Wildcat4Ever
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Posts
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Joined
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Thank you, GEL! ^.^
I decided that last night would be my final login to CoH -- I have no desire to ride the game until they kill the servers. So, this thread is as good a place as any to say last minute goodbyes -- as in, 'til the next game, and not goodbye forever, of course!
Sonarr is my global handle in CoH, and of course my main character. She existed long before CoH, and it was a lot of fun to see her live, breathe, fight, and play in this game. And it was fun to hang out with the lot of you, the Sisterhood and SOLUS and whichever USELESS (that being my SG ;) ) people chose to return on occasion.
I'm still gaming, beyond CoH, playing World of Warcraft, Champions Online, and recently DC Universe Online. Yes, there's a variant of Sonarr running around on the hero games -- she doesn't fit well with WoW, but I have other Heavy Hitters that kick just as much ***. ;D
None of these will replace CoH, and that's why I've also thrown in with the Plan Z project at CoH Titan. ( http://cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/ ) The goal there is to create a game that is owned and controlled by players, that can't be shut down on the whim of a corporate board of directors or a CEO. At least, thats why *I'm* there -- others have different perceptions, but for the most part, were on the same page. And, we'd like others to join in and help however they can.
If you want to keep in touch with ME, I can be found at the CoHTitan site (username AvatarMaker), and I'll also be checking in on the Sisterhood forums as well ( http://sisterhoodcoh.com -- look for Sonarr ;D ). On the Twitter, my handle is @_Sonarr_ -- some jerk stole my name! Hence, the _underscores_ XD And finally, I have a website of my own, for my webcomic that has stalled out because I've discovered that drawing vehicles is a serious unfun chore and I'm such an amateur but ANYWAY there's an e-mail contact link to be found there! ---> http://Butzengear.com
You might've noticed earlier that relied on the word "fun" quite a bit, and that was intentional. It's because that's what this game, and any other game for that matter, is for: finding or making fun with what you're given.
Every time I signed out of CoH, I said this in LB, and I meant it every time:
Have fun, y'all.
Until the next game? Good night, eh.
-Sonarr -
Thanks much for this, Mr. TonyV!
It works perfectly under Linux, with wine 1.5! I had to remember to run it under the same wineprefix as my CoH. I also made sure SentinelPlus.exe lives in the same directory as cityofheroes.exe. It might not make a difference as to function, but I figured why chance it? That is where the xml files are deposited, of course.
As for Mac users having problems running Sentinel+ using wine... I have no experience, but I might have an idea. Try running CoH with wine as well for this purpose, instead of using your usual method. The problem I THINK you're having is, if you're using the NCSoft launcher, it's probably still using Cider, which is basically a different version of wine. If CoH and Sentinel+ are both running under the SAME wine command (which should be the same wineprefix), they should interact with no problem! But running CoH under Cider and running Sentinel+ under wine, they'll never even see each other -- you could tweak a few things, but that requires extra steps...
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So this is the first I've commented since the announcement. Basically, the action taken so far is to write to NCSoft (via their "Investors" e-mail address), and request that they consider selling CoH to the players and their own employees who have worked on the game, in the form of stock. I made it known I'm not interested in profiting from such ownership, that I just want the game to continue. Anybody else what likes this idea, please copycat. :D I figure, even if they think it's a bad idea, at least they're hearing from me.
I'll play the petition game as well. I'll dig around and find them. :)
I'm happy to know y'all're making yourselves heard!
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Thanks for the responses and questions! I got sidetracked for a few days, so let me cover these...
Quote:I'm on a wired connection, via ethernet, but even then, the packet loss concept might still be valid.Originally Posted by Codewalker
Are you on a wireless connection by any chance? If there's any interference on the frequency, I could see heavy burst usage resulting in temporarily excessive packet loss.
Yeah, this is true. When running CoH, I try to avoid doing other things that might indude lag, and even avoiding the youtubes. One of my desktop background images is a slideshow that changes every 15 seconds, normally, and THAT will cause a little bit of lag in CoH, so I adjust that when I remember to do so.Quote:Originally Posted by Ironblade
Well, I'll often see things I'm doing interfere with CoH. Running a multi-megabyte download in the background will give me serious lag until it's finished. Wikipedia just doesn't take that kind of bandwidth, though.
I use Seamonkey (the Netscape legacy and Firefox cousin), and the plug-ins are fairly mundane. I haven't updated the browser for awhile so it might not be playing nice with Wikipedia because of that. In fact, it hasn't displayed images for a few months now so I know it isn't.Quote:Originally Posted by Ironblade
I wonder:
1) What browser are you using and do you have any plug-ins installed? Maybe something in the browser is messing up your connection in general and CoH suffers along with everything else.
2) Can you access other sites while running CoH? Particularly something requiring more bandwidth, like Youtube, for example.
Other sites: it used to be that weather.com (the Weather Channel's website) would cause the same problem, but that hasn't been the case for over a year. And while I avoid youtube, I still use it on occasion, and it's not touched CoH that I can recall.
I'm talking about straight up wikipedia.org. I don't recall other wiki type sites having this effect, however.Quote:Originally Posted by Gaia
Not to mention if he's accessing the old wikia site the malware on it could be causing problems - same goes for any other infected site
I keep the browser running pretty much constantly -- generally pointing at a page that lives on my PC, which is basically a page full of links. So, it's an existing browser session.Quote:Originally Posted by Gaia
Also is this a new or existing browser session - starting a new one will put additional demands on system resources which may be sufficient on a low end PC to cause the connection to time out - again without knowing details of his system we don't know whether that is a possibility.
If he posts up the output from CoHHelper and HijackThis we can get some idea if there is anything wrong on his system. Without more details than we already have we are all just guessing.
I'm willing to attempt CoHHelper and HijackThis if you think it's important. :)
I have the same resolution for CoH as I do for the rest of my desktops, but I know what you're saying here -- I've experienced that with other applications before, just not here.Quote:Originally Posted by Rodion
Are you using the same resolution in CoH as the desk top? It's possible that your graphics drivers are doing something funky when you switch tasks.
I used to have problems task switching away from CoH to other apps when I was using an old CRT. I was running CoH with a different resolution than Windows. When I upgraded to a new monitor the problem went away, even though I still changed resolutions.
Well, from what I've read, it would seem that I'm the only one having this problem. The ONLY other thing I can think of is maybe there's a port conflict going on, that my router's virutal server settings could be slightly out of whack, and that wikipedia is trying to use the same ports as CoH.Quote:Originally Posted by Gaia
If others get the same behaviour when accessing those pages and not others it would point to a problem with the page rather than his PC. If not we can be reasonably confident its something to do with his PC somewhere.
Its also possible that some piece of malware may be hijacking his browser.
I have an older desktop that can still handle CoH. I'll fire it up, update things, and see if I can't repeat the problem with it, and report. Otherwise, unless someone else surfaces with the same thing, I won't pester any of you about it again. I'll just accept the situation and try to avoid stepping on the "landmine".
Thanks for the effort, guys, whether I get this fixed or not. I really do appreciate it! :)
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Accessing Wikipedia invariably causes City of Heroes to lose connection to the mapserver! Has anyone else experienced this? It's irritating when it happens while I'm running with a team, but it's absolutely maddening when I'm inside a mission that I wind up having to start again.
And yes, I know that the response to "it hurts when I do this" is "then don't DO that", but as far as I'm concerned, activity in my web browser should NOT affect the performance of CoH. Finding out why and stopping it, that would be a nice thing. ^.^;
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This is outstanding stuff, Wyll -- you've been writing a primer about how to use a video game to play with AND educate your child! And it's also an excellent example of a parent directly supervising his children when they're playing around in a world primarily designed for grown-ups. Not that you need me to say these things, since you've said them yourself! Just singing your praises, here.
Your daughters have caught on to the absolute truth about this game: it's here to be played to HAVE FUN! Your description of Flame's attitude towards powerlevelling and min-maxing made me laugh, because that's how I've always approached CoH. I think she could teach many "veterans" a thing or two.
I hope your kids continue to keep playing and sharing this game with you for a long time!
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Quote:As far as that goes, I've created redundant desktop icons for the game -- one runs "wine cityofheroes.exe" and skips the update checks, and the other runs the Perl script for when I *do* need to update the game. In fact, I created the wine icons first, and now that I think about it, I never discussed that in my post covering the icons. I'll edit to provide the script for that option too.Originally Posted by Nicodemus
is everyone enjoying the game? i know i am. =) played a good deal yesterday. i also archived my bottle now, so in case something goes wrong i can pick up right from this update. =D much easier.
i noticed that i can't play the game for long after using the perl launcher. it slows my whole computer down tremendously after about 40 minutes, and i need to kill it for things to get better. i think it's because of all the output from CoH into the terminal, but Mark disagrees. all i know is, if i run the game without cohlaunch.pl running persistently in the background, everything is fine for hours.
in either case, Mark will be making an update to the launcher so that it closes after launching the game.
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If you're like me, you'll want to create a shortcut, so as not to have to futz with terminal windows, filepath navigation, and typing out the command and all the flags manually, from memory, every time. My solution was to create a desktop icon for the command.
This is a perfect solution when no update is necessary, but on those occasions when there's a patch coming down the line, and there's a sizeable pause between clicking the icon and the initial "LOADING" graphic, I'm going to start wondering if something's gone wrong -- launching the patcher and game like this does not provide a terminal in which the CLI output is provided.
With a little help from a friend, I learned that the simple solution is to prepend " xterm -e " onto the command line, which creates a terminal window in which the game command will actually run, and display all progress. Mind you, if there's a problem, and the script and/or game crashes, this terminal goes away; adding the flag " -hold " will keep the terminal alive after such an occurence, but then it will need to be closed manually, which would be a minor inconvenience.
So, for the command line, enter:
xterm -home -e '/..filepath../cohlaunch.pl' -live -auth 64.25.36.4 -renderthread 0 -compatiblecursors 1
Remember to remove those optional flags that you feel are unnecessary, and to use the proper filepath and -auth flag when using -test and -beta.
And your workpath would simply be whatever filepath your installation directory happens to be. In my case, it is "/home/wildcat/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/City of Heroes/ , although shortcuts such as ~ or $HOME might serve me well in this instance.
To create a seperate icon to launch directly into the game, bypassing the update checks, use this:
wine '/..filepath../cityofheroes.exe' -project coh -auth 64.25.36.4 -renderthread 0 -compatiblecursors 1
If it transpires that your version of CoH is out of date, the game will tell you so before you get too far, and you'll have to use the update method anyway. The workpath for this option is the same as for the cohlaunch.pl icon.
Have fun!
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Quote:I posted my method in Je Saist's GameTree Linux thread, and rather than name every file, just referred to the block of files I copied. ^.^; In fact, I think I named the addcache.xml in my first draft of the post. And then I moved away from the editor window in which I had been writing that post, deleting it entirely. On my second go-round, I sort of pared down my "instructions", omitting the file names. Sorry about that o.o;Originally Posted by Nicodemus
great info, thanks guys!
ack, W4E, don't edit that stuff out, that was good info. =)
*edit* i confirm that i can now see the servers. =) will keep fiddling and report back with more soon.
No more progress with the test server. Guess I'll go see what my laptop has to say about it...
On edit: Test server access uses: ./cohlaunch.pl -test -renderthread 0 -auth 64.25.36.21
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On edit: what Kosmos said XD
addcache.xml was one of the files that I ported over from my laptop, which I imagine is why I haven't experienced any problems with the live server installation.
Let me see what I can learn for -test...
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I tested the updated cohlaunch.pl against my Test server installation, since my live server is up to date. I ran it as " ./cohlaunch.pl -test -renderthread 0 -compatiblecursors 1 " It patched properly, then started the game. It allowed me to attempt to login, but the db server is apparently down or something.
Seeing as how the patch files already existed, the script paused for several seconds at one point, announcing "The file is already fully retrieved; nothing to do." I thought it had hung, so started over. When it did so again, and didn't actually crash, I allowed it to sit, and it eventually started extracting and patching as it should. So, if it pauses without crashing, LEAVE IT ALONE.
I'm attempting a fresh live install into a new directory. I'll update this post with the results.
On edit: the fresh install loaded, patched, launched the game, and all is well!
One last note: It was the "Unnamed Server" thing that I encountered when I used -test... I thought maybe that was just a test server thing. Maybe the test server is just plain unavailable currently? I tend to not pay enough attention to such details, I'm afraid ^.^;
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Here's an update: I can play CoH again! It's kind of convoluted though.
As noted above (see previous posts for details), the NCLauncher functions quite well on my laptop using wine. It updates all CoH files, but the game cannot run on the machine due to driver issues.
As per the ULL thread (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=267988), someone has created a Perl script that performs all the functions of the Launcher, up to and including starting the game -- but on my machine, it chokes out at the part where it applies the new patch.
I used my laptop to update to the latest CoH version as of today's update. I then copied all of the /piggs files and the newly modified files within the City of Heroes dir to my desktop using my flash drive (though a network connection would have been faster). I created a backup copy of cityofheroes.exe, and I had to set permissions to read/write for all .pigg and the version.ini and client.chksum files, and then back to /read once they were replaced.
Once everything had been cleaned up, in a terminal, I ran "wine cityofheroes.exe -project coh -renderthread 0 -compatiblecursors 1" (that last flag may be unnecessary), and was able to login and play the game. I had to reset my graphics sliders, but even Ultra Mode is still available to me. No stress tests here, I tooled around for a few minutes, then exited cleanly.
So that's how I got it to work. It'd kind of a PITA, but it's how I'll have to keep up, until that Perl script thing is figured out.
I'll check this thread a few times to see how things are going. Thanks for your help and suggestions guys, and good luck. Don't give up on this just yet!
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Quote:I have version 3.90.4-6.1 installed, which is the latest version available for SuSE 11.3 via online updates. I have xdelta 1.1.4-185.1 which is the *only* one available from the same source, and falls within the specs listed by the scripts author.Originally Posted by Nicodemus
regarding the extraction error, i need to check the version of Unrar in the repos when i get home. maybe that has something to do with it? Dunno if this will help.
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Quote:The perl script itself was all I needed to launch the game for playing -- just run it as a shell command and let it go: " ./cohlaunch.pl -renderthread 0 "Originally Posted by Nicodemus
hehe, thanks wildcat! i sure was ready to give up, but my account hadn't expired yet, so since i could still post, i still tried. :P
i'm trying the perl script patcher right now to reinstall. i'll report back.
*edit* ok, i was able to reinstall with the perl script, though it put it in a weird folder. and it seems like i can run it through CrossOver with -project coh -renderthread 0.
so far so good, this perl script has been the most promising for me yet. i'll have to try actually logging in tonight, as the servers are currently down.
have a good day, all!
Unfortunately, "was" is the operative term. The first time I tried it, it was apparently just after the servers had been taken offline. It checked for patches, determined I was up to date, and started the game. My login attempt failed, though, as, well, the servers were down.
I tried using this to maybe login to the test server, but that required a patch -- I haven't logged in there since last year, apparently. After it downloaded the patch and extracted the files, the whole thing just quit out, claiming "Unable to decompress patch CityOfHeroes.etc.etc.ncpatch"
Just to make sure I didn't screw something up on my live game directory, I went to launch the game there. It detected a new patch, from the live publish, went through all the motions -- and came to a sudden halt with the same "Unable to decompress" message.
So now I'm stuck again. This is getting ridiculous. >.<
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So here are some updates...
Quote:To determine exactly which winetricks installations were necessary, I began with a fresh wineprefix. I ran winetricks, which downloads and installs its built-in gecko, and then I installed "dotnet20". When I ran "wine NCLauncher.exe /LaunchGame=CityOfHeroes", it loaded, and ran perfectly, beginning the process of downloading CoH files for the purpose of a fresh installation.Originally Posted by Wildcat4Ever
Here's where I stand: my laptop, running SuSE 11.3, WILL update my CoH files using the NCLauncher (which still doesn't display properly itself), but is unable to run the game due to other reasons.
I determined that dotnet20 is simply not installing properly, let alone completely, on this machine. Being a 64-bit machine, it gets more difficult with each new requirement I have to satisfy by installing something else, and I eventually just got lost.Quote:Originally Posted by Wildcat4Ever
My *desktop*, also running SuSE 11.3, refuses to even start the launcher, with the error "wine: Install Mono for Windows to run .NET 2.0 applications." When Mono IS installed, it stalls, as noted above.
I then chose to experiment on my *older* desktop, which still runs SuSE 11.0, but now that I think about it, the OS itself is obsolete, so elaboration about my results there won't do anyone any good, really.
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Quote:Bingo! Good catch, Nicodemus -- this does the trick! You were ready to give up the other day, but I'm glad you didn't!Originally Posted by Nicodemus
cool, thanks je.
and just to keep our options open, it looks like there's also a perl script that someone put together to patch and launch the game. it's here: http://www.carnildo.com/cohlaunch/index.html
Je Saist, thanks for you doing your part as well! My wall has developed stress fractures from where I've been forcefully applying the front of my cranium, thanks to this thing. o.o
I'll be logging in as soon as the servers go live again.
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Quote:I've just installed and attempted ULL myself, and for me, it DOES attempt to launch the new Launcher. Unfortunately, I'm hitting the same wall that I run into with wine, where it locks up at 25% while "Checking for Updates". Tex, thanks for this suggestion!Originally Posted by Salvete
Just tried it. Unfortunately, because it's a few years old, it doesn't work. When you set it up to launch CoX it just opens the old launcher.
Here's where I stand: my laptop, running SuSE 11.3, WILL update my CoH files using the NCLauncher (which still doesn't display properly itself), but is unable to run the game due to other reasons.
My *desktop*, also running SuSE 11.3, refuses to even start the launcher, with the error "wine: Install Mono for Windows to run .NET 2.0 applications." When Mono IS installed, it stalls, as noted above.
If anyone has any winetricks suggestions, I'm willing to try them!
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Slight update.
From within .wine/drive_c/Program Files/NCSoft/Launcher
I run "wine NCLauncher.exe /LaunchGame=CityOfHeroes" as suggested at winehq.org
This time the terminal output is:
Code:And the NCSoft progress window hangs at about 25% while "Checking for updates". This time, there is no apparent crash -- it simply goes into a holding pattern or a loop of some kind.err:mscoree:LoadLibraryShim error reading registry key for installroot fixme:wincodecs:JpegDecoder_Frame_GetResolution (0xf818d4,0x33e798,0x33e790): stub
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I'm not giving up on this quite yet either.
I initially tried to simply run "wine COH_Installer.exe" from within it's home directory, but then I attempted your /LaunchGameCityOfHeroes approach. I get identical results no matter which I try. It appears to start the Launcher just fine, producing the NCSoft window containing a progress bar that quickly jumps to 25% or so, and status text saying "Checking for updates". While it does this, my terminal window displays the following:
Code:It seems to think about it for a few seconds, until the display window throws me my command line prompt, indicating that the program has ceased functioning properly. Meanwhile, the NCSoft window continues existing, until I "kill -s 9" it.wildcat@linux-wn9g:~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/City of Heroes> wine 'COH_Installer.exe' /LaunchCityOfHeroes -renderthread 0 fixme:ole:CoInitializeSecurity (0x33f988,-1,(nil),(nil),6,2,(nil),8192,(nil)) - stub! fixme:heap:HeapSetInformation 0x2c4000 0 0x23fce0 4 err:rpc:I_RpcReceive we got fault packet with status 0x3e6 fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33dec4,0x7e6746e0,0x33e20c): stub err:rpc:I_RpcReceive we got fault packet with status 0x3e6 fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33dec4,0x7e6746e0,0x33e20c): stub err:seh:setup_exception stack overflow 2160 bytes in thread 0021 eip 00007f20f8bbf248 esp 0000000000140d90 stack 0x140000-0x141000-0x240000 fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33e458,0x7e6746e0,0x33e7a0): stub fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33e458,0x7e6746e0,0x33e7a0): stub fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33e458,0x7e6746e0,0x33e7a0): stub fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33e458,0x7e6746e0,0x33e7a0): stub fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33e254,0x7e6746e0,0x33e59c): stub fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33e4b8,0x7e6746e0,0x33e800): stub fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33e4b8,0x7e6746e0,0x33e800): stub fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33e4b8,0x7e6746e0,0x33e800): stub fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33e4b8,0x7e6746e0,0x33e800): stub fixme:ole:NdrClearOutParameters (0x33e2b4,0x7e6746e0,0x33e5fc): stub err:ole:ifproxy_release_public_refs IRemUnknown_RemRelease failed with error 0x800706be err:ole:ifproxy_release_public_refs IRemUnknown_RemRelease failed with error 0x800706be fixme:wincodecs:JpegDecoder_Frame_GetResolution (0xf3dddc,0x33e7f8,0x33e7f0): stub
I can't assume the errors shown in the display aren't related to the problem, but I'm not sure how to read them. Is there a way to get a more detailed debug display from wine, or even from the NCSoft launcher itself?
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Quote:No downloading involved... CHEATER!Originally Posted by Cx_1233
Thanks Wildcat!
I actually solved it by digging out my Good vs. Evil edition DVD and installing the game that way.
//CX
Just kidding. ;D Glad you didn't give up, and that you got it to work. :)
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While I'm here, I might as well follow up with the remedy for making this a permanent change...
Quote:I got this from http://swik.net/Ubuntu/Only+Ubuntu/H...and+RWIN/cbnda which is obviously an Ubuntu site, but I'm running OpenSuSE 11.3, and the pieces are all there for me.Once you tweak the values to your liking, you can make them permanent by adding them to /etc/sysctl.conf as follows:
net.ipv4.tcp_rmem=4096 39000 187000
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem=4096 39000 187000
net.ipv4.tcp_mem=187000 187000 187000
net.ipv4.tcp_no_metrics_save=1
net.ipv4.tcp_moderate_rcvbuf=1
And then do the following command to make the changes permanent:
sudo sysctl -p
And again, remember that you'll want to look up your own tcp_wmem numbers and figure out what your own best setting is. And geom.pigg might not be the only offender -- I vaguely recall another file tripping this bug, and requiring that I increase the setting yet again.
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Quote:Double it again, then try again, and repeat as necessary. Just bear in mind that the third number is the *maximum*, or at least it is as I understand it.Originally Posted by Cx_1233
Hey.
i tried fixing the problem by double the middle value in /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_wmem to no avail.
I had to double it three or four times before it worked.
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Quote:I realize this event has already passed, but it's possible this thread will be used as reference for future attempts, so I'll point out that there is at least one Inspiration vendor in Pocket D (A bartender) from whom you can stock up even when on a Task Force. She's at the bar behind War Witch. So, when you rez, you can stop there between the medical bay and the base transporter, if necessary.Originally Posted by SecretLover
If you die, immediately go to the hospital unless you are able to safely rez yourself. Stock up on inspirations, nukes, and shivans before we begin the trial.
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Quote:The "debug assertion failed" that would crash the updater was "fixed" long enough ago for the "geom.pigg" thing to fall out of the scope of memory. I fought the "fixing files" loop for at least a month before I made the connection.Originally Posted by je_saist
+rep
I feel ashamed that I didn't already know this fix.
Nothing about which to beat yourself up. :)
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Quote:That was my first thought, then I realized, I've never seen an inspiration sitting in the tray on its side, so I decided to keep them upright at all times ;)Originally Posted by Thornster
may have been a little more "realistic" if the insp actually turned with their pieces instead of "moving" to the new position ... but very cool =)
Thanks for the feedback, folks... I'm glad this silly stuff provided some amusement for y'all :D
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