Making changes to the practice arena

[dBeav]

I have a few questions and I'm hoping that someone here can point me in the right direction.

A little backstory, I have 5 machines running version 3.03 Patch 14, of Aces High as part of an exhibit at the Michigan Flight Museum (formerly Yankee Air Museum) that, with HiTech's help, have been running in a sort of "kiosk" mode for several years. Basically, the only fields available are carriers and the only plane is the SBD Dauntless. That's because this is part of our Dauntless exhibit featuring a plane pulled up from Lake Michigan.

These PC's are largely unsupervised with some printed instructions on how to take off and land. These are very popular with school groups and most kids only spend a few minutes on a machine, however, sometimes we have visitors that will spend more time on them and often will end up playing with any and all settings to the point of making it unusable for the next guest. Luckily, our docents only have to reboot and the game will start over fresh as a daisy. We've even had at least three of the joysticks broken in half by older teens and adults but that's another story.

Now, here's the point (finally!), I would like to set up the practice arena with only one field (carrier) available and have the practice arena start at that field. Does anyone have any thoughts on whether this is possible and how?

[1ijac]

why don't you disable planes and vehicles at all but one selected base or cv in the arena setup on a selected map.   you can also select what plane or vehicle you want.

One-eye

[The Fugitive]

If you make a custom arena, the "hosting" machine would be the only one that could make changes to the arena, correct?

Id add a 6th machine to host the arena, make the changes for that arena....launch only from CVs, only SBDs available and so on and lock that computer down in a kiosk/box/closet. Have the other 5 log into the custom arena and use them for the flight only computers.

[dBeav]

why don't you disable planes and vehicles at all but one selected base or cv in the arena setup on a selected map.   you can also select what plane or vehicle you want.

One-eye

That's largely what I've done but some folks will wander around the map and then the next one to sit down has to figure out how to get to a carrier.

[dBeav]

If you make a custom arena, the "hosting" machine would be the only one that could make changes to the arena, correct?

Id add a 6th machine to host the arena, make the changes for that arena....launch only from CVs, only SBDs available and so on and lock that computer down in a kiosk/box/closet. Have the other 5 log into the custom arena and use them for the flight only computers.

Now this sounds interesting. Is it this simple to host on a closed network?

[1ijac]

Another option is to just make a map with the only things you want.  Jeager makes them all the time for monday and thursday night madness.  He may be able to help you quite quickly using Artik's program.
His forum name is:  captain1ma.  Private message him and ask?


Cheers, One-eye

[The Fugitive]

Now this sounds interesting. Is it this simple to host on a closed network?

Im not sure, I have never tried to do it. Might be something to ask Hitech about.

[icepac]

Back when flight sims had “head to head”, you knew the functionality required exists.

[CptTrips]

Now this sounds interesting. Is it this simple to host on a closed network?

I believe that one of the major changes to the Custom Arena design is that the host processes only run on HTC servers to control hacking.

Out of the box, I don't believe there is a way to host a Custom Arena on a private machine on a closed network.  In the old H2H server days that was possible, but I don't believe it is anymore.

I could be wrong, but that is my understanding.

[icepac]

HTC needs a separate executable for offline and online play.

[fuzeman]

Very Interesting. I want to add to this later on.

[Easyscor]

Several things can help from the sound of it, if you don't have them already.
First, you need a script you can run to reinitialize your arena settings to your preference. Once set up, management becomes as easy as .scrip [text file name].txt
Scripting has the advantage of doing anything you can do with the in-game UI game setup. Reset the CV's Port ownership, destroy and rebuild your TG, thus reinitializing it's default waypoints etc.
Jaeger or I can provide you the entire list of commands with instruction. If I find wifi while I'm out of town, I may be able to send you the list myself.

If you're using a standard HTC terrain, contact JimmyD3 / kenai77. I think he might be able to modify your terrain to what you suggested, or build you another if it doesn't go overboard with the work. I'd do it for you, that last bit, but I'm not available right now. It sounds to me like you only really need a small custom terrain.


EDIT
Scripting PMs sent

[Easyscor]

Two more thoughts.
You need a small terrain, say 128 miles x 128 miles (showing on the kneeboard / clipboard map while all terrains are actually 512x512). A scaled down version of lake Michigan with a single task group and no visible bases anywhere else should do the trick.

We kind of need to know what "kiosk" mode is. If it's simply offline mode on each PC, not much can be done to without HiTech's help to require a password to prevent access to the settings.

Cheers

[dBeav]

I made up the "kiosk" term but basically each of the PC's start up and log in as a guest (non admin) and AH starts up automatically. I also have all of the cfg files set as read only so no changes are permanent.

[Shuffler]

I made up the "kiosk" term but basically each of the PC's start up and log in as a guest (non admin) and AH starts up automatically. I also have all of the cfg files set as read only so no changes are permanent.

Kiosk is a perfect term. You in fact made each station just that.