Server requirements
Vadakill
The Almighty BSO Join Date: 2002-04-02 Member: 373Members, NS1 Playtester
The Almighty BSO Join Date: 2002-04-02 Member: 373Members, NS1 Playtester
<div class="IPBDescription">Bandwidth and more...</div>Hi, I've been running <a href="http://www.vadakill.com" target="_blank">Vadakill's CS</a> (shameless plug) server nearing two years. I've been lurking on the forums since I first heard of the NS MOD from the VALVe MOD expo. I've always like the Aliens Vs. Humans games, movies, etc. and have been considering switching my server over to NS. The only problem is I don't know much about it from the server admin's perspective; from what I've seen not much of that aspect has been covered. I have a lot of questions so please bear with me.
I like small games of teamwork so I keep it down to 10 players, 5 each side. Will a game with this few players flow well or will the maps be too spread out to have good player interaction? Also, I hear the Marines will really have to work together in order to take out even one alien. With teams this small there's a good chance that the Marines will be working in teams of no more then two, are they going to get slaughtered constantly? If that's the case will there be an option to allow uneven teams like, say, 6 marines, 4 aliens?
Now more on server specific stuff: Server hardware is no problem, it's bandwidth I'm concerned with. Will the bandwidth requirements be about the same as a Counter-Strike server? Currently, I run the CS server, message boards, website and stats on a 256k frame-relay; hopefully this should be enough.
That's all I can really think of at this time, I appreciate any responses you can give me.
Vadakill
I like small games of teamwork so I keep it down to 10 players, 5 each side. Will a game with this few players flow well or will the maps be too spread out to have good player interaction? Also, I hear the Marines will really have to work together in order to take out even one alien. With teams this small there's a good chance that the Marines will be working in teams of no more then two, are they going to get slaughtered constantly? If that's the case will there be an option to allow uneven teams like, say, 6 marines, 4 aliens?
Now more on server specific stuff: Server hardware is no problem, it's bandwidth I'm concerned with. Will the bandwidth requirements be about the same as a Counter-Strike server? Currently, I run the CS server, message boards, website and stats on a 256k frame-relay; hopefully this should be enough.
That's all I can really think of at this time, I appreciate any responses you can give me.
Vadakill
Comments
The marines will generally need bigger weapons or teammates to take down the bigger aliens, but the small aliens can be handled individually.
NS was not designed for 5 on 5, but I think it would work great, especially if you choose smaller or more constricted maps. I realize that the CPL and most tournies now operate with teams of 5, so I will definitely put in some extra effort to make it fully playable, fun and balanced for these numbers, if necessary.
As far as bandwidth goes, running an NS server shouldn't take much more bandwith then Counter-strike. You probably won't even notice the difference, but I'm guessing it will take a little more (maybe 2-3k per second).
We will be involving more server ops as time goes on, but right now, we've got more basic things to worry about. :)
u kidding me? laggy?
i only play on a 100mbit server where the ping are like 10-20 even with my bad cable (1mbit)
Thanks Flayra, I look forward to working with you guys. With a 10 player CS server the download per client seems to be about 3.5-4K per second, upload seems to be about half that depending on the clients rate setting, cmdrate and updaterate. Did you mean it would require 2-3K more or 2-3K total?
You made a good point about the Leagues doing 5v5 as common practice. Sometimes it can be very difficult to get more then this in one place at one time for such tournies. This means small team playability should be a goal to reach for in NS, as if you didn't have enough pressure at this time. Maybe we should all press on the mappers to consider this angle for any future maps <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->