kmiller1610

Join Date 05/2008

Lan Party

I am planning two Lan parties that will feature Soase. There will be up to 6 players. I currently have only one copy and for each party, I anticipate one other person who will have one copy. I am planning on upgrading all my machines with DVD drives and will have a 1 gig LAN connection. Questions...

1) Do I need to spend another $40 to allow for 6 players? Do I need a third copy of the game?

2) What would be the optimal set up to allow for 6 players?

A) Which version of the game is most compatible with LAN play?

Am I insane to consider a 6 player LAN game. Should I subdivide into 2, 3 player games?
C) Am I insane to consider a 10 player cooperative game (6 humans, 4 computer players)?
D) If I want to try this, should I go with No Pirates, small fleets to try and keep frame rates reasonable?

3) Any other advice would be welcomed. Thanks in advance.

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the_Monk

Join Date 01/2008

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1. Yes you will need to have a 3rd copy of the game in order to comply with the 2-seat license policy.

Also, a 1GB LAN isn't necessary as even a 1MBit internet connection is more than capable of handling the traffic for 10-player game, it's the CPU-lag that brings bigger late-games to their knees.

SINS's only uses a "second-core" for texture pre-caching, after that it all happens on one core. Make sure your systems have powerful CPU's and at least 2GB of RAM for late-game happiness!

2.

A) Patch up to 1.05

6-player LAN should play quite nicely.

C) Please refer to my statement about plenty of CPU-horsepower and RAM

D) I usually play with small fleets (because it keeps the gameplay more strategic..imo) and yes doing so can have a nice FPS-boost for the late-game. Pirates shouldn't affect you much either way (at least not that I've noticed.)

3. Enjoy yourself, and get the rest of your buddies to support the DEVS by buying this amazing game!

the Monk

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The_Monk,

Thanks for the advice. Looks like I will have some hardware upgrading to do. I do appreciate your answers..

km

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Problem is last week we had a lan with this game thinking the "mini dump" issue was fixed but its NOT and right now there is no point in even trying. Every 30 mins or so whole thing comes crashing down and the game save file is corupted. So at this point dont bother wasting your time with a lan party mine was a disaster because our loved "mini dump" issue.

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Here's my report.

All games were small fleets, no pirates. I had upgraded all machine so that 3 had 1 gb RAM and 3 had 2gb RAM ......

We played 6 humans against 4 computer players, 67 planets. It froze after 30 minutes.

We played 6 humans against 2 computer players, 21 planets and played the game through to completion.

We played 3 humans against 3 humans, 21 planets and the game froze after an hour.

I have another party next week. We will have 5 humans and will try the 21 planet MAP and play 5 on 3.

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I just had a 3v3 LAN party last night. We had a minidump issue once at the beginning of one round, and 2 freezes from another computer. However, the freezing could be due to that particular person's hard drive connection being loose.

Regardless, if you do have a LAN party and you plan to play a lot of SoaSE with people, here's my advice: between games, have everyone restart their computers. Once we took that approach, things started to clear up quite a bit in terms of computer errors and freezing.

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I have held three LAN parties since my last report. we played Sins at each party usually one to two games of about 2 hours each. Here's what I have discovered. I am still using 1.05 so keep that in mind. Also, we tend to like a mix of games in a given day of gaming. A game that runs more than 2 to 3 hours just limits our choices too much.

We play maps that allow for 8 players. Grindstone is about perfect, since it only has about 20 planets, but allows for 8 players. We can have a good cooperative game for 4-5 humans against 4-3 computer players. All my machines have at least a gig of Ram, but they are all plain Pentium 4 machines, nothing more.

Sync problems disappear when the machines have very similar speed processors. The party I had today has P4 processors of 2.4, 2.4, 2.5 and 2.7. In other parties that include a P4 2.0 processor, we get 3-4 sync events pergame.

Hope that helps out somebody...

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I am planning two Lan parties that will feature Soase. There will be up to 6 players. I currently have only one copy and for each party, I anticipate one other person who will have one copy. I am planning on upgrading all my machines with DVD drives and will have a 1 gig LAN connection. Questions...1) Do I need to spend another $40 to allow for 6 players? Do I need a third copy of the game?2) What would be the optimal set up to allow for 6 players? A) Which version of the game is most compatible with LAN play?

Am I insane to consider a 6 player LAN game. Should I subdivide into 2, 3 player games? C) Am I insane to consider a 10 player cooperative game (6 humans, 4 computer players)? D) If I want to try this, should I go with No Pirates, small fleets to try and keep frame rates reasonable?3) Any other advice would be welcomed. Thanks in advance.

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For fun in lan (human vs human) i take alot time to make a good who i have named andromede this map get around

750 Planets in 7 galaxy!!!!

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I have had several additional LAN parties, with similar equipment and #s of people as my previous tests. In each case, when I have used the MAP Grindstone, everything works falwlessly. When I use some other MAP, I get sync problems, delays and dumps. I used a 29 planet MAP with three people (Convergence?) on Wednesday and kablooie. I used Grindstone on Saturday twice and .... no problems.

Still using 1.05...

So is it the MAP that makes the difference? Has anyone esle tested MAPs for LAN play stability

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