Altruist wrote on Mon, 21 February 2011 07:10

It was mentioned that you have already made some experiences with duels using the Dropbox. Would you mind to share the setup and wether any problems with the copy protection occure?

'llos

Setting up a game with Dropbox is very simple. Simply share a Dropbox folder and create the game in the shared folder as you would normally. The two things are completely separate.

Dropbox setup:
1)If you both already have DB accounts then one of you simply shares a folder with the other or
2)If neither of you has a DB account the one of you should create an account and do 3)
3)If one of you has a DB account then send during the share a folder wizard, simply enter the email of your non-Dropbox duelling buddy who can then sign up to Dropbox and have the folder immediately shared.

Bonus! Every time you share a folder with ,or refer, a non-Dropbox person who then sign's up you both get 250MB more space -->CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP <--

If you haven't already done so, both of your will want to download the Dropbox client. This will enable automatic syncing of the Dropbox folders on your computer with your Dropbox folder at the Dropbox website - and in the case of shared folders, these will then be synced onto your duelling buddy's computer. There are various option for the Dropbox client that I won't get into and by default all of your Dropbox folders and files are sync'd so for the purposes of this, unless you need to enter web proxy credentials, they don't need changing.

That's pretty much it. Now any files you place in the shared folder on your computer will make their way to your friend's computer. Files you delete will be deleted, etc.

Create the game in the shared folder...or move the game files (.hst, .xy .m etc) there once you're created the game and just play.

It should be noted that both of you will have access to all the game files which has a number of rammifications:
*I recommend putting a password on your turn file as its easy to accidentally double click your opponent's turn file.
*Organise with your opponent who is going to generate turns. If the folder gets out of sync, (eg by both of you genning a turn at the same time) then it can be tricky to recover. IMO there are two scenarios that need arranging:
1) when you're both playing at the same time - generally hoping to get multiple turns done as opposed to 1/day etc - in this case I recommend one person opening the .hst file and clicking "Auto Generate" in the host dialog.
2) When you're playing whenever you get time or 1/day etc - in this case I recommmend each player open the host dialog after playing their turn, and if both players are submitted(green) then click generate turn. This allows each player to effectively play two turns each time - one before gen and one after - even if the players never play at the same time. This is the same as the email method of emailing all of the game files back and forth only without the need to do the emailing.

Both players (or at least the players who will open the .hst file) have backups=50 in their stars.ini file or have some other backup system in place.

Re copy protection, if you're like me and you've also connected your Dropbox account to your work computer so you can *ahem* play at work, you *will* need to be careful of the copy protection. The simple solution here is whenever you open a turn where you have saved it on the other computer and are continuing to work on it(or just every time), delete your .x file after opening your turn. A simple rule for that - if the .x file exists when you open your turn, then delete it.

One problem that has been occurring frequently is that Stars!.exe has been crashing for both of us with a GPF fault when generating turns - this could be related to just about anything and our solution has been to use Task Manager to kill the ntvdm.exe process before running the host utility.

taskkill /f /im ntvdm.exe

if you want to put it in a batch file for some reason - bear in mind this will kill any open Sta

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I vouch for the convenience and speed. Learnt a lot from gible in the 2 duels. Thanks

Addendum :

The batch file doesn't necessarily kill other open stars games. It must be something to do with not using "running multiple instances" of stars.
As I am unable to normally open *.m* files by simply opening them (linking them to starsjrc4.exe does not stick..), so I use a batch file. (.txt file renamed to a .bat file)
D:\Stars\starsjrc4.exe ****.m*
and add this to stars.ini file, under the [MISC] section.
defaultpassword=*******

Running the "taskkill" WILL close all stars file, so save your other games before you execute it.

Finally one player can leave the host to autogen.
However if you inadvertently alt-tab onto the host, the autogen gets turned off.
I used to "save and submit"(Ctrl+A) the turn and continue going through the turn, while waiting for gible to finish his starting turns.
When the other player submits the turn, you get a small dropbox pop saying "***.x*" file has been added. That should be your indication to check up on the host file if it doesn't autogen.
Works quite well for a speedy 2400-25.

Edit
Oh do be careful about dumping planet reports etc. They are accessible to both players.
Deleted files can be undeleted from the dropbox website, so you might want to 'purge' your deleted .p files, if you do generate them by mistake.

Frankly, you won't really need to do it. You have to trust each other when you are playing this way.
If you don't, well, you can password protect the host file so that only one person can generate the turn.

Gible, once you reach your 8gb bonus referral cap, replace the link with this please
https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTIwNzk5MjcwOQ

[Updated on: Sun, 20 February 2011 23:21]

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Hmmm, I gather it could be better (particularly if there's more than 2 players involved) to just use a local computer to generate turns from local files (so one player would actually be a Playing Host) and use the DropBox folder just as a convenient way to get x files and distribute m files, perhaps assisted by handy batch files to automate things.

Is it possible to use DropBox that way?

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m.a@stars[/email] wrote on Mon, 21 February 2011 15:10]Hmmm, I gather it could be better (particularly if there's more than 2 players involved) to just use a local computer to generate turns from local files (so one player would actually be a Playing Host) and use the DropBox folder just as a convenient way to get x files and distribute m files, perhaps assisted by handy batch files to automate things. Is it possible to use DropBox that way?

Yup.

Though that would mean that one person would still have to move the *.x files from the dropbox folder, generate the turn, then add the *.m files back to the dropbox folder.

It would be simpler to just put a password on the host file, if you do want to keep generation ability with only 1 player.

Even batch files would still negate some of the ease that dropbox gives, in the fact that the last person submitting the turn can generate* and the game keeps moving on.
Having a shared dropbox folder from which all players play is convenient.

[Updated on: Mon, 21 February 2011 15:50]

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You could link the folder to the dropbox folder... then the host generates the files and they are there... the player plays his turn which has links to the dropbox folder as well..

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donjon wrote on Mon, 21 February 2011 15:55

You could link the folder to the dropbox folder... then the host generates the files and they are there... the player plays his turn which has links to the dropbox folder as well..

I'm being really dense today.. It took me 3 re-reads to understand what m.a@stars meant.. and I can't even get around to what you said

Perhaps if I understand why you would want to link a folder to the dropbox folder and not just use a dropbox folder.

Your option would still mean only 1 player host has the ability to generate the turn. Won't putting a password on the host file suffice?

We still would come to a point where the host has played his turn and goes to sleep. The other player comes online, plays his turn, submits.
Now with dropbox, he could have generated a turn and played the next turn as well.

With this 'linked-folder' approach, it would mean waiting for the host to come online and generate the turn.
This would restrict the number of turns back down to about 1 turn a day.

Nmid.

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nmid wrote on Mon, 21 February 2011 22:06

We still would come to a point where the host has played his turn and goes to sleep. The other player comes online, plays his turn, submits. Now with dropbox, he could have generated a turn and played the next turn as well.

I see now. You want all players to have the ability to run the turn generation.

What I was suggesting was a way to allow only one player to update the game's files, to avoid some of the possible pitfalls outlined in the initial posts. That would essentially turn said player into the game's Host.

Still, there's ways to allow everyone to run the Host Mode while keeping it from being run simultaneously by several people. All it takes is some batch coding, assuming DropBox folders can be accessed that way.

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m.a@stars wrote on Mon, 21 February 2011 18:20

I see now. You want all players to have the ability to run the turn generation. What I was suggesting was a way to allow only one player to update the game's files, to avoid some of the possible pitfalls outlined in the initial posts. That would essentially turn said player into the game's Host. Still, there's ways to allow everyone to run the Host Mode while keeping it from being run simultaneously by several people. All it takes is some batch coding, assuming DropBox folders can be accessed that way.

I think what I was saying was that for the time of the blitz, one player would act as host, with the host facility on autogen... when all turns are submitted, the game would gen. Opening up access of the host file to all players is asking for trouble.

[Updated on: Tue, 22 February 2011 09:46]

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