=VG= SemlerPDX

Very cool!! Nice job, bro!

I'm happy to announce that the VG BMS Server is getting a hardware upgrade! I've been working this week to install and configure Windows and Falcon BMS on the new hardware and can report that it is very, very fast! It should be at it's final home NOC after a few days more. Huge thanks goes out to our friend Belgriffen for his help and support of the VG BMS Server! Next week, we are moving our BMS Server over to a Quad-Core Xeon CPU, 12GB of ECC RAM (6x2GB), a Samsung EVO SSD, and a new dedicated 1Gbps internet connection. We will not be able to keep our old IP Address for the new server, so our current server will remain online for a few weeks or so to help smooth the transition and get the word around that the VG BMS IP Address has changed. We are expecting the new server to be available to the public starting next week if all goes well. This is a major upgrade for us, we've been a bit hobbled as BMS continued to grow over the years and our hardware did not keep up with that pace. Our current server is an aged Intel Core 2 6400 CPU with 4GB RAM and a 30Mbps connection (shared net AFAIK). We've had some in-game issues lately with frequent "gear-up crashes" after successful landings and subsequent taxi, and we suffer from an occasional blue flashing "pause" message at times. These problems are rare, but we are unsure if they occur due to the 24/7 nature of our aging server and random bugs, or in-game engine issues we can't control. Desync between multiplayer flights is luckily not an issue, and many of us fly in rather close formations despite our many thousands of miles of real world separation, with the server being in Kansas USA. I will post further updates as we get the new server finalized. Once again, the old VG BMS Server will remain online after the new server launches and we'll try to get the word out to everyone we can. Here's hoping our server issues will minimize after this massive upgrade! Thanks to all our regulars for flying with us, and we hope you will help spread the word about our new IP Address! New IP (not yet active!): 205.161.30.10 Updates coming soon!

lol at the neg rep - you'll walk it off, Jersans. But seriously Jersans, you're an admin and "role model" for the public players here - you shouldn't need to be told to RTFM, you're supposed to be telling others to!!

lol - same here! Apaches on Ghazala FTW! Started with mouse, and was a great day when I got my first joystick with analog throttle lever so I could "hover".

removed ban from banlist per admin report /locked

Very cool info! I never read about that cannon before, but I've fired it plenty out of the Bradley in PR and Arma. If anyone wants a funny history of the Bradley, check out the movie "The Pentagon Wars" with Kelsey Grammer and Cary Elwes. Thanks for the post, Inch!

A crash can do that, so can a server reset. If it was exactly at the top of the hour, it was likely the automatic reset which does a number of things and takes about a minute (60 seconds) to come back. That's when the fewest players are online, and so that's why it's set to that time. It's gotta happen at some time, and it's gonna break up a match once in awhile. I'm not fond of that sort of stuff either, bro. Trust me.

Since the beginning of VG and the early days of VG PR COOP, we have enforced the Squad-Asset rule by specifically named Squads. Back in those days, I played during the "off hours" mostly along with RobotFungus and LittleTortiaBoy, etc. We found it necessary still to ensure assets that were claimed were not taken by someone else. BUT - seeing as how someone who loses their asset will then wait for it to respawn, therefore taking care of their own claimed asset, I could see how mixed squads could exists during low player count times. If this were to move forward in discussions, I'd like to hear how other servers operate during low population times. If we ever approved mixed asset squads against the Squad-Asset Naming rule, there would need to be some designation that tells people that the Squad Leader knows they are operating mixed assets such as an "LP" designation in the Squad Name (or something equivalent). Also, if approved, we would need to adjust the master VG PR Rules and possibly add notes in the MOTD's on the server(s) - and some public announcement here on the site as well as you Admins spreading the word to the peoples. Until this IS approved by the majority of the VG Administration, let's stick with the rules and discuss the matter here. Still wondering if anyone here is going to create a list of maps that would be more preferable during low population times. It's literally all I need to make this system complete and to give it some testing...

Seriously, do your research. That video that was linked to is a joke. ThioJoe only started doing "real" tutorial videos as of October 2016. As this video was released April 2016 with the word "Free" in the title, it is clearly a joke. To quote Joe from his own channel: So, in conclusion, the method in the video doesn't do anything at all and you are trying to understand "real science" through this joke gibberish.

Yes. Two different things.

That would be a suggestion for developers of the base game we're playing... We don't have that sort of free reign over the core code. We get MOTD's, that's it. The server itself turns off the PR COOP and changes out some files and restarts it; my rotation system is not part of PR, just a bunch of batch scripts I threw together, really. What does this mean? Set the map rotation as normal? Please clarify if I am missing something because this suggestion gave me a mild form of brain cancer... (j/k) The map rotation is a text file called maplist.con and it has the names of the maps we wish to run. At VG, we have 5 variants currently, so the maplist is different most every day of the week, and they automatically change each day at about 0700 GMT. On Fridays, it's an OPFOR Only rotation. Changing the rotation involves a server stop/restart (again, forcefully occurring each morning). There is no "normal" one unless you are referring to one that starts with Muttrah City and that is just arbitrary. What I'm proposing here as a possible solution to the OP is to set the map rotation to LOW POPULATION Setup (a button available to certain PR Admins) and leave it that way all night. The next morning, the forced rotation change will occur and automatically switch the server back to "normal" or whatever that day's rotation is set to.

Okay, because the maps were not released as part of the PR Installer package, it means that people with "normal" PR will attempt to join our server, and will get kicked for not having the map pack installed. This causes a split in the community of PR gamers, and while we have attempted such things in the past, the issues that arose included confusion and "hassle" for those who needed to take extra steps to connect to the VG PR COOP. As the goal is to be as inclusive as possible with our Main PR COOP Server to public players, we do not run any add-on components like this, even though this Map Pack is Official and would be allowed to run without a password by the terms of our license agreement with PR. So, we have 2 other servers. I'm just waiting for Poff to meet me and help me work out the Mumble issue, and we'll be able to run whatever we want separate from the standard PR COOP -- and also it will mean that Events will be easier to host and participate in because Mumble will work by default and no lag will arise while running more than 1 PR server at a time. This Map Pack could and should be part of an Event, but we don't host them on the standard PR COOP for the above reasons.

When no admins are online, when it's late and the population is low, if the voting system is not enabled, there is no way to change the current map. What amazing feature do we have disabled because low population? Also "once again"? What OTHER amazing feature do we have disabled? You guys aren't referring to systems that are unused due to exploits or performance issues, are you?

Sorry SemlerPDX but Double is right in this last comment. Too many times you see a noob CAS pilot fly directly to the AA of the fortress, with the obvious result (CAS down) other than aproach from a side angle to destroy the AA emplacement. But this further drives the post off topic! Can you see where I am coming from? Basic TRANS routes on Muttrah City ... I think ZZANG1847 already put it best for this topic when he wrote "4. Be ready to say "No" when necessary. If someone tells you to drop a crate at the mosque when BTRs/BMPs are right next to them, tell them to "GO F&^K YOURSELF."" But we could make CAS videos and tutorials as well. Could help those noob pilots learn how to approach the fortress and kill the AA properly in a CAS chopper.

These sorts of comments are unnecessary and not constructive. And they are starting to bother Kav, who posted this video and thread to help newer pilots envision the concept of routes, not to dictate some kind of SOP, or pull back that "fourth wall" and reveal every little tick of the AI and the system. Please stop treating this tutorial for beginners as some sort of "spoiler" as if learning the finer points of PR is part of the game. These are exactly the sorts of things that dedicated pilots note - locations of threats, avenues of approach, common taskings, etc. I don't see every single map or "safe angle" to kill every threat noted here in this thread, what I see is something that will greatly help new Trans pilots learn what is required and to hopefully apply it to other maps on their own.

This is no longer the case. FOB digging has been disabled and we will likely be leaving it that way. This will certainly change the dynamics of a low population mission. Keep that in mind while choosing which maps would be best for a low population time period. Because of this, and because we will likely not be able to accommodate such a mechanism, it might be best to proceed with testing a Low Pop setup system at least for a few days or a week.

I believe he is referring to times when there are no admins and the maps are not suited for the low number of players on at the time. Meaning: this needs to be set up before the last admin leaves for the evening. Map Vote is not the most reliable and AFAIK can cause a crash if certain map(s) are selected. It may be more wise to get a proper list of what would be good Low Pop maps and actually implement this system at least on an as-needed basis, to get some testing in. We don't know how it will play out until we give it a go. ...hmmm - I forgot who as well...

Get me a list of maps. I already created such a system, it's just not used. It would require a PR Admin to restart the server when they change it to and from that setup. So, last admin at night and maybe first admin in the morning, or whatever. Not sure how it would work, but we've never exactly tested it. It's not automatic or anything, but it's a simple button press called LowPop Setup. Like I said, talk to the people and list the maps that would work, and indicate a seed map (something that will draw people in) for the default starting map in the list.

Yes, just use imgur and paste the link in your post. I use it for everything, even my articles. The upload size for pictures on the VG website is 900 KB, for the record. If you resize your images to have a max size of <900 KB, they will upload every time. Why? Website Size and Costs. Photos and screenshots are getting larger in size these days, and rather than have a website that has empty holes where archived photos used to be when we mass-clean thousands of these not-small image files, we encourage people to use image websites that provide the free storage and image links, or limit their photo size to less than 900 MB per image. When you find yourself wanting to move your website, and spend days deleting terabytes of images and other "now useless" files, you get a little wary about unlimited size uploading for a small community website. I'm sure you all can understand that. We also encourage the use of DropBox for file sharing, and use it in our own download section at times to spread the load off this website and onto a free host that is designed for file sharing, and provides free storage and download links, though files under the limit can be shared here just like photos.

Funny you should bring this up just now. I've recently installed 2 additional PR Servers on the VG Dedi. Both of them are development servers and will (from time to time) host public events to try out different game mode styles and different maps that are not part of PR. You can see some early activity now with the events yesterday and today, and also that we are not finished with these servers yet - mumble is still not working, and this may be why there is random lag and performance issues when running more than one of these servers at a time. I'll be fixing that this coming week. One of those servers is a general PR Dev server suited for "whatever", and the other is dedicated to the PR COOP Insurgency gamemode that =VG= Fastjack developed. Both will remain passworded when operating non-standard maps or gamemodes, though they will be open to the public during most events. Aside from the PR COOP Insurgency Server, we don't plan on hosting a 2nd PR COOP Server at the same time as our VG PR COOP (running the same thing) but we are interested in running a variety of games/gamemodes which may be happening once testing of PRCOOP Insurgency is complete.