The Novalogic Lobby Status

[JGZinv]

So FringeSpace is very quiet, that's largely due to a variety of problems but I wanted to explain what the deal is with the nova lobby since there are fairly recent people here trying to play.

Firstly FringeSpace.org has been releasing patches over the years as Nova keeps moving their server hosting, we've made other patches along the way and refreshed others.

The problem as it stands, and has for a long while, is that the IP address Tachyon calls in order to connect to the lobby/server has been shorter in the past ie. 100.39.13.29, currently it is 207.178.209.202. Since the exe has to be hex edited to make this change, the length difference causes an offset which in turn causes crashes even starting the game. Unfortunately my forte isn't coding, so I couldn't get any further with it.

Devilsclaw was testing a fix quite some time ago now and had reportedly gotten it to work, but it wasn't released. I believe this is who is hosting the "test" server if you check the URL for the lobby.

Lastly, the only way I figured out to still run multiplayer, since the game lacks local TCP/IP play, was to shoehorn IPX back into Windows with a wrapper. With that, yes you can play "lan over internet" over the Tuungle service, much like Hamachi back in the old days.

The Discord server for voice and chat is still up, and someone's generally haunting it at any given time of day. https://discord.gg/0VT8HgdsF0nTsRAH

So that's where we stand.

[[UEF] _-Caleb-_]

Thanks!

[JGZinv]

Wish I could get this pinned to the top.

To clarify a bit, any Windows machine Vista and newer, needs a IPX wrapper in order for LAN mode to work. If you're still using an old XP box, then as long as the network adapter has IPX enabled in the adapter properties, using Tuungle for the lobby will work just fine.

You end up launching Tuungle, then running Tachyon in LAN/IPX mode, rather than Novaworld, if you're searching for a game it should pop up right away. Then you can join and play as normal.
Obviously, if no games are existing already, you'd have to host / host and play over LAN mode and others will then find you. Firewall ports for Tuungle are still a concern, so keep an eye on your antivirus suite.

Mods still work the same, everything else works the same. Do realize that IPX is a protocol that was designed to simply spit data packets out over the local in house network like a shotgun. It wasn't designed to transmit data long distance with error correction (that was TCP/IP). So the result is for people cross country or overseas, you will see more lag or warping of ships. Hits may not connect... this is simply nature of the beast. Sometimes it's not a problem, sometimes it's unplayable. Depends on where you are and your connection.

[JGZinv]

Video covering getting Tunngle running. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHUXFg3Vxz4