cheating for 12+ months)? If I got banned for cheating, I would either (in any combination)... 1) Leave the game, having taken out my wrath and ultimate displeasures upon the game 2) Leave the game, assuming I don't have multiple IP addresses 3) Patiently wait for my ban to expire and resume as a normal, innocent player 4) Patiently wait for my ban to expire to cheat again If you get banned for 12+ months, what are you going to do? A lot of stuff happens within a year, which could ultimately change everything. Why not just hire a few extra BanG operators and send out alerts to all zone operators? I really think all bans should be purged. Nothing ventured is nothing gained.

Halted the Facebook advertising today. Will updated statistics when I get home. Going to start Google Advertisements today (hopefully) for a two or three day preliminary test.

>> New thread here << (For those that did not notice.)

I need some of you who have Steam installed to do me a favor. I am going to need four versions of your shortcuts.vdf file (located in \Steam\config\). First version: 1. Make sure you have no third-party application shortcuts in your Steam Games list 2. Shutdown Steam 3. Make a copy of your shortcuts.vdf and rename the copy to firstversion.vdf 4. Start Steam back up Second version: 1. Add a shortcut to your Continuum.exe to your Steam Games list 2. Shutdown Steam 3. Make a copy of your shortcuts.vdf and rename the copy to secondversion.vdf 4. Start Steam back up Third version: 1. Add shortcuts to two other applications or games into your Steam Games list 2. Shutdown Steam 3. Make a copy of your shortcuts.vdf and rename the copy to thirdversion.vdf 4. Start Steam back up Fourth version: 1. Remove Continuum from your Steam Games list 2. Shutdown Steam 3. Make a copy of your shortcuts.vdf and rename the copy to fourthversion.vdf 4. Start Steam back up and remove the two bogus shortcuts from your Steam Games list Then ZIP/RAR/7z/tar all four versions and either (1) attach to this thread, (2) private message me, or (3) e-mail to admin@hlrse.net. Why? I am looking for patterns in shortcuts.vdf, as a friend of mine pointed out that his shortcuts.vdf code structure was slightly different than mine. I need a few people's shortcuts.vdf so that I can look for what is consistent and what isn't (aka pattern). Upon finding out how to universally work this file, my custom Continuum040Setup.exe installer will be fitted to detect for Steam installations and automatically add Continuum to your Steam Games list via shortcuts.vdf.

By the way, Avoid Page Flipping is the same thing as toggling Vsync. Samapico, can you check to see if Disable Clipping really has a performance impact? :? I just have some backend curiosity about something.

First time I have heard or seen about this new ViDock2 thing -- and I think it is pretty sweet! My thoughts on your framerate problem is that it might have something to do with ViDock2 itself in trying to render Continuum via DirectDraw; maybe it does not have full or proper support for 2D rendering and DirectDraw, as it was designed mainly for 3D games using Direct3D or OpenGL.

bursting into your portal.. where did this one come from?

When was that? I posted about this, I think, two years ago at http://www.ssforum.net/index.php?showtopic=13930&view=&hl=virgin&fromsearch=1.

Someone obviously had way too much time on their hands.

>> Here << EDIT: Typo in title. Change "involves" to "unveils"

Seems like Facebook throttles advertisements to a CTR of 0.05%. Next week I will experiment with Google AdWords.

A zone spider bot! Once every week it attempts to download the public arena from every zone in a directory server, and then preview their map online.

For some reason sscentral.sscuservers.net does not show most/all BlueT zones and some of the other non-SSC hosts (although it is hard to say because ssdir or ssnecentral have bugged directory servers where they do not clear their list/cache of non-existent zones). Go check each directory server out. Here is a standard configuration file from BlueT: [Custom] ArenaMode=5 [Arena] ArenaMaxPlayers=200 ArenaDesiredPlayers=100 ArenaMinimumPlayers=25 SpawnKeepScores=1 MaxArenas=2000 MaxArenasMemory=64000 [Comms] MaxQueueToLogin=16 PacketHistoryMax=2000 IncomingBufferSize=131072 OutgoingBufferSize=131072 EncryptMode=1 UnreliableBufferSize=128 TransportBufferSize=160 FlushTime=10 SleepTime=10 SelectTime=10 BandwithIdleTime=21600 [Misc] DisableShareware=0 RegisterKickShareware=0 MaxSharewarePlayers=-1 MaxPlayers=256 MaxSharewareTime=90000000 DisableSharewareNames=0 DisableSharewareShips=0 DisableSharewareScores=0 MenuKickOutDelay=60000000 NoAntiInSafe=0 LockFreqs=0 PositionDataAccess=2 AlertCommand=cheater,help,illegal AllowPubScorereset=0 AllowPvtScorereset=0 TimerDropFlagTerritoryRadius=8 ShipTypeSwitchResetPeriod=0 CheckWeapons=1 CheckFastBombing=0 FastBombingThreshold=30 ForceObsceneCheck=0 NoFlagRewardLimit=0 LogPoints=0 PointUpdateDiff=500 JackpotBroadcastPoints=0 ServerLog=1 KeepAliveDelay=500 DefaultLevelFile=_bzw.lvl Port=%serverport% AllowVIEClients=1 LocalChat= LocalChatPrefix= StaffChat= ForceContinuumOnly=0 ServerIP=74.86.4.98 BotIP=74.86.4.98 BotsIP=74.86.4.98 AllowPrerelease=1 [CPU] LoopDelay=0 ProcessMaxTime=4 SleepPerIteration=1 SlowIterationWarningLevel=100 SleepTime=10 [Permission] AllowBadMachineId=1 AllowLowBandwidth=1 MinimumSecondsToLogin=0 PermissionMaxPoints=0 PermissionMode=0 AutoPermissionPoints=0 AutoPermissionIDList=0 AutoPermissionMessage=Congratulations [Password] SysopPassword= EnergyPassword= ModeratorPassword= SuperModeratorPassword= VIPPassword= [billing] IP= Password=%rconpassword% ServerName=%hostname% Port= ServerId= GroupId=1 ScoreId= ReconnectTime=120000 AttemptTime=6400 LogMessages=0 [Advertise] SendMode=0 DisplayMode=0 Duration=6000 [Routing] QueuePositions=1 QueuePackets=1 PosSendRadar=100 PosSendEdge=20 [Validation] CheckMod=1 CheckSMod=1 CheckSysop=1 LogPubCommands= LogPvtCommands= DisablePubCommands= DisablePvtCommands= [Directory] IP=ssdir.playsubspace.com,sscentral.sscuservers.net,dirserver.ssnecentral.net,ds1.hlrse.net Description=ss://ds1.hlrse.net Zone description here. NamePassword= Port=4991 To generate staff passwords: I generate random passwords using default settings from http://www.goodpassword.com/ (alphabet, capitals, and numbers). To generate billing password: I generate a random password of at least 10 characters from http://www.goodpassword.com/ using defaults. To generate the NamePassword: I generate a 20 character password from http://www.goodpassword.com/ using maximized complexity, then feed 1 of 20 generated passwords into http://gtools.org/tool/md5-hash-generator/ and use the MD5 hash for NamePassword. To generate scrty and scrty1: I have installed my Server Kit and I delete the existing scrty and scrty1 files, then run Subgame2.exe plainly and allow it to generate both files via subspace.exe, then kill Subgame2.exe and upload the pair to whichever zone. In the past years, before BlueT, I have observed that only on sscentral directory server if you use the same NamePassword for all the zones on your network then they will successfully list. Unfortunately, this is also a security issue, because you are supposed to use unique NamePassword's for each zone (just like your scrty and scrty1 files) to prevent zone name theft in directory servers that handle NamePassword correctly. I do not know how true this is now, as I would have to try this again. Let me know your thoughts and diagnosis. PS. I think SSNE's directory server is dead or something.