Maniaplanet Forum

Hello Guys,

I'm facing with the following problem:
I have a dedicated server (+ Xaseco2) with maps on it of course, but a few of them use mods. The problem is that the mods are not displayed when we are playing on these maps. How can I force to download/use the mods from my server? I dont want to use/give external links for the mods (as I saw, forcemods plugin uses this method), since basically the server should allow downloading directly from itself.. Am I wrong?

Any idea appreciated!

I am not very familiar with this topic. The following may not be correct...

teglafal wrote:The problem is that the mods are not displayed when we are playing on these maps.

Take sure that all maps include the download URL of the used mod. If a player hasn't already saved the mod locally, this is the only way to get that mod. The ForceMod function, if activated, can overwrite this URL.

You can use the Windows tool GbxDump to test if the mod was included using a locator. Pay attention to the "deps" element:

Map with mod locator: Map without mod locator: The mod doesn't need a locator if the map was build inside a custom title pack and the mod is part of this title pack.
But even in this case it can happen (because of a bug) that the mod is not displayed if the mod is also stored locally (e.g. at the title pack author).

teglafal wrote:How can I force to download/use the mods from my server?

This is not possible. You can only force mods globally independent of the played maps using the ForceMods callback.

teglafal wrote:since basically the server should allow downloading directly from itself..

AFAIK is this only possible with music files. The game client needs a download URL. I've never heard of that mods are transferred via PeerToPeer.

Hello,

Thanks for Your answer

Well, I'm basically suprised, that a dedicated server cannot be used as a "store" for mods to download.
As I understand: the best way to use the mods on a dedicated server is to use forcemod plugin, and create the proper lines for the mod, and upload that mod to maniaexchange or to somewhere else but use that link in forcemod. Am I right? But how will forcemod know when to use that mod?

(the map doesnt have the locator line, according to gbxdump)

You must enable P2P upload from the server (and obviously permit peers to connect to that port) and have the mods themselves in the server's userdata folder (or cache, but don't do that).

Servers can do it just fine to my knowledge, mods are shareable through P2P, but do note that locators are significantly faster and result in way less load on the server and other clients for large archives.
You can however still re-link the mod file by using such a forcemod-like system that also attaches a locator link depending on the used map mod in the case the network load is too high in the end.

Hello,

P2P is enabled, in the systemconfig p2p has a working port, so I guess its enabled
The interesting fact is that a player without the mod on that map has a download connection to the server (it seems its downloading the mod, since its' size is kinda same as the mod itself) but after the download finished, the map remains the same, still no mod :O

Did the player press ESC and then "return to game"? Usually this helps, as a mod is never applied while driving.
Sometimes you need to exit the game before a mod can be used.
But it is only client side issue then

Yes, he did, also restarted the game, but still no mod :O

could I try to join your server? if it is private, please send me a PM with details.

Well, we have tried it with a different map with a different mod.. it works! But with the other mod, it doesn't.. :O

So it seems that the p2p is working excellent on the server.. Only one question remains: what could be the problem with that mod? Can be the problem it's size? Or its name? But the map can find it, and also downloading it from the server, but its not displayed on the client's computer.. :O

Is it possible that few mods (mostly with gbx files) are not working properly via this way?
Tried with different mod, with a gbx. Downloaded from the server for both of us, but the display remained the same.. :O