Invisible C4, Need a Fix

Being Invisible in Comanche 4 is a real drag sometimes. It Happens to us all at one time or another. Most people have been Ladies and Gentlemen concerning the Invis Issue during play. But getting to the point...

This post is meant for anyone with Ideas or have Noticed anything that may show a pattern for being Invis. Also anyone with code experience that may have any ideas.

I have, as well as a few others, have looked into fixing the C4 Invis Issue. When I have an idea I'll try and check into it, but I'm running out of ideas on where to look inside the C4 game structure. People posting or sending me an email or sending me a PM may give me a fresh idea as to where to look, or how to look into fixing the Invis Issue.

I'm calling on anyone no matter how dumb/smart your idea may be.

Thanx,

I cant think of much I put a call to Nova Logic for ya we will see what they have in anything to offer.....

hey Avenger,

did not spent time in how computer games are working - im only using them. so please sorry for my dumb questions. here they are:
i assume, the positioning data of all players are transmitted by the server to all clients? is the position of the invisible player be transmitted also - or not?
if not, then are the clients giving any feedback about the positioning data they recieved?
if yes, then if the client already has the information why he doesnt give the right output to video, sound and radar?
generally, can the c4.exe be modified that the server sends the positions of each player; all clients got then to send a recieve receipt? maybe every minute or so.

if the prob is server side then im sure you'll fix it soon. if the prob is client side then maybe the recieve receipt is a good start, the server then can send an information to the player that he's invis and stopps counting until the player fixed being invis.

again sorry Avenger, but i do not know anything about how the c4 code works.

Hey,, Just keep the ideas coming even if you don't know any code. You never know when 4-5 people could have a little idea and it could turn into a big idea to fix something.

Avenger, try relocating the comanche entries in the defs to totally different id numbers and tell the game to use the new numbers rather than oldies, and remove old entries, i think invisibility is the game cant or messes up assigning a def # to the user and without a assigned #it would be "null" and have no mesh or data,
hence invisible and silent,

if the above is not applicable or is false,
try assigning a 3di to the null entry and see if invisibility still happens.....it shouldn't after this, but may have bad side effects beings i think some marker items use null for their phisical definition

Hey Avenger.........dont know if this makes any difference but something I have noticed is if theres an Invisible pilot on each side at any given time during the game...they can see each other even though the rest cant see them.......:dance:

Yep, Garret, it seems to me the pilot that is invisi is visable to the pilot that killed him and got him stuck, most of the time. Something changes in between getting killed and being stuck and/or typing ~resetgames.

by the way
Avenger, would it be possible to have a dedicated server. you know, like in BattleField series or so, that is controllable via remote. the gui is no big help in conjunction with current remotesoftware

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MasterX(BKC)
Relocating the comanche entries in the defs..

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Now there is a Project to try. 3di and game graphic are very tuff for me, but I'll look into that.
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GarretJax
Invisible pilot on each side at any given time during the game they can see each other..

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That is a puzzle. I've noticed that too and there could be some kind of INVIS answer from that.
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kill_me{FWD}
C4 controllable via remote..

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Not that I'm aware of. I've never ever tried or attempted it. The Host Manager I'm still working on may be some what accessible to help with this.
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Here is a wild thought I also had on INVIS is this:
All of the players in game are in a section of memory and that memory section refreshes to a new section of memory and some of the data does not get there completely.

i guess I'm just statig the obvious, but if it was a server side issue then the invis would appear to everyone. my guess is that the client c4 game (the person who has an invis opponent) has somehow not received the info that the invis pilot corrresponds to an active object. its curious that the ammo fired by the invis object is visible though. I have often thought that maybe a patch could be made on the client game so that all comanches flying are visible, but I don't know what happens when each life is destroyed (do those comanches just become invis ?). At any rate, a server side solution would really be ideal because if, for example, you created a patch that everyone could install to their game, all a cheating person would have to do is disable that patch or figure out how it worked to become invis at will. On a separate issue, I noticed from some of the game code that it even has a built in setting for max fire rate, but somehow that is disabled ? It would be nice to fix: 1) invis , 2) 8h, and 3) firerate, as well as have the server provide visual real time ping rate and possibly ping limits . Its been 3 years (?), though, and noone seems to have the skill to do these things.

Well I know Bane has looked into the INVIS issue and he also has looked into the code as much as he can, which is more than myself. I know he was saying that many things are just disabled or were not totally working in the code. I wonder if the pre-release type versions had this problem.

I have noticed tons of stuff referenced in the code, but like max fire rate, etc.. it's all disabled some how. So Add-On programs/patches are the way to go for now to try to get things to work.

Does game code ever become public domain after xx many years? I wonder what it would take for Nova to give it to us? It might be a huge PR thing for Nova if they gave it to us. Are there any Software Attorneys in the C4 community that could arrange this?

On a side note concerning the In Game Timer(MTC Multiplayer Timer Clock). I know that at 1 time it functioned for one of the versions. It may have been a pre-release version. I still keep trying to get it to work on it's own. But until then I just keep on using the In Game Timer Option in the Player-Manager.

Thanx for the ideas.. keep em coming..

good to c some ppl still fighting to get this game fixed...we had this problem when it first came out... and nova said so sad to bad basicly to all of our requests for the code to be fixed...so good luck with it..and the game code as far as i know is copyrighted for a long long time ..they have been fighting for years on some of the code/ games that have become obsolete on the net for many moons..i cant remember the name of the site but all they do is store/share abandoned software they still havecourt battles waging on for stuff that is over 10 years out of production.... i think the site is abandeonedware.com or something like that

cya

THE JESTER <DIE>

I think its safe to say that they will never, ever release the code. Besides the fact that its simply not in their interest, they could very well have proprietary agreements with some of the staff, investors, and shareholders, not to mention vendors like 3di that provided vital code for the thing to work, most likely under some very exacting agreement.

There's just too much money to be made (or lost) in gaming for any of these cats to start making their own investments (even losing ones) open source, and since they don't own all the code to begin with , it would be really hard to for me to believe that they would even consider it.

but, hey, maybe if someone offered them 10 or 20 thousand US they might at least consider responding to your email hehe (even if the answer was no)

Hi everybody, good to see some of you I havent seen for a good while.:1drink.gif:

Avenger, here's some observations of mine related to this invis matter:

1) A player mostly always comes back invis to someone after getting stuck and using "~resetgames."

2) Sometimes (but not as frequent as what I mentioned in #1) a player respawns invis after the first death of a game.

There may be different issues we have to deal with as well, now. For instance, cheating. Recently in C4, I've seen some player named Spirit who can go invis at will. This guy can even fly under the ground and stuff. he can also give himself 1000 stingers or 999, and he can make it so one can shoot like crazy and not kill him as he sits still. He says it's a code he types in, or something like that. I call it a cheat. LOL

I've also seen other players fly under the ground and take many stingers while standding still, or maybe it's Spirit with a different name. Also, I've encountered some players with a killer Cannon. I mean with full health youre dead in 2 seconds. Reminds me of that cannon macro Copenhagan used to use. Are cannons like that acceptable, now?

Anyway, my point is if it's possible to go invis at will, that cheat or code is going to spread, and even if you all fix the invis problem we know about, here is a new invis problem we face. I may just have to find Reaper (I really miss him) and join him in another game to frequent in place of our beloved C4. But, I'll still, play C4, and I'm not saying that the things I mentioned above happens so much that the game is anarchy, now. But, it used to seem more fun to play.

I still like C4, and it's good to see you all still around!

HotShotFWP

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Originally posted by HotShotFWP

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A player named Spirit who can go invis at will.

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Well Spirit send me an e-mail lets chat. Here's your big chance for the spot light if we can get INVIS fixed in C4.
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This guy can even fly under the ground and stuff. he can also give himself 1000 stingers.

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I can duplicate this, it's almost impossible to stop someone from doing this. There is also prolly a few ways of doing this.
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Not kill him as he sits still.

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Sounds more and more like a trainer/cheat program.
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I've encountered some players with a killer Cannon. I mean with full health youre dead in 2 seconds. Reminds me of that cannon macro Copenhagan used to use. Are cannons like that acceptable, now?

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Rapid Cannons/Gunz/Cannon Macro/etc.. This is easily duplicated from a stock keyboard/mouse setup built ingame. Pressing 1 while firing cannons gives Rapid Cannons. There are many with Rapid Cannons that are not a Cannon Macro. A Cannon Macro is usually programmed into a Joystick Profile. As far as Rapid Cannons being acceptable I'm sure each Squad has their own Policy on the issue. As far as how fast a pilots cannons are I've seen 2seconds, 10seconds, 1min30seconds.
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My point is if it's possible to go invis at will, that cheat or code is going to spread, and even if you all fix the invis problem we know about, here is a new invis problem we face.

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True, but you can always Punt a cheater.
Since I'm on the C4 Game Enhancement Team I have looked into several security/cheat holes in C4 but I really try to effort my time to finding fixes, explore new game types, create the Player-Manager, and other positive things for C4.

it's an Age Old Story::

Game - Player - Challenging - Fun
or
Game - Player - Cheat - Fun

Thanx for the input...

Hey.......a question please:dance:

Little off topic:(

Does anyone know if theres a "perfect environment".....that exists where invisibilty is less prevelent or not a problem..................ie: max 8 players, no fire macros

seems there wasnt a problem way back when.....:1drink.gif: ....I needed that:bouncing:

Someone once said in these forums that we've created our own monster...is this the case?..or is invis something in(or lacking) in the game codes as you gentleman are suggesting!

Im just a curious fan:spin:

:joystick.gif:

Seems Invis has a double whammy now.

Invis is something lacking in the game codes, and it seems we have reports of a cheat that can turn invis at will.

Is there any game that does not have cheats??
Solitare LOL......

Single Player and or maybe Co-op games can be fun and might offer a better enviroment for some people.

Has anyone heard of being Invis during a SP or Co-op???
Has anyone heard of being Invis during a LAN game??

Would it be possicle to make some form of a mod or patch to eliminate the invisiblity.

More than 4 years with players making an effort to make the game as fair as they can, Hats off to you guys.

At some point players either come to live with the game issues and cheats when playing multi player or they choose to play another game type or game till you get feeling the same way about that 1.

Or you look for your fun else where. As a side note After seeing this game engine used for a third time I can tell you this, The issues go on. Joint Ops has problems of it's own. At least C4 is small enough you know the other players and can say hey bs abit and have some fun besides playing.

Hot give me a holler if you want to play some Joint Ops coop.

hey hotshot hows it goin

dont know about the 1000 stinger cheat, havent seen that. however, I do know that there was one server that had a trainer program on it. the server had to have the trainer on it for the player to use it, thats the only unlimited ammo trainer prog I know about.

the gun macro is only used by a few and not allowed in virtually all squad matches.

the "sitting" is not actually a cheat, if you sit still in the open, at 5 to 10 feet agl, the ground heats up and the stingers, if fired from the side will hit the ground, just as if they followed flares. this can be coutered by flying up higher and the stingers fired from 50 to 100 feet up will start to take out the target. the individual sitting can't move or the effect goes away immediately.


thats all i know, for what its worth. hope to see you flying hotshot


wiper / aka nakulak

Hiya Reaper and WiperSix: :dance:

Reaper, I will definitely give you a holler! I have to get the game first and play a bit to be ready for online play. Hopefully, I'll have it by tomorrow. Hey man, it's so Kool to hear from you!!!

Hi WiperSix, long time no see guy! LOL

I guess I used wrong diction in my post above. I meant to convey
"hover" not "sit" as I wrote concerning that player called Spirit. I dont think this is the trick LRS once told me about involving the use of flares. If you see Spirit around, ask him to show you the invincible thing he does, and according to him he can make himself
get 999 stingers. Still, there may be truth to what you suspect about this sitting still and not dieing deal.

I've always been hesitant about saying "cheat" because all the C4 Vets used to say: there are no cheats for C4. However, after seeing Spirit demonstrate invincibility and seeing him go invis at will, I'll have to beg to differ with that ole saying: "there's no cheats for C4." Yet, I still like the game and will very likely always play.

I hope to see you around, too, man.:)

Audios amigos!

HotShotFWP

hey hotshot,

I would be interested in knowing what server you were on when this spirit guy showed up.

If you don't mind emailing me I'd appreciate it

thx


nakulak@comcast.net

Hey Wiper:

I sent you an email.

I can be invisible whenever I want to. If you don't believe me, just go to the servers. I bet you won't see me.

:freak3:

LMAO!!!!!Im invis there right now too!!!!!!:lol4:

oh, wait, we need an invisi Smiley...here it is:

Well I have seen this disapearing happen in front of me it is a glitch (that is what he/ she called it) I did ask to see how it was done. But I got no response.

Guys I hate to tell you this,,, or maybe not,,, I play BF1942. Delta Force Black Hawk Down, Joint Operations, Star Wars Battlefront, & Comanche 4. I am proud to tell you that out of all those game C4 has the least amount of cheats or glitches. In my opinion, lag causes most of it. In Joint Operations I was running over a suspended bring and got a CI and just fell through the bridge.
In Battlefield 1942 the Desert Combat Mod, ever since it came our during Operation Iraqi Freedom (You Know the war) there has been a glitch in one of the maps that none of the updates have fixed yet. In the map called Basarahs Edge at the second flag near the Coalition base You can jump into the wall and blast anyone going for the flag. in that map if a vehicle runs into you at a certain place here this other wall it will push you into the wall. There are 2 other glitches in this map. In Delta Force Black Hawk Down there is a cheat known as XRay that makes you run through walls. in Star Wars Battle Front there are Code Cheats you can type in. So what we have invis glitches, Efam bug, that really aint that bad. I like playing all these games it is a break from the real world. TV just offends me. Pro sports has become a joke. So little glitches aren't that bad.

I think the thing we need to deal with most in this game is our own attitudes towards each other. That will be one of the only things that can keep this game alive.

That and a non intrusive program to force 3h.

I hope everyone has a very happy Holiday Season.

Keep smiling life aint that bad.

That is my ideas on this thang.

Hasta,,,

the flying into ground/going invis could easily be cabling. but the 1000 stingers could easily be a known trainer installed and running on the server. If anyone sees spirit, ask him to go into another server and show them the 1000 stingers, or more than likely the server he's on is running the trainer.

:dance:
Hi guys, i have noticed that invis happens for the 1st person who gets killed in the game when it starts, and the only person that can see him/her is the person that made the killing! this all of us know already!

This is also true for a player who joins a game half way through and dosen't kill anyone, so it seems to happen when you die for the first time in a game weather you start from the begining or half way through you ither get stuck (and come back invis) (including if you have done a ~resetgames) or you dont get stuck you still respaun invis

It is really odd that the person who made the 1st killing can still see the invis player, maybe this is a place to start looking?

I hope this helps.

You can go into any server with 1000 stingers. It's a cheat on the client side.

When I was in the 1Cav the leader at that time was Goblin, he
stated at the time that he fixed the invis bug ( 1.5 C4). Does
anyone know off hand what PC language C4 iswritten in?? I can't remember myself.What got him off the game was he tried to fix the no-count bug but gave up, than lost interest for the game completely and moved on to something else.( BHD)

this spirit can fly under the ground on 'come and get it',
obviously he also speaks spanish beside of english.

i also noticed that he disapeared, so he either rejoined or 'resetgames'.


as i said before in this thread, im not very familar with the side of code of games. but i'd think that he either modified the client side maps or the collision detection isnt working. maybe this is the same - dont know.

hope this helps the code junkies to find out what this is.

It's not modified client side maps. The maps are downloaded from the server by all players joining the game. If you take all of the stock maps out of your C4 you still can join a server. But there are other files related to the map like bin files. These mostly contain info on waypoints/waypoint names. But thanx for the ideas. I know my grey matter is greyyer than ever lately.

I really want to stay out of this. Its been well over a year, maybe 2, since I've done any coding for C4 - and that was under some very intensive, step-by-step tutoring. I'd rather make models for the game.

A couple of things I remember from this: 1. If you fix a cheat - it could be countered. 2. If you fix a 'glitch' - someone could just 'rebuild' it.

If you want to just have fun - without people glitching/cheating, like you are mentioning here... why not just make an addon to 'capture' the ip of the player and punt/ban them - and resume the gaming. But you should be absolutely sure you are punting/banning a 'cheater' ( and not some poor kid with a poor connection ) And exactly how do you go about proving this - unless they are boasting of their accomplishment ?

I prefer to not go into much here - the mere mention of the possibility of cheats - can send even honest people on a quest to find one.

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A couple of things I remember from this: 1. If you fix a cheat - it could be countered. 2. If you fix a 'glitch' - someone could just 'rebuild' it.

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100% agree on that.
Well I know I don't have the time or energy to build security patches for 4-5 year old game. And After you patched it, you would just have to patch it again in a month or so. It would be easier to build your own game. Monitoring your own server is the best.

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Why not just make an addon to 'capture' the ip of the player and punt/ban them. But you should be absolutely sure you are punting/banning a 'cheater' (and not some poor kid with a poor connection). And exactly how do you go about proving this - unless they are boasting of their accomplishment ?

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No addon needed. Using Punt/Ban commands in game seems to work fine.

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I prefer to not go into much here - the mere mention of the possibility of cheats - can send even honest people on a quest to find one.

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But yes let's try to stay more focused on info to fix Game Glitch INVIS and not make this a cheater thread.

I have been doing some reading on this matter as of late mainly because I tried to use one of these.

In other games, they use a remote or server control panel.

The one CFS made was kewl but,,, I don't believe it is good for that.

Delta Force has a Control Panel however it causes major problems in the game and some people can't join.

BF1942 has a very good control panal that shows the IP address and any fluctuations in the players ping. It has Punk Buster installed which we don't have.

However they both look almost the same.

Maybe someone could come up with something similar.

With the BHD control panel you can use different mods like Argus which is the BHD version of AE.

This is just an idea. Spank me if this is out of line.

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The one CFS made was kewl but,,, I don't believe it is good for that.

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FYI just so you all know::

Well if you are reffering to 8H-AP, *CFS* did not build it. I built it and *CFS* does not have any claim to it. Yes I am on *CFS* but I keep C4GET and *CFS* things seperate to a point. I am also a server for *CFS* and have been allowed to use their Name Server for testing and running programs like 8H-AP. 8H-AP is part of a C4GET-Host-Manager that I am still building and testing along with ''50 million'' other projects that I am also trying to accomplish. LOL.

Yes, you are right, the Host-Manager w/8H-AP does not go into IP addies and pings. Wow I really wish I knew that much about code. At present time it only allows the adjusting of several Host Options with out pulling down the server to change them (on the fly and takes effect at next game). I have built in a 8H-AP section in the Host-Manager. I still have several bugs to fix thru out the Host-Manager and may try to release a DownSized version with less options but will include 8H-AP.

Projects to make C4 FuNnER:
Some of the projects I dig into along with the C4 Game Enhancement Team and a few others that have some code smarts:
1. INVIS
2. Game Types, recently got S&D, A&D to work, still testing
before I release anything about it. Flag Games may never happen.
3. Scoring
4. Getting the InGame Timer to work without the Player-Manager.
5. New Comanche Skins
6. Terrain & Sky Pack
7. Night Vision for Night Maps.
8. Maps
9. C4GET-Host-Manager
10. There's more but I'll stop there.

hmm my code score... lol

''50 million'' projects vs
1 release of C4GET-Player-Managerv20 w/InGame Timer

A C4 Control Panel would be wayy kewlll... hmmmm..

OK I may be a dork or something, But when I got the game 2 yrs ago (eg 2002-2003), I only noticed tha the people running XP went Invis, most of the time, What if the TCP/IP stack has a flaw in it that doesent allow for the client to sync. with the server. If the client cant sync, then that person is sending the telemetry at the wrong time. It may sound dumb, but you can do the same thing on a TCP/IP network, known as spoofing. let me know if that helps.

Vesh Fey, Stack overflow makes sense, however I believe after a few minutes of this the server would treat this as cabling and drop the client causing a sysdump.

I have been playing other games and what they do in some of the servers is, if someone stays above a certain ping level they get punted.

~NPC~ has adopted this practice in games such as DF BHD & BF1942.

What we practice and is accepted in BHD is if someone complains of seeing a certain player run through walls, disappear into the ground when they laydown, or use glitches in the map to their advantage, they get warned then punted.

~NPC~ has also noticed that imperfections in custom maps can cause problems for all maps on a server running custom maps. Meaning imperfections in the code for maps, say - alignment of tunnels or buildings turned on their side can cause problems in the coding for all maps in that server. ~NPC~ has seen this in our own server. We have dedicated members to seeking these imperfections out, note them, and fix them. If it can't be fixed then the map is scrapped.

I hope this is helpful. I hope everyone has a happy new year.

Hasta mi amogos,

I'm Outy,

TerrorX