Been making my way around a dedicated server and through my readings I seem to have something going. Not using any of the server tools out there right now. Just using the dedicated server I downloaded from here as is.

Right now I have a SERVER.CMD file with the code:

file mission_a.cmd

Inside MISSION_A.CMD I have:

mission END
mission DESTROY
mission LOAD Net/dogfight/pacific fighters/01.mis BEGIN
mission START
timeout 360000 mission_b.cmd

I run a map rotation like this from mission_a.cmd through mission_f.cmd.

I have a few questions I am not grasping yet through my research.

In the script that rotates I have a line that looks like this:

timeout 360000 mission_g.cmd 

Does that mean its going to time out in 6 minutes? Isnt 360000 milliseconds six minutes or am I off? Does the server not rotate when people are on it? I'm just trying to understand a bit better how it automatically rotates.

All the scripts above are set to time out at 360000.

Something else, I havent found a way to understand. The messages that come up during the game, for example PILOT A WAS SHOT DOWN will stay on the top of your screen until something else pops up. Is there a way to make that go away after a set amount of time?

LASTLY - is there a way for me to rotate maps on the remote dedicated server while connected to it from another machine inside sim? Sort of like an RCON? I dont see a passworded way of doing so. What I have been doing is connected to my remote dedicated via laptop and running the commands from the console that way.

If all your .cmd files from a to f are similar, except load a different mission, then that should work, although I would think you need to have the word "file" in all of them, i.e.:

timeout 360000 file mission_b.cmd

Six minutes is fine for testing, but pretty short for play. Have you not tested it? Yes, the new mission will load no matter if players are on the server or not.

To send console commands to server as a player, I'm not sure, but there may be a way. Maybe you will have to run il2console.exe

This is a very cumbersome way to script the server, and you can see why people will use FBDaemon or IL2 Server Commander to do this job.

Thanks for the tidbit of FILE, I missed that, thats why I had the error and it wasnt rotating.

I really need to further look into IL2 Server Commander and FBD

Yes, either of those will offer much greater control over server operation and automation.

In the meantime, it occurs to me that you could combine all your .cmd files into a single one. You can have multiple instances of the timeout command in one file, and in fact, it doesn't even have to have the .cmd extension.

For example:

mission END
mission DESTROY
mission LOAD Net/dogfight/pacific fighters/01.mis BEGIN
mission START
timeout 360000 mission END
mission DESTROY
mission LOAD Net/dogfight/pacific fighters/02.mis BEGIN
mission START
timeout 360000 mission END
...etc...

As far as clearing the chatbar, you can start another script that works in a similar way, that sends some chat message, with a timeout of some interval between them. The script can then reload itself to create a loop which will continue to run as long as the server is running.

quote:

Originally posted by dbillo:
As far as clearing the chatbar, you can start another script that works in a similar way, that sends some chat message, with a timeout of some interval between them. The script can then reload itself to create a loop which will continue to run as long as the server is running.

Thanks for the idea about combining the script. I learn a little more about this every day. We had about 10 of our clan guys together after the kids were away and in bed for some friendly aerial fragging and what a lot of fun.

Now, as for the clearing chat bar script, would you possibly be able to post a small example of how that would work?

I assume in server.cmd have it point to say another script file like clrchtbr.cmd and in there enter a command that shows a message and then the timeout codeat the end of it?

Something like this:

timeout 300000 chat Welcome to BurnerGPL Server! ALL
timeout 310000 file clrchtbr.cmd

That should send the welcome message in chat every five minutes.

Oh, I made have made a mistake in that combined script example...I think you have to make the timeouts cumulative, like a clock running, because the script will continue to run even through successive missions:

mission END
mission DESTROY
mission LOAD Net/dogfight/pacific fighters/01.mis BEGIN
mission START
timeout 360000 mission END
mission DESTROY
mission LOAD Net/dogfight/pacific fighters/02.mis BEGIN
mission START
timeout 720000 mission END
etc...

Thanks all for the tips. I did get a small welcome message flashing in the chat box from time to time. Nice touch.

I tried using Server Commander and did get an IL2 server working on a test box here. It seemed like more than what I needed. Maybe because I wasnt comfortable with the documentation I found for it to help me better understand ALL the options.

Anyway for now I'm s till using the same process of have the server.cmd file call the mission_a.cmd and then having it cycle through each map in the rotation like I mentioned above. For now, it works...but...

I noticed a couple of times a that after a map rotates to a new map, within a few minutes IT ENDS and a the NEXT MAP in the rotation comes up! This confuses me because after rechecking all the files (mission_a.cmd through mission_g.cmd) all the values for time are the same!

I dont understand why it would just launch to the next map after only a few minutes into a map that just loaded.

Does anyone have a clue why this may be happening?

BY THE WAY.. One more piece of code I would like to add to my rotation scripts. It somewhat stinks when your in the middle of a dogfight and have no idea that the MAP is about to rotate to the next map! Is there a good way to warn people this is about to happen?
Maybe a chat message to all to warn that the server will soon be rotating to the next map in X minutes?

mission END
mission DESTROY
mission LOAD Net/dogfight/dads/Dd_DogFight_Operation_Torch.mis BEGIN
mission START
timeout 3000000 chat THE MAP WILL ROTATE IN 10 MINUTES! ALL
timeout 300000 chat THE MAP WILL ROTATE IN 5 MINUTES! ALL
timeout 300000 file mission_c.cmd

Please check my code above and please tell me if this will allow for a 1 hour map duration where with 10 minutes left a chat message will pop up, and 5 minutes later another chat message will pop up, followed by 5 minutes later the map rotating.

Im just looking for a way to give players a heads up that they will soon be rotated to the next map.

quote:

Originally posted by BurnerGPL:Anyway for now I'm s till using the same process of have the server.cmd file call the mission_a.cmd and then having it cycle through each map in the rotation like I mentioned above. For now, it works...but...

I noticed a couple of times a that after a map rotates to a new map, within a few minutes IT ENDS and a the NEXT MAP in the rotation comes up! This confuses me because after rechecking all the files (mission_a.cmd through mission_g.cmd) all the values for time are the same!

I dont understand why it would just launch to the next map after only a few minutes into a map that just loaded.

Does anyone have a clue why this may be happening?

What have you got for the timeout value? In your examples here, 360000 is just a few minutes. It's been so long since I've used scripts like this, I can't recall all the ins and outs.

quote:

BY THE WAY.. One more piece of code I would like to add to my rotation scripts. It somewhat stinks when your in the middle of a dogfight and have no idea that the MAP is about to rotate to the next map! Is there a good way to warn people this is about to happen?
Maybe a chat message to all to warn that the server will soon be rotating to the next map in X minutes?

mission END
mission DESTROY
mission LOAD Net/dogfight/dads/Dd_DogFight_Operation_Torch.mis BEGIN
mission START
timeout 3000000 chat THE MAP WILL ROTATE IN 10 MINUTES! ALL
timeout 300000 chat THE MAP WILL ROTATE IN 5 MINUTES! ALL
timeout 300000 file mission_c.cmd

Please check my code above and please tell me if this will allow for a 1 hour map duration where with 10 minutes left a chat message will pop up, and 5 minutes later another chat message will pop up, followed by 5 minutes later the map rotating.

Timeouts within a single script file are cumulative. Think of it like a stopwatch that starts running when the script first loads. So:

timeout 300000

will do something five minutes after start of script. So for your series of warnings of mission end, each timeout should ADD time to the previous:

mission END
mission DESTROY
mission LOAD Net/dogfight/dads/Dd_DogFight_Operation_Torch.mis BEGIN
mission START
timeout 3000000 chat THE MAP WILL ROTATE IN 10 MINUTES! ALL
timeout 3300000 chat THE MAP WILL ROTATE IN 5 MINUTES! ALL
timeout 3600000 file mission_c.cmd

This may be why your maps are rotating too soon. It's possible that the very first timeout command is starting the clock, then each successive timeout in each script has to add to it. If that is what is happening, then this would be the limitation of using these scripts. Just speculating on that, as I'm not yet convinced that is how the scripts work. We used exactly the same sort of script to time our USL matches, and each script run behaved as if independent of the others.

I agree that Server Commander may be more than your need, however, you need not utilize all of its abilities. Same for FBDaemon. You can use them simply to rotate a series of mission at a set time interval, and they have, by default, the warnings of impending end of map that you are trying to implement here.

I was using this website:
http://www.convertworld.com/en/time/Milliseconds.html
To convert the time because I believe the time figure there is set in Milliseconds.

3000000 is 50 minutes
300000 is 5 minutes

I see I have my order of timings WRONG, those scripts were not live by the way. I only typed that code in as an example of what I thought it might be and hoped someone could offer advice before I made them go live. THANKS!

I understand what you mean about cumulative now and that is a big help.

Now as for the rotating too soon thing, the lines of code are actually:

mission END
mission DESTROY
mission LOAD Net/dogfight/   2/01_1Net2armyWinter1200.mis BEGIN
mission START
timeout 3000000 file mission_g.cmd

then on to...

mission END
mission DESTROY
mission LOAD Net/dogfight/dads/Day_of_Infamy_dogfight.mis BEGIN
mission START
timeout 3000000 file mission_i.cmd

etc... As you can see from the 3000000 figure I had the map timing out and going to the next script file after 50 minutes.

Now, I dont know why some of the scripts have SPACES in the directory structure for map location, that seems weird but it finds the map none the less.

I'm going to try FBD next as time allows before I make a final decision on if Im going to use one of these tools and which one it will be! THANKS!

I have decided to user SERVER COMMANDER, and am going to try and integrate the STATS PAGE on our webserver too.

Can I ask some questions here?

For one, I am wondering if the SC startup lists our server anywhere? I noticed a name connect to it earlier that was not familiar. We dont publicize this server so I was wondering how this person got in. Does server commander have anything to do with this?

Sorry, I'm not 100% familiar with SC. I have it, and have played with it a little, coded .ini files for it, but don't use it myself, since my server runs Win98SE, and SC doesn't get along with that.

I have read something about the IL-2 server broadcasting a "heartbeat", which All-Seeing Eye supposedly picks up, so maybe that is how this player found you. I take it you are not starting the server from Hyperlobby, then?

No, not for hyperlobby. This server is for our dads clan and we keep it pretty simple since most of the players there are not hard core flyers but enjoy an aerial frag and bomb run from time to time. Its all in fun and we keep it pretty much as an area where we fly with ourslves.

I've had challenges finding the documentation I want other than the english version wiki which is good but still leaves me with questions.

quote:

Originally posted by BurnerGPL:
I've had challenges finding the documentation I want other than the english version wiki which is good but still leaves me with questions.

The help file included with SC is fairly thorough. Even just a few months ago, there was an active SC forum at gennadich.com, but it has folded. One place you can try to get some help is the battle-fields.com forum:

http://battle-fields.com/commscentre/forumdisplay.php?f=36

They have a few tutorial sort of threads in the mapmaking section, and some people there may be able to assist.

rgr that.. thanks for the link!