Flash Player Lacewing

I intended to get some people to test it quietly and then release it when stable, but everyone seems to be preoccupied. So here's a quite possibly very unstable alpha of Lacewing for Flash Player!

You can only connect to a server that is hosting a policy file that allows it. The server on aquadasoft.com port 6121 is open to connect to regardless of where you host your SWF, and the new version of the C++ library will enable hosting a policy file with the EXE server.

Put this in your Data\Runtime\Flash folder and you should be able to build a SWF that uses Lacewing. Let me know how it goes!

Not supported in a SWF:

Channel listing (yet)
UDP/Blast
ICMP ping
LAN enumeration
Retrieving the connection time

You need to remove the "<br />" from your link. ;)

Stephen1980

Ha, done. Thanks Stephen.

Will UDP/Blast ever be supported? Or is that a flash limitation?

It's a flash limitation (as far as I'm aware).

Yeah, no UDP in Flash Player :(

I'm getting an SWF error when I build it as Flash. It doesn't give me any information about the error. Do you want me to send you my code?

So... for positioning, if we can't use blast/blast stack then what's the next best thing? Sending stack, or sending, or perhaps a movement workaround?

I'm sensing that Zombie Tag will take some major speed hits if I port to flash now...

Apparently there is some guy claiming he's figured out a way to get UDP working with Flash... but he refuses to talk about it so he's probably just trolling. :crazy:

I did a bit of research and it seems like the only way to make real time games with Flash is by using http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/stratus/
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Stratus
http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Stratus:FAQ

Lame they never implemented true UDP instead of proprietary protocols... guess that explains why there really are not many multiplayer games made with Flash.

It's completely possible to make a real time game using TCP - you just need to be clever about dead reckoning. It's been done in the past.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jamie

It's completely possible to make a real time game using TCP - you just need to be clever about dead reckoning. It's been done in the past.

---

And how it would perform with a couple thousands players?

Depends how much bandwidth you have :P

hehe sure, I imagined that if you need to be clever about dead reckoning, it was a 'built-in' limitation that would appear later on no matter what, when having too much players.

Well, HTTP is TCP and AJAX seems to work pretty well (see Facebook). At least Lacewing doesn't need to poll!

UDP is for girls. Real mean men communicate with smoke signals!

Seriously though, I've never used UDP with my MMF2 multiplayer games, but my games aren't both "massive" and "action". If you pick one, you should be fine. :P

Oh, and congrats on getting this into public beta! I'll join in as soon as I get the chance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Game_Master

I'm getting an SWF error when I build it as Flash. It doesn't give me any information about the error. Do you want me to send you my code?

---

I'm also getting an error when I try to build: http://puchisoft.com/scr/2010-03-11_213654.png

All I did was make a new application, set it to Flash Build, and add Lacewing. No Events.

With no Lacewing, I can build + run it. As soon as Lacewing exists in the application, building fails like above.

Please fix.

Fixed and uploaded.

Nice!

I just uploaded my little server tester Flash: http://puchisoft.com/Flash/FlashTest.html

Enter an IP of a Lacewing server to test if it has a Flash Socket Policy Server running that allows you to connect. Works fine with Localhost (locally ;)).

Since Jamie didn't release his new EXE server that includes the Policy Server yet, here's a quick way to run your own Policy server.

I compiled the python Flash Policy Server that Mathias made into an EXE. Just run the server.exe and Flash will connect to whatever you are running on port 6121.

Combine with Jamies's Lacewing EXE Server #10 if you want.

Flash Policy Server EXE:
http://puchisoft.com/Flash/FlashSocketPolicyServer_Win32.7z

What is a "7z" file?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LB

What is a "7z" file?

---

7zip. Like .zip, but better.

Opens with 7zip, WinRar, IZArc, and more.

In this case, 2.3MB instead of 3.2MB.

Known Bug:

Flash Lacewing can not receive Stacks in anyway. Sending them works though...

You have to just use Text until this is fixed.

New build fixes lots of things - please redownload :)

I take it you aren't even going to try to flash blast?

Darn, I don't know any other way to do Zombie Tag...

There's no UDP in Flash, so it'd be mighty difficult. And by mighty difficult I mean impossible.

Haha, and that makes Zombie Tag impossible to Flash :/

Oh well. It's a sweet game whether online or not.

I am pretty sure it would work without UDP :P

But, very poorly. It'd require some serious dead-reckoning with serious error fixing and ways to eliminate accidental major differences on separate players' screens. >_>

But, it'd be fun to do all that! :D

LB wanna do it for me? lol

I know what it will take to do it I just don't know how to do it.

I'm sure I could eventually figure it out but it'd be insane. :crazy: Because of the type of game it is it would be pretty difficult to do it; all those players just going every which way, with a connection delay, one user could see the zombie touching somone but somone else might get the data as if they weren't touching! I'm just concerned that it won't work out the way you want it to.

It would work with TCP. Shouldn't really be a problem. I have a working mooclick - made game and it doesn't really cause bad lag, and also includes shooting. Google for dead reckoning techniques :)

Edit: the exe is here if you want to try it: http://rs501.rapidshare.com/files/364121773/T__M___2.exe (sorry for rapidshare). I haven't tested it with a lot of players but with only a few it worked ok. It's an old game, but I've got to also credit Looki and TheOracleFile for helping me with it.