CnCNet 5 released!

Tore

TL:DR version: CnCNet 5 is awesome! Took a long time to make and test! TS and RA2 not supported yet! Download here!

After over a year of work and testing CnCNet 5 has finally been deemed stable enough for an official release!

Compared to CnCNet 4, CnCNet 5 is coded from scratch and takes advantage of the online systems Westwood implemented into the games. CnCNet 5 has a external lobby system which gets rid of the old and buggy LAN lobby. No more games disappearing or glitches related to kicking people from the game. You can also say good bye to lag caused by the LAN netcode as previously hinted to CnCNet 5 makes use of the WOL netcode making games go smooth.

CnCNet 5 works perfectly despite closed ports due to the improved tunnelling system which also lets multiple people in the same household play with people online.

The CnCNet 5 lobby uses an IRC server which allows you to send private messages, make passworded lobbies game and to communicate with players. You can connect using a normal IRC client as well, but you won't have any game functionality.

Currently CnCNet 5 supports Command & Conquer and Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Support for Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun is in the works as is other Westwood Online enabled games, maybe even a game where you fight over a certain "waterless world".

Below are a list of changes to the individual games:

Command & Conquer
- Over 160 maps to choose from by default.
- New option: Auto Crush Infantry
- New option: MCV Undeploy
- Automatic transfer of custom maps
- No limit on starting money

Command & Conquer: Red Alert
- Over 430 maps to choose from by default.
- Automatic transfer of custom maps
- Choose starting location
- Choose alliance
- New option: Fix Formation Exploit
- New option: Fix Range Exploit
- 12 other new game options
- Automatic transfer of custom maps
- No limit on starting money

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun
- Not yet supported, use CnCNet 4 in the mean time.
- Iran is working on it with help from CCHyper!

If you are interested in following development look here: http://www.ppmsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=498086

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
- Not yet supported, use CnCNet 4 in the mean time.
- Needs a developer, if you are interested go to irc.freenode.net in the channel #cncnet.

CnCNet 5 would not have been possible if it weren't for the hard work of hifi (backend), FunkyFr3sh (frontend) and Iran (tons of new features in the games).

Features such as ladder etc will come soon.

CnCNet provides ready to play versions of both Command & Conquer and Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

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Aro · Alcohol Fueled **Joined**: 10 Sep 2006

This is awesome. I really appreciate all the hard work the CNCNet crew are doing.

PS: Pass this image on to Hifi, I've integrated CNCNet into our main menu. http://ti.ppmsite.com/gallery/Gall60.png

Lin Kuei Ominae · Seth **Joined**: 16 Aug 2006 **Location**: Germany

Now i understand why Iran is creating an exe that directly throws you into a game.
So you don't wait and select all the multiplayer options in the game anymore, but in an external program which then passes these parameters to the game.

If this works out it will definitely improve TS gameplay a lot.

_________________
SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings

Public SHPs
X-Mech Calendar (28 Mechs for GDI and Nod)
5 GDI, 5 Nod, 1 Mutant, 1 Scrin unit, 1 GDI building

Tools
Image Shaper______TMP Shop______C&C Executable Modifier

hifi · Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 5:36 am Post subject:

Aro wrote:

PS: Pass this image on to Hifi, I've integrated CNCNet into our main menu. http://ti.ppmsite.com/gallery/Gall60.png

Noted

Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:

Now i understand why Iran is creating an exe that directly throws you into a game.
So you don't wait and select all the multiplayer options in the game anymore, but in an external program which then passes these parameters to the game.

If this works out it will definitely improve TS gameplay a lot.

Yeah, when I first created the RA 'spawner' as we call it, it took a long time before I had it ported to Tiberian Dawn. It took even longer for anyone to start writing the CnCNet 5 client (FunkyFr3sh finally did it, all props to him). I announced at that point TS and RA2 are up for grabs and that I'm not probably going to spend time trying to figure all that out again. My love is limited Wink

Iran took the initiative and in surprisingly short time got all the major components together. It doesn't seem to be that far off from being usable on CnCNet 5 meaning vanilla TS and mods can join up soon.

From the looks of it it will probably be easy again port it to RA2 if someone has the balls for it. Though, it would probably be the best to do it on top of Ares/Syringe so it's up to the Ares people if they are interested.

Personally I don't like working with RA2(:YR) at all because it's not freeware and XWIS. I know all you modders hate me for it but :p

Team Black · Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 6:04 am Post subject:

I can't wait for you guys to make TS support! Something that will be able to transfer big custom map files from player to player... just that alone will give the entire mapping community a big boost!

_________________
The Fall of Hammerfest - Epic Tiberian chain story

Tiberian Odyssey mapping department. Discord
The Team Black Index

hifi · Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 6:30 am Post subject:

Team Black wrote:

I can't wait for you guys to make TS support! Something that will be able to transfer big custom map files from player to player... just that alone will give the entire mapping community a big boost!

That is a standard feature of CnCNet 5 which will naturally be part of TS support too. The maps are zip packaged so transfer times relate to compression ratio. Also, after a map has been selected once there is no need to reupload it and players will automagically download them at full speed.

Team Black · Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 3:02 pm Post subject:

automagically.. lol #Tongue

_________________
The Fall of Hammerfest - Epic Tiberian chain story

Tiberian Odyssey mapping department. Discord
The Team Black Index

Lin Kuei Ominae · Seth **Joined**: 16 Aug 2006 **Location**: Germany

So does cncnet now even understand file formats like mix and map files and can parse data from ini files and things like missions.pkt?
I guess it has to do all this stuff to successfully show
-the list of multiplayer maps
-map previews
-starting locations and amount of players

Does cncnet can use the new subfolder system that mods like DTA and TI are using? (game has subfolers \ini, \maps, \mix which contain the corresponding files, so they don't need to be packed into a single unhandy tibsun.mix anymore)

_________________
SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings

Public SHPs
X-Mech Calendar (28 Mechs for GDI and Nod)
5 GDI, 5 Nod, 1 Mutant, 1 Scrin unit, 1 GDI building

Tools
Image Shaper______TMP Shop______C&C Executable Modifier

Allen · Posted: Thu Nov 21, 2013 5:41 pm Post subject:

For RA1 CnC Net 5 dosn't read any mix files. (don't know about C&C95)

With in the game folder is Maps folder. With in the Maps folder is sub folders like Standards, Counterstrike, Aftermath .etc. All of the maps use the .MPR extension.

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C&C in RA-1 Get it here
http://www.ppmsite.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30101 100+ Single Player Missions! Now playable on CnCNet 5!

Iran · Pyro Sniper **Joined**: 23 Mar 2011

Here's a screenshot of this evening, at peak we had 145 people on (though not shown in this screenshot):

People are still transitioning to the new CnCnet so we'll soon have 160 people in in the weekends, I hope that we hit 220 players on before the end of the year.

There's a bunch of features like TS, RA2 and YR (plus mods for these games) support coming up, and a ladder for RA1 (and most likely at a later stage ladders for the others supported games and mods). If there's interest quick match support too. FunkyFr3sh is working on game accounts. CnCnet v5 also supports skirmish and LAN.

There's a lot of possibilities for adding new features to the online service and even the games themselves. There's already support for voice chat and when certain authorized players are streaming a 'Stream' button appears in the lobby which opens the twitch.tv page of the person currently playing. Also already included is auto-update support.

I'd really like to have first class support for mods. To put actions behind my words I've been working with other devs to add support to the TS game executable for CnCNet v5, work which has now been completed and is now functional (although with bugs and in need of testing). Support for TS has to be added to the CnCnet V5 client still but work has started on that. RA2 and YR should follow after that unless there's something unforeseen.

I'm kinda worried about people cheating on TS, RA2 and YR though. Even without a ladder we'd at least need to have a place on the CnCNet forums to handle it.