Any autohost for Linux?

[LordMatt]

UF=Unknown Files, the main host of files for spring. You can get KP from these links:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/dl/installer/ ... _Panic.sd7
http://spring.clan-sy.com/dl/installer/ ... illess.sd7
Also Maps for KP:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/dl/installer/ ... nel_panic/

[malric]

By "demos" do you mean videos of games played? I would need replay files in a file format that can be automatically parsed.

...

This is why I asked Tobi to give me an estimate of how many games are played per day, but he hasn't replied yet. Does anybody know the answer to this, even roughly?

A demo is a file with all the commands given by the players during a game. So, if you have the exact version of the game/mod you can 'reproduce' the game. Probably you will have to modify Spring engine to dump whatever data you need.

Stats can be found here: http://spring.clan-sy.com/stats/. These are not 'real' - they are based on pooling the server each 20 minutes.

[Licho]

Stats dont work well..
for example CA autohost stay "open" while in game. So they are not counted.
Additionally CA creates new versions often and stats show only top 5 mods.

Imo proper pooling should count player minutes based on non-spectator players in games (both running and waiting).

[SwiftSpear]

With a KP autohost up you'd probably get around 2-3 games a day played on average. More if people care enough to advertise and intentionally use your server (name it UofArecearchAutohost or something, and it would attract more spring regulars to put effort into it )

If you're talking about making players play against AI, probably you get more initial interest, but then slowed down after the fact.

[lanctot]

The writing of the code required to parse the data files or recreate them from the replay files is not a problem -- that would be part of the work I have to put in to get the research done.

Suppose I started a league centered around this KP-only autohost, much like the current SPring league but only for playing KP. Do you think that would help more in generating interest for regular games? The 2-3 games per day would be good, but if it'd always be from the same pool of 10 people, then the data might be too biased and hence not something suitable to draw general conclusions from.

[lanctot]

Stats dont work well..
for example CA autohost stay "open" while in game. So they are not counted.
Additionally CA creates new versions often and stats show only top 5 mods.

What is CA?

[Licho]

http://www.caspring.org

[lanctot]

Well, thanks for the link.. but the one-line description on the web site doesn't really tell me much about the game. How is this "different" than Spring + a mod? Is it a fork? Why does it exist separately from Spring.. eg what are its goals ... does it not have the same goals as Spring and/or are its goals in conflict with those of Spring? And lastly, is Linux supported? These guys should really put more on their web site.

[malric]

Maybe you should get a bit more accustomed to spring by reading the wiki for example.

For example about ca:

http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Glossary
http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/Complete_Annihilation

The wiki is not that well maintained or updated, but I guess it will ask you basic questions like what is a demo, what is a mod, etc.

(and yes, all mods support linux, linux support is in the engine)

[zwzsg]

Spring is the engine. The executable. The C++ application.

Complete Annihilation, Kernel Panic, Expand & Exterminate, Gundam, Balanced Annihilation, etc... are the data. The content. The models, textures, animation scripts, sounds, etc...

One engine. Several games.

[lanctot]

I didn't know there was a glossary for the acronyms, thanks, that will certainly help. I do know and understand the basic architecture, I'm just not familiar with the acronyms people are using on this message board.

Also, it wasn't clear that CA was a mod. They don't even say it is a mod on the CA web page. They make it look like a totally different game based on Spring, ie. a fork or rewrite of the source code.

[lanctot]

In other news I spoke to my supervisor and have a short-term plan for an abstract AI planning system that would work with ORTS, ortslite, and maybe even Spring. Since this is getting quite off-topic at this point, though, I will start another thread about it in the AI forums.

[SwiftSpear]

I didn't know there was a glossary for the acronyms, thanks, that will certainly help. I do know and understand the basic architecture, I'm just not familiar with the acronyms people are using on this message board.

Also, it wasn't clear that CA was a mod. They don't even say it is a mod on the CA web page. They make it look like a totally different game based on Spring, ie. a fork or rewrite of the source code.

Well... There has sort of been a move to disambiguate the term "mod" CA uses large amounts of lua, and they have generated huge amounts of game content, so in many developers minds they are their own game. However, not so abstracted that it isn't still running on the spring engine and isn't still booted up through the spring networking server.

Some people aren't fond of referring to something that has had so much work put into it as a "modification", I mean, we don't call quake4 a Doom3 engine mod, it's it's own full game, however, fundamentally still running on the same engine.