Biocross Server Management System
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We have a new addition to the team, HazardFN. He’s in the process of developing a new server operator for Freelancer! Be sure to check out his blog for his development progress: http://www.freeworlds.koh3.com/freeworlds-2-dot-0-vf129.html
-Decode FL Files on the fly everytime a change is made - because it can be put on a background worker it never slows down your Server as it runs on a different thread
-Every decode saves the file as an XML document which is then used to view player information INSTEAD of decoding the file everytime to view key information
-A whole new GUI which is less boring than the original, something fresh and somewhat easier to navigate
-Everything has been recoded into .NET (FLCodec, FLHash etc.) except FLAdmin due to some errors I can’t work around but hopefully for the future!
-Advanced player searching with filter options and other layout devices with the ability to save a search and load it at a later date
-Tabbed MDI child form as a player editor meaning you can have more than one players FL file and open and edit it at the same time just by clicking through tabs
-When you hover over a players name on the player list it shows a popup telling you the players Money, Ship and faction they are most aligned with
- Player summary option which shows everything about a player then their equipment in a tree list structure which is neatly organised into nodes again without decoding a single FL File
-ALL GAMEDATA files are converted to XML easily using the built in converter meaning if you make a new mod with added ships it’s as easy as a click of a button to generate the XML gamedata for it, also because of the nature of your mod having so many new GAMEDATA entries it has a batch convert option which converts every gamedata file to XML in a folder in seconds!
-An all new easy way to modify your servers new character .fl file simply by clicking buttons you can have your players start char configured in seconds - click one button drag all the loadout info you want into a box then another and just type in the money amount and everything else that is editable!
-My personal favourite is the Mass Character Editor say you’ve just hired a few new admins and want to mod their char with tags in their name, lights etc. It takes their existing names (“Hazard”, “John” “Sushi”) for example then does this (or something of your choosing placed in a template - [SP]-Hazard-[SP],[SP]-John-[SP], [SP]-Sushi-[SP]) then reads the rest of the template applying the same standard Admin equipment to them and “police” lights etc. as well as the admin ship. Could also be fun to have a template to apply to a player when kicked so he is incredibly disadvantaged for 48 hours then re-apply after his sentence
-Performance Monitoring works out an average of your CPU Usage and lag generated if that average works out higher than a safe point you are warned and options are provided to you such as Restarting the FLServer or doing the same with Biocross as sometimes the ‘garbage collector’ of .NET programs can get a little full
-Admin notes is a new idea of mine where you can give your admins upload rights to a certain folder on a server, and they can upload tasks, thoughts and ideas using the Admin Notes client then you as the server admin can download them from within Biocross (which houses the Admin notes Server) view them add to them and re-upload them, it will have urgency, a subject list (which you can define) for example say if your only allowing three types of notes, notes of banned players, notes of maintenance or server trouble and forum problems then the client will download the subject list and your other admins using the client can only choose from those subjects.
-Banning station is a slightly more advanced and easy to use version of the IFSO banning section, everything is easier to follow and to read as well as some new little touches which make it all a little easier.
-Most of all I hope to share all source code but only after I have finished and feel I can no longer add to the program, I don’t want to give it away yet but I will when my time is up I dont want to leave you in the position you are in now, a server operator which you can’t add to!
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Ya, it’s just sorta happened over night. There is a lot of good stuff that we’re hoping to give back to the Freelancer community
Hopefully a good mod, too…hehe -
Is that VS2008… The interface is shiny
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I think that is, ya
Follow his blog or PM him on our forums (we’re in the process of getting news ones, though). He’s really willing to answer questions. I’m sure if more of the FL community backs him, he’ll be even more excited to do the work he needs to get done. I think this will be a great step for all of FL community to get behind HazardFN and rally him on. I’ve directed him to this site, so hopefully he’ll become a member here as well. -
Indeed. Some kind of inter-operability with FLHook and Biocross would be a very nice thing.
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Wow looks like a very good server tool
Can’t wait to test it
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Indeed. Some kind of inter-operability with FLHook and Biocross would be a very nice thing.
+1
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I’ll bug HazardFN to join these boards, again. We’re also getting a new website, so we should be able to hook up to the Freelancer Community Network soon
You can still check his blogs on our forums for all his updates - and you don’t need to join to view them.http://freeworlds.koh3.com/freeworlds-2-dot-0-vf129.html
If you guys want, I can make a quick forum there for guests to post in that discuss this new server operator in more detail? I have no qualms doing that for you guys.
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Hey Guys,
This is the new Visual Studio 2008 yeah, running on the new .NET Framework 3.5 - which also means compatability with Vista although yet untested…
In terms of interoperability with FLHook what would you like to see, personally I’m not TOO familiar with FLHook, but I’ve noted through testing the ini files it leaves behind - they could easily be parsed for info - anything else?
I was thinking maybe adding my own ranking system with in it which generates a HTML table based on FLHook ratings, kind of like FLStat but with FLHook settings instead…
ALSO the search feature (which I forgot to tell Sushi) whereby you can search for players etc. can also be saved to HTML amongst other formats… So you can save a type of search full of filters to display on your webpage, for example players who own the ship ‘X-Wing’ or players who name begin with A and so on…
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In terms of interoperability with FLHook what would you like to see, personally I’m not TOO familiar with FLHook, but I’ve noted through testing the ini files it leaves behind - they could easily be parsed for info - anything else?
Basically to use FLHooks kick/ban/msg functions.
I know, you can use the FLServer gui for that as well, but thats not very nice
You can communicate with FLHook easily via a socket connection. The socket connection also features an eventmode, you could use that to display in a special window of your server operator whats going on at the server, like who is killing who, who is respawning where, etc…
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1st. ;D THIS looks VERY promissing.
2nd. PLEASE
@HazardFN:……I was thinking maybe adding my own ranking system with in it …
Atm we are discussing a concept for our next version,
were we would like 2 “bypass” the ranking system with
one or two special rep(s) and the reputation level the player got with that/those faction(s)
based on online time / mission / npc kills / frags.Depending on that, we would like to set the rep of the player,
so he/she can get some xtra goodies (4 example access 2 battleships),
when reaching a certain reputation.Backdraw:
AFAIK we would have 2 set the rep “by hand”.
And getting something like this, which would completely bypass the money based
FL ranking system would be great. ;D -
Just realease some new pictures over at Freeworlds new forum - check them out it features the new mdi tabbed interface I have been working on for the character editor…
Love the FLHook idea - any chance you could give me any info on how to connect to FLhook via a socket connection and how to encapsulate the event mode?
And I always thought you could configure FLStat to order its ranking output in an order you like - or were you thinking of something else? If you weren’t thinking of something else and FLStat does just order by money then this can be ordered by anything that is contained within the PlayerXML decoded straight from the FL File itself!
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That’s a shiny new operator you’re doing there, nice job…
Just a short comment, one of the screenshots is labeled/named “Working With Discovery Mod” but those bases listed there are in no way from Discovery… but that’s not really important, maybe just a mistake, it just hooked my sight…
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Your right there I meant freeworlds - bear mind I post these at 3 - 4 (GMT) in the morning lmao thank you for pointing that out will edit that
- Here are the images of the tabbed player editor
As you can see the player editor works WITH the search - next feature here after I have wrote the modify code for FL Files is the ability to rename the tabs to whatever you like - for example Player Seach could be come Sith or Jedi etc.
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Biocross comes with a file converter that converts all original IONCross GAMEDATA into XML - it’s not perfect and you should really hand check them quickly afterwards to see that everything is OK!
So the answer is no-ish you can just send the files into the converter and as long as they are properly formatted and contain no & characters everything will be fine - if they do contain & characters do a quick find and replace and replace theme with ‘and’. I’m thinking of building that automatically into the converter.
The converter is finished so I will release that now possibly so all server admins get a chance to see how it works…
