How to Multiplayer?

[FullMetalJack]

Noesis,

I haven't tried multiplayer SMAC before but I'd be willing to try and help you if I can.

The TCP/IP connection problem is most likely due to the fact that the game was released a long time before firewalls and routers became an absolute necessity, so in all likelihood all you probably need to do is open up a few ports and/or allow exceptions in your McAfee or Symantec personal firewalls or whatever and it should work OK.

There's a support answer at EA's website detailing the ports needed to play SMAC over TCP/IP here:

SMAC TCP/IP

Opening ports in routers can be extremely simple i.e. with my Speedtouch 546 or can be a bit more complicated especially if you have older hardware.

You'll also need to obtain your IP to give to the other play before you start the game. That's a very easy thing to find out which you can do locally or via the Internet on a 'What's my IP' type web page etc.

As you say, playing using PBEM seems a bit of a drama when you should be able to play 'live' and also use a microphone to talk to the other player at the same time etc.

If you're still stuck, please PM me and we can talk over Messenger etc. and I'll try and help you as best I can. I'm online until about 2 a.m British Summer Time most days.

Regards

FMJ

[Noesis]

wow...

Thanks alot metal. Ill send you a pm.

We suspected it might be a firewall issue so my friend (host) tried plugging directly into the internet with no results. But I never tried removing my firewall or just opening ports.

[FullMetalJack]

A further addendum to the above is some info from Buster who pointed out in an earlier post that port 6073 should also be forwarded as it's part of Direct Play 8 (which is part and parcel of Direct X 9).

Noesis and I have tried almost everything we can think of to get this going now without success!

I believe that the trouble is that Noesis is being connected to a router via Windows ICS and I know from experience here with p2p and my son/daughter's computers that even with open ports in the router they still can't manage a 'direct' connection e.g. Low ID on eMule etc...

I've forwarded all the necessary ports in my router and found that Noesis's friend and I could connect using TCP/IP first time, so I know that the settings are fine here.

We tried Hamachi but the best we could do was when Noesis was using TCP/IP as a host I could see his game but couldn't join it.

We are both using exactly the same SMAC version v4 patched with the XP compatibility patch (v5).

Anyway, it appears that the latest hamachi has some bugs (hard drive thrashing for one) and lots of other people are reporting that previously working LAN games can no longer be seen due to the network binding priority in Windows.

So...

Can anyone with a few minutes to spare please try the following?

D/L a slightly older version of Hamachi that is known to work 'properly' (1.0.1.5) from here:

http://forums.hamachi.cc/viewtopic.php?t=13609&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=150

(Of course, if you have a 'KNOWN working with SMAC' hamachi version already, please use that instead.)

Run it and set it up. The 'test' network is ALWAYS full so ignore the tutorial and just create your own network.

Now, connect to my hamachi network which is:

FMJNET
Password= fmjnet

Now go to multiplayer SMAC, choose IPX and then join. If you get a dp_error message and asks about installing Direct X 5 or similar, you need to install the IPX protocol on Windows which is explained here:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4115830#post4115830

See if you can join the lobby. If you can, then please leave a single line message so that I know you were 'there'.

If 'no game found' is the message try joining using the TCP/IP option using 5.175.141.4 as the IP. This is very unlikely to work and IPX is really what we want to establish whether it works or doesn't!

Hopefully any (successful) info gleaned from this post could perhaps become part of the FAQ for networking SMAC?

I'll leave the lobby on a test game open for as long as I can for anyone to try this out. Please don't assume someone else will make the effort to do this!

If anyone who does try it and doesn't see any game on that network please post here any failures or whatever?

TIA

FMJ

[bluetemplar]

1vs1 PBEM games can be pretty fast and fun (down to several days if players are available!) , but they lack the diplomacy aspect of the game.

It's a shame SMACX community doesn't have something like this:

http://seiv.pbw.cc/