Wired Internet Gateway

[Black Phoenix]

Wired internets Wired internets

[miron]

That's crazy. One server per planet, one per section of space in between. Maybe a 7x7 grid, so you have to go diagonal to some planets.

[bloodyshadow13]

better yet: a 7 by 7 by 7 grid make them work to get to another planet.
"hey guys watch this!" noclips off planet. dies in next server....

[George]

This will involve a Wired computer filled with buttons saying "Funny site" Linking to meatspin...

[nescalona]

Heh. It's fun to speculate, but there needs to be some clear-headed thinking here with a very specific goal in mind. Here's our question: Is it technically possible for two servers using some sort of addon or modification to (1) communicate information, (2) spawn the information, and (3) connect the client to the information?

On (3), a thought I have is that it may be difficult to get around the variety of prop protection addons in wide use. You've got to spawn the information, but until the client is "parented" to it, you've got a spaceship that belongs to nobody for a moment. Can the server be automatically instructed to give the spaceship to the player on connect? You've also got information regarding the state of the player's health, for example, which would have to be communicated to the server beforehand in order to either spawn the player with XX health, or emulate it by damaging the player on initial spawn.

If we're talking three dimensions, there's going to have to be quite a few spawn points. You wouldn't want to end up on the ceiling of the server when you came from the server below. People coming to a server without having teleported from another would spawn on planets, and the teleporters would spawn close to where they came from in space.

What happens if one of the servers crashes and a player tries to teleport to it? Might there be notification messages when a new player teleports into a server, perhaps listing the number of props he brought along with him?

You would also have to modify Life Support to work with matrices mapped to each server, for Solar Panels and the like, unless you want a sun in every server. I'm not sure how that is calculated. Either way, its a good idea with plenty of applications for LS and they should do it anyway.

And if you're thinking of expanding spacebuild in this way, you're going to have to make the empty space servers a hell of a lot more interesting. And its a real pity that nobody seems to have emulated gravity with more control, and kicked out Source gravity. We ought to have spherical planets, dammit! The current spacebuild planet model is going to become painfully ugly on the scale of a whole server.

But, think beyond spacebuild. How could this be applied to other GMOD projects?

I don't know what the hell I'm doing not learning Lua.

@ miron & Bloody Shadow 13 : Maaybe let's start with 2x1x1.

Ooh, here's creating possibilities. Who needs cuboid servers? Truncated octahedra tesselate just as well! Plus, each server would be adjacent to 14 other servers.

[DuFace]

Heh. It's fun to speculate, but there needs to be some clear-headed thinking here with a very specific goal in mind. Here's our question: Is it technically possible for two servers using some sort of addon or modification to (1) communicate information, (2) spawn the information, and (3) connect the client to the information?[/b]

Of course! When you connect to this forum you don't connect directly do you? Your packet is routed through lots of different servers to finally arrive here. Latency could be an issue because each server would have to interconnect for this to work nicely, but it's still doable. I think there are only two limiting factors for this: Money and Are there enough people willing to work on it?

On (3), a thought I have is that it may be difficult to get around the variety of prop protection addons in wide use. You've got to spawn the information, but until the client is "parented" to it, you've got a spaceship that belongs to nobody for a moment. Can the server be automatically instructed to give the spaceship to the player on connect? You've also got information regarding the state of the player's health, for example, which would have to be communicated to the server beforehand in order to either spawn the player with XX health, or emulate it by damaging the player on initial spawn.[/b]

All of the players' stuff could be transferred as duplicator data and the players health and other attributes are just variables. The server could hold the duplicator data in a buffer until the player has successfully connected, then spawn all the props and link them to the player, and finally spawn the player with the correct health and armour status. If the player was in a Vehicle before transport the server would obviously have to spawn the player in the vehicle.

I can see a problem with using duplicator saves though: sometimes information is lost leading to wobbly contraptions. So this will have to be addressed somehow. Buffer overrun could be an issue too, I think source only supports 64k entities to be in existence at any one time. So lots of people teleporting to the same server could use up all the entries in the table (assuming they're bringing ships of course).

You would also have to modify Life Support to work with matrices mapped to each server, for Solar Panels and the like, unless you want a sun in every server. I'm not sure how that is calculated. Either way, its a good idea with plenty of applications for LS and they should do it anyway.[/b]

As far as I know the position of the sun is just a vector and entities such as solar panels cast a trace line along that vector using their position as the origin. If the trace does not hit an entity the panels start to produce energy. I'm not sure if they use some value to dictate their maximum energy output though. If such a value exists it could be used on the servers to make energy generation using solar panels to decrease as the distance from the sun increases or something.

And if you're thinking of expanding spacebuild in this way, you're going to have to make the empty space servers a hell of a lot more interesting. [/b]

Well if a network of servers is used for spacebuild then, as stated earlier in this thread, planets could be on individual servers so the build area could be increased quite substantially. Imagine a solar system where each planet is as big as gm_flatgrass...

But, think beyond spacebuild. How could this be applied to other GMOD projects?[/b]

RP could benefit by adapting this system. A world could be a network of servers and each city or area of the world could be a different server. Think of freespace on an enormous scale with cities separated by forests and deserts. I'm sure other areas of GMod could benefit too but these are the only examples that come to mind immediately.

[nescalona]

Thanks for your comments DuFace. You're a great addition to these forums.

I can see a problem with using duplicator saves though: sometimes information is lost leading to wobbly contraptions.[/b]

I sometimes wonder why everyone has such a low standard of stability for GMOD and its addons. I have way more problems with GMOD crashing than Windows, for example.

A world could be a network of servers and each city or area of the world could be a different server.[/b]

Can you "hide" servers from GMOD so they cannot be accessed directly, but only through this WIG? One could always password protect them, but that approach is a bit of a kluge.

You seem to know a lot about how the Source engine works with GMOD and such. How is gravity calculated for props versus the player, and why is it different?

[Dragory]

The idea is great, but this project could take alot of time. But still, an idea of space with flatgrass sized planets sounds awesome!

[Syranide]

It really isn't tremendously hard, but the main problem I see is... why?

Surely you could remote control other devices, but, you can't see them? How would you even see what is happening, and what would be the point, why not just control the devices on the local server?

For the WirePC I could see some concepts, such as chatting, but really, what else would last more than 1min and "look, someone wrote something on the other server" ... "ok".

And you can't send imagery because you don't have access to the textures, and it really wouldn't work either way, way too much information for regular servers.

However, there are a few mods for HL2 that utilizes multiple servers as separate "instances" you can travel between, but that is an entirely different concept. Which is also being used in "The Tower" for GMOD.

[-=Fox=-]

It really isn't tremendously hard, but the main problem I see is... why?[/b]

Cause it can be used as a base to do other things, we need to know how to do this and efficiently if we want to do other things, like transporting Dupes etc.

Surely you could remote control other devices, but, you can't see them? How would you even see what is happening, and what would be the point, why not just control the devices on the local server?[/b]

Its the Geeky Ownage Factor

If you design a remote operated robot... your sure as heck aren't going to just only receive a data feed that says "Oh.. I'm here". You would have common sense enough to give it the ability to send you other data.

For example, is it near another prop? If it can move, how far did it move and in what direction? Is it leaning or upright?
It would be completely up to the individuals who built the robot to give it enough sensors that it can feed you useful information... I thought that was pretty obvious...

And with useful information you can control it effectively and collect data about the environment it's in.

You can have two guys on two different servers controlling two bots on one server trying to destroy the other bot. Or have a race to see who gets to the end of a track faster, obviously you'll be able to receive data and a wired device will determine a winner.

And remote submarine wars? holy crap, that would be really hard with remote controls, but you know what? Some people actually find that stuff really cool.

I thought Wire users actually LIKED a challenge... this will put Wire on a whole new level.

For the WirePC I could see some concepts, such as chatting, but really, what else would last more than 1min and "look, someone wrote something on the other server" ... "ok".

And you can't send imagery because you don't have access to the textures, and it really wouldn't work either way, way too much information for regular servers.[/b]

..... Inter-Server chatting is cool, yeah it may loose its "wow" factor after its done but you can do more than that... saying that it wouldn't work as a whole... seems rather assumptive and a little shallow...

Also sending images, who needs textures? We can already create Depth maps and black and white images, and those are bits of data that CAN be sent over... you don't need to send massive amounts of texture or image data...

Were talking about 1-5 Kilobytes a second depending and anyone on broadband can afford that and thats more than enough to transmit depth maps and other things like the contents of Ram Chips and Telemetry data...

Come on.... use your imagination, there are lots of things that can be done. It sure would be nice to also have the ability to store data collected or generated on a remote server as well, then it can be re-used. Like interesting GPS coords for spacebuild maps, is one example.

If we can use the technology thats in "The Tower" awesome, I simply stated a smaller step to walk on first before going into something ultra complex... thats what Wire does, it starts off small and evolves into something even bigger the Wired Internet Gateway is no exception.

They didn't goto the moon in one shot and the Wire of today wasn't made in a day...