An FPV drone flown from the free camera: real quad physics (thrust,
gravity, drag, Betaflight "Actual" rates), collisions with the world, and
a goggle-style display. Open it with `dronemenu` (or the drone window's
Start flying).
Flying
- Keyboard and mouse, gamepads, or USB RC radios (EdgeTX etc. in Joystick
mode). "Set up controller" learns each stick and switch by asking for
one at a time, reversed axes and springing gamepad throttles included.
While a controller flies the drone, the game is kept off it, as
freecam's controller mode does.
- Presets (Tinywhoop, Toothpick, 5 inch), arm/disarm, back to takeoff,
and every setting live through `dronetune`, saved in the profile.
- Optional range: the picture breaks up and is lost with distance from
the takeoff point; past it, failsafe cuts the motors.
- OSD, on-screen sticks, an analogue video look, synthesised motor sound.
- Goggles: the pilot's skater wears eyewear from the game's catalog while
flying, and gets their own back on landing (Road Rash aware).
- Start flying hides the game UI, Stop flying brings it back.
Multiplayer
- New packet `drone` (36): where a player's drone is and which way it
faces, 15 times a second, unreliable, relayed like effects. Markers
glide between updates. Protocol version 52.
- FLYING DRONE above the name of a player who is flying.
- Players choose whether to share their drone and whether to see others'.
- Dedicated servers: `sync_drones` (players section) and `drones on|off`.
Off: no drone packets are relayed, and players are told in the roster.
Changes to existing code
- `flyspeed` takes any speed from 0.6 to 1500, not only the seven listed
(the drone's presets and top speed slider use speeds of their own).
- Overlay: begin/end_input_access, so the drone's controller read sees
the device while the game is kept off it.
- Profile: local_surface_hit, the park editor's ray from one point to
another, for the drone's collisions.
Tests: Skater/Test/drone_radio_tests (controller setup), and the drone
packet and roster rule in Multiplayer/Test/protocol_tests.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01MArBL6UbYZPsp9rMnq2Ks5
The Mods page has a third tab, PROFILES. A profile is a saved list of which
mods are on, in what order and at what version; every mod stays installed
once, in the one Mods folder. Loading a profile rewrites mods.json, switches
off what it does not name, and downloads from Thunderstore what it names
that is missing. Profiles live in Mods/profiles.json.
A profile travels the way r2modman's do, so the two managers read each
other's: export.r2x inside a .r2z file, and a code on Thunderstore's
profile service. Config files in an r2modman profile are ignored.
Installing or updating a Thunderstore package now brings the packages it
depends on, needed ones first, leaving out any already installed at a new
enough version. A mod pack is a package that is nothing else.
A kick, by an admin or by a passed vote, used to keep the player out until
the server restarted. "kick_minutes" in the players section of the config
(1-1440; 0, the default, is still until the restart) and the console
command "kick-time <minutes>|restart" now set how long it lasts.
The player is told how long when they are kicked, and how many minutes are
left if they try to join early. A kick keeps the time it was given, so
changing the setting is for later kicks. Bans are unchanged.
A line that starts with "/" is a command, a whisper or party chat, so typing
one no longer shows dots to the whole server. Dots already showing are cleared
when the line becomes one.
A "stopped typing" notice was relayed every time it arrived, while "typing"
was held to one per 200 ms, so a modified client could flood everyone through
the host. A lobby's host and a dedicated server now pass a stop on only when
that player's dots are up, which is at most once per accepted "typing".
Map updates
- A map the game already has, being replaced by the host's version,
could load as soon as the new files were in Mods, while the mods
were still being applied: it ended on "This map is not loading". The
session now holds the load while a map is downloading, installing or
applying, as it waits for one that is missing.
- A player whose version of a map is later than the host's keeps it and
loads. Only an older one is replaced by the host's. Versions are
compared number by number (1.10.0 is later than 1.9.2).
Dedicated servers
- maps.latest_versions (off by default): the server asks Thunderstore
for the newest version of each of its custom maps, at start and every
maps.latest_check_minutes (5-1440, default 60), and writes it into
the mod's manifest.json. Nothing is downloaded: the server reads only
a map's level list and version, and players, who are held to the
server's version, fetch it as they join. The map being played waits
until nobody is on it. A folder that is not a Thunderstore package is
not touched, and the level list is left as it is.
- Console: maps update, maps latest on|off, maps latest every <minutes>.
Overlay
- Vote card: the pass mark is always in the middle of the bar. Green
grows over the left half up to the yes votes needed and over the
right half past them, whatever share the vote needs.
- The "Staff" tag is "ReSkate Admin", shimmering from #2500FF to
#B2F9FF.
No protocol change. Tests cover the version comparison and the
manifest write; the Thunderstore lookup was checked against the site.
The map update flow, the vote bar and the tag were not seen in game,
and the server setting has not run on a live server.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A dedicated server that rotates its maps can now ask players where to
go next instead of taking the pool's next map.
Server
- maps.rotation_vote: when the timer runs out, a vote between three
maps drawn at random from the pool, "Random map" and "Stay here".
The most votes wins, a tie is drawn, and with no votes it is the
pool's next map. It ends early once everyone has voted.
- maps.rotation_vote_seconds (10-120, default 30) and
maps.rotation_extend_minutes (0-240, default 15; 0 leaves "Stay
here" out).
- maps.rotation_announce: a card when the map has 10, 5 and 1 minutes
left.
- The vote's maps are drawn a minute ahead and sent to games
(PacketKind::next_maps), so their pictures are ready when it opens.
- /vote extend: a built-in vote that gives the map in play
rotation_extend_minutes more. On by default (votes.extend_map), and
only runs while the maps are on a timer. "extend" is now a reserved
vote name.
- Console: rotation vote on|off, rotation announce on|off,
rotation stay <minutes>|off, rotation extend [minutes],
votes extend ..., vote extend.
Game
- The vote opens as a popup in the middle of the screen: a tile per
answer with its picture, name, share of the votes and count. It
holds input as the map download card does, and works with a
controller (D-pad, A, B), the keyboard and the mouse.
- Pictures: a mod map's icon from its folder, or from Thunderstore
when it is not installed; the game's own maps show their loading
screen picture, cut to its middle square. "Random map", "Stay here"
and a map without a picture are drawn as shapes.
- Older servers and polls are unchanged: the vote is a poll, so it can
still be answered with /1, /2... in chat.
Protocol 50: games and servers both need this build.
Votes: a vote is decided by the votes cast, not by everyone on the server. It
passes when yes is its percentage of them, at the end of its time, or sooner
once the players still to vote could not change it. A kick still needs two
yes. The card's bar is yes in green from the left and no in red from the
right, with a mark where yes has to reach. No protocol change.
Map versions: a map installed at another version than the host's is no longer
loaded as it is. The download card offers the host's version (MAP VERSION,
UPDATE), which replaces the installed one and is applied while the game runs.
For that the live merge keeps each mod's fingerprint with where its archives
were placed, and places a mod again when its files have changed since: before,
a mod replaced while the game ran was read where the old one lay. When the
host's version is gone from Thunderstore, or the old one's files are in use,
the player is told and leaves the session.
Dedicated server: "maps reload" reads the Mods folder again, so a map copied
in while the server runs can be switched to at once. The server window reads a
copy of the map list.
Map names: a custom map's level is dingolevel_reskate_<map>, and "reskate" was
left in its name ("/map reskate badlands"). The map's own name is shown and
typed now; the old spelling still finds it.
as a level unloads, the game takes each mesh variation out of its registry by the
entry's mesh and reads it unchecked, and this map's meshes unload before
their databases. A guard on that one function has the read of a mesh that is
gone go on with the next entry, and logs how many were passed over.
The chat filter matched short listed words anywhere inside a longer one, so
entries like "gger", "spik", "crip" and "coon" in the backend's lists blocked
"bigger", "spike", "script" and "raccoon".
- A listed word of four or five letters now matches inside a longer word only
when the rest of it is what goes around a swear word ("motherfuckers",
"bullshit", "shithead", "shitty", "xxfuckxx"). Words of six letters or more
still match anywhere.
- An ordinary word that equals a listed phrase without its spaces
("the rapist" / "therapist") no longer matches.
- bad_words.txt is gone: the filter has no words until the backend's lists
arrive.
Dedicated servers:
- "use_global_word_filter" (default true) turns the backend's lists off for a
server. Console: words global on|off.
- data/words_filtered.txt and data/words_blocked.txt hold a server's own
words, read at start and by "words reload". Blocked words follow
word_warnings. Filtered words are sent to players (new packet, kind 33),
whose games star them for players with the chat filter on and drop them on
leaving.
Multiplayer outfits: a player whose mods add or remove skater or board slots
no longer makes everyone look like the local player. A peer's items are put
in this game's slots by slot hash; slots the peer lacks stay empty and items
in slots this game lacks are left out.
- maps.park_mods binds a Park Editor park mod (Mods/<folder>/parks/<key>.park.json)
to a name and the map it was built on; maps.park_limits caps the parks and
objects spawned at once (3 and 512 by default)
- park-mod list | add <name> [<name>...] [minutes] | remove <name> [<name>...] | clear,
from the console, as /park-mod by admins, and by players through custom votes
- A spawned park is the layout of the server's own SteamID and epoch, sent like a
player's: games since 1.0.0 already show it, it counts against no player's
object limit, nobody can move or delete it, and it stays when players leave
- Objects players' games would not take (not Build Kit items, broken values) are
skipped and logged; a missing or broken park is an error line when spawning
- Optional expiry (1-1440 min) with a warning in chat a minute before; every
park goes on a map change and none survive a restart
- [parks] log lines name who did it: console, the admin, or "a vote"; a vote's
refusal reaches chat
- park-mod is reserved for custom commands; README.txt documents the settings,
commands and a park/unpark vote
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Y2G4APEkhHgVs59RDL3XWD
eleport <players> <player|x y z>, from the console or for a role with
the command: one player (a name's start or a SteamID64) or up to 64
SteamID64s joined by commas, to a player or a place. Several stand in
tpall's ring round the target; one sent to a place lands on it. Those
not connected or not in the world yet are skipped and named, and each
use is logged. tpall and tphere share the ring code. The name is
reserved, and it is in help, the chat list, README.txt and
README-roles.txt.
The server window merged in #170 did not compile on main. Its admin
card listed the admins a config no longer has: it lists the players
given a role, and gives or takes the admin role with the role command.
The "autostart" setting it reads is added to the config (off unless
set). A second read of Steam's debug lines is removed: they already
come with the direct notes.
Co-Authored-By: Robin Möller <moelrobi@gmail.com>
Dedicated servers: roles, with their tags, commands and permissions
A dedicated server had one list of admins who could do everything, and
everyone else could do nothing. It now has roles, kept in
data/roles.json beside the bans: each a name, the tag its players wear
in the game, the server commands it may use, what it may do besides
commands, and a rank.
A server starts with five: player (everyone given no role: chat, votes,
parties, private messages), vip (a reserved slot), moderator (kick, ban,
messages, giving out lower roles), admin (everything) and muted. The
default role is whoever was given none; a role has what the default has
as well as its own unless it says it does not inherit. A reserved slot
is a permission, so a role's players have one without being listed.
Nobody kicks, bans or changes the role of a player whose rank is theirs
or higher, or gives out a role that is; the console is above every role.
"*" is every command but role and reserved, which a role has only when
it lists them.
New commands: role <player or SteamID64> <role>|none, roles, and roles
reload. "admin add|remove" and "admins" are gone: the admins an older
config lists are moved into the admin role the first time the server
starts, and leave the config.
In the game, a player's role tag and colour show in chat and on their
nametag, and each control in the Multiplayer menu, the map, time of
day, world layers and parks follows the command it needs rather than
one admin flag, as do the commands chat offers.
Protocol 48: the roster carries each player's tag, and a new
permissions packet tells a player what their role gives them. Older
games and servers do not connect to newer ones.
Also fixes a name clash that kept the server config tests from
compiling.
A hacked game was resizing its skateboard and reporting it at another
player's position, so everyone saw an oversized board riding on them,
and with player collision on it knocked them about.
A skateboard is now held to within 10% of its size, apart from the limit
on resized body parts: on a dedicated server when its scale limit is on,
and in every player's game whatever sent the pose. Another player's
board is solid only within 3 m of its own skater; one further off is
seen and not felt.
Dedicated servers also check for a board kept on another player
(Server/board_check.h): one away from its own skater that stays beside
one other player while that player travels 8 m over at least 3 seconds.
The board is then no longer passed on to the others until it has behaved
for half a minute, and the log and the admins in the game are told who.
New setting anti_cheat.pinned_board and command board-check:
off | warn (default) | kick.
### Overview
Hey! This PR adds an optional native DirectX 12 graphical interface to the dedicated server (`ReSkateServer.exe`), making it easier to monitor and manage a server without having to rely solely on the raw terminal.
### What's included:
- **DirectX 12 / ImGui Management GUI**:
- Live console with color coding and command input.
- Connected players list with real-time ping, position coordinates (click to copy), and kick/ban controls.
- Live map switcher and world layer manager.
- Ban list & admin manager.
- Real-time tick rate / latency graph and live telemetry table.
- Server configuration & release update checker in Settings.
- **In-Game Badges & Roles**: Synced with official nametags/role badges (`DEVELOPER`, `CREATOR`, `HOMIE`, etc.) just like in-game HUDs.
- **Headless CLI Support**: Kept full compatibility for headless/VPS setups — running with `--headless`, `--cli`, or `--no-gui` (or on Linux) runs standard terminal mode as usual.
- **Thread Safety & Performance**: The GUI runs on the main Win32/DX12 thread while server host/networking ticks run asynchronously on worker threads so tick rate is never blocked.
Tested on Windows Server 2022 with Release x64 builds against local and Steam SDR sessions. Let me know if you'd like any adjustments!
Map downloader
- A host or dedicated server now tells joiners which Thunderstore package
its map comes from (the Mods folder name plus manifest.json).
- A player without the map gets a card: icon, name, author, version and
description, with DOWNLOAD and CANCEL. It works with mouse, keyboard and
controller.
- Only packages listed as Maps in the ReSkate community are offered, and
never deprecated, rejected or NSFW ones.
- On yes the package is downloaded, installed into Mods and applied as a
live mod, then the session loads the map. A small card on the right
shows the progress, so the player can keep skating.
- The player stays connected while it downloads: the host gives a player
who says they are fetching the map up to 45 minutes instead of the
usual load time.
- When the server changes map with the player in it, the card says so.
- Protocol version 47: map package on map_offer and world_state, and a
"fetching the map" flag on map_request and world_ready.
Joining
- The pause-menu server browser shows a CONNECTING card over the page
while a join is under way, and a COULDN'T CONNECT card with the reason
when it does not get in.
- The session and voice tabs no longer show before the player is in.
- Leaving without the map (declined or cancelled download) no longer
counts towards the failed-join limit, on servers and player hosts.
Input
- A card that asks something holds the game's input until the buttons
are released.
- Steam's overlay hooks XInput in front of ReSkate and answers the game
itself, so a controller reached the game behind menus. ReSkate now
hooks that hook as well.
Mod merging
- Mods are read on several threads, at launch and for live merges. A live
merge runs below the game's priority.
- The paid-cosmetics check reads the game's files and the mods on several
threads.
- A live merge reuses the paid-cosmetics verdicts it already has and
reports its progress and timings.
Launcher
- NSFW mods and their categories are not shown in the mod browser.
The bad-word list now comes from the ReSkate backend's Words page, in
the same /api/v1/steam-ids answer the game and servers already read.
It has two lists: filtered words, and words not allowed in chat at
all. Until the backend has any words the built-in list stays in use;
once it does, its lists replace the built-in one.
Filtered words work as before: masked for players with the chat filter
on, and not allowed in server or lobby names. Words not allowed at all
are filtered the same way, and a chat message with one is not passed
on. Its player is warned each time, and after three warnings the next
one gets them kicked.
Dedicated servers: new players setting word_warnings (default 3, 1 to
10, 0 switches the rule off). The count lasts while the server runs,
so a kicked player who joins again is kicked at their next one. Party
chat and commands are checked too, and each warning and kick is logged
under [words]. The lists are read whenever global bans or word
warnings are on.
Player lobbies: the host's game applies the same rule to its guests,
with three warnings.
- announce-to <player> <text>: the announcement card goes to that player only.
- Announcements are no longer posted in chat, only shown as the card; the
now pointless "card" setting is gone (old files' value is ignored).
- ReSkateServer.json "commands": the owner's own /commands, each with a reply
and/or server commands run as the console ({player}, {map}, {arg}), an
optional admin-only flag, and never listed in /help.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01NYHTXYAUyibUbfztfcriYB
The console (stdin, mp server, scripts) can now start the real vote and poll
cards instead of faking them with chat lines:
vote <map|kick|tod|<custom vote>> [argument]
poll <question> | <answer> | <answer>... and poll end
poll-run <command with {answer}> | <question> | <answer>...
A server vote keeps every check a player's has (the vote is on, min_players,
one vote at a time, the map pool, the tod list, the custom choices, admins
cannot be kicked) but has no cooldown and no yes of its own; its starter is 0.
A server poll may be asked whatever "polls" says. Chat reads "The server
started a vote to ..." / "The server asks: ...". poll-run runs its command
for a clear winner, as the console, and nothing on a tie or no answers; it
is refused from anywhere but the console.
start_vote, start_poll and end_poll take a Guest * (nullptr: the console)
and return why they did not start; every player message and log line is
unchanged.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QVkhUHpDKhPgxS3HNWNXB8
Builds on the 2.0.0 vote card. Protocol 46: a server's vote can now be a
poll, and the roster carries who may start polls, the owner's own votes
and the current announcement.
Custom votes (votes.custom): the server owner defines /vote <name> [choice]
in ReSkateServer.json. When one passes, the server runs its command as the
console; {map} is the current map and {arg} the player's choice, which must
be one of the vote's "choices", so players never put free text into a
command. They show in /help, /vote list and the "/" menu.
Polls: /poll <question> | <answer> | ... with 2 to 6 answers. A poll runs
nothing. Players answer by clicking a row on the vote card or with /1, /2...;
the card shows each answer's count, then the result for a few seconds.
votes.polls says who may start one (off, admins, everyone), poll_seconds how
long it runs, and /poll end ends it early (its starter or an admin).
More vote settings: each vote may have its own seconds, cooldown_seconds and
min_players; starter_votes_yes says whether starting a vote counts as a yes.
The "votes" admin command sets all of them.
Announcements: "announce <text>" posts a chat line and shows a card at the
top of every player's screen. The new "announcements" section holds messages
the server posts in turn every interval_minutes while players are on;
"card": false keeps them to chat. Managed with the "announcements" command.
Older configs gain the new settings with their defaults on first start.
Server/README.txt documents them.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01WbSRfNf5T9wX4XMMQ5kwia
A full server (about 120 players) slowed down at random until everyone lagged:
one pass a second, each taking over six seconds, 115% busy, and whole poses
going out by the thousand.
Why it stuck. After any stall the next pass had everything that arrived
meanwhile to pass on, to every player, so it took longer still. By then the
poses each update would have built on had gone stale, so poses went out whole,
ten times the size and more work again. Each pass carried the whole of the
last one's arrivals and the server never caught up.
Shedding. A pass normally reads one or two poses from each player. When more
than three of one player's are waiting, only the newest is passed on. Contact
effects are held to two packets a player a pass. Each pass then has a bounded
amount to do whatever the backlog, so the server catches up; players see the
others at a lower rate for a moment. The log says when it happens (at most
every 30 s) and `net` has a "shed while behind" count.
Threads. Building each player's update of everyone else was 80% of a pass. It
reads the other players and writes only that player's own state, so it is now
done for several players at once (worker_pool.h); the server's own counts and
the marks on whole poses are added up afterwards, and sends into the transport
are made one at a time. New setting network.threads: 0 (default) is one thread
for each processor but one, up to 8; 1 is the single thread as before. The
server says how many it uses when it starts.
Load test. Server/Test/server_load_tests.cpp drives the host with simulated
players over a transport that is not Steam's (built with the multiplayer tests
on Windows, not run by ctest). With 120 players at 20 TPS and 27 MB/s out, the
loop's share of one core went from about 50% on one thread to 26% on four and
22% on eight, and every player was sent byte for byte the same on 1, 2, 4 and
8 threads. A simulated 3 s stall shed about 7,000 poses, took one 169 ms pass
to recover and lost nobody.
The test's transport has none of Steam's send cost, so a real server's loop
sits higher than these figures. Receiving, choosing who is sent which pose and
the sends themselves still run on one thread.
Overlay. Hall of Meat could only be switched from the game's own menu and the
console. The Insert overlay's skater page now has a "Hall of Meat" switch on
the Movement card, under No Bail. It runs the same "hallofmeat 0|1" command, so
both menus agree and the choice is saved with the profile. It is greyed out
when Hall of Meat did not start.
Server. A player who is not an admin and places more than twice the object
limit plus 100 in a minute (a modified game animating objects by respawning
them) had their objects held as they were for a minute. They are now deleted
for everyone, and nothing that player places is shared for the next minute:
without that their game would upload them again at once. The log names the
player once with their SteamID and how many objects went, and they are told in
chat. After the minute only what they place anew is shared.
The server cannot delete the objects in that one player's own game, so they
still see them there; nobody else does.
Other players' skaters and skateboards showed none of the game's skater
effects: not the trail or fire a costume or deck comes with, and not the
sparks, dust and puffs of a skater touching the world.
Costume and skateboard effects. The game gives another player's skater and
skateboard the right effect sets by itself, but builds them before their
outfit is on, so nothing showed. They are now built again half a second after
the outfit is applied. An always-on effect that a skater's item puts on the
skateboard's wheel joints (the Ghost Skater trail) follows the skater's own
copy of those joints, which only this player's skater keeps up to date: for
other players it is taken out of the skater's sets and built on their
skateboard, which has the same joints.
Contact effects. They come from a skater touching the world, which only
happens in that player's own game. Each game now captures its skater's
contacts (position, velocity, surface normal, surface material) and sends up
to three a tick in a new unreliable packet, PacketKind::effects. Other games
play each through the game's own function, so the effect is still chosen from
the surface and the speed. A contact is shown as late as that player's poses
are, only within 30 m of their skater, and only for a material the level's
table has: the game reads that table without a bound.
Server. A dedicated server relays effects packets to players within 150 m of
the sender, at most one packet a tick from each player. New setting
players.sync_effects (default true), console and admin command
"effects on|off". Off: the server relays none, and the roster tells games
neither to send their contacts nor to build other players' costume and
skateboard effects. Player-hosted lobbies relay through the host and always
share them.
The roster carries one more byte for the setting. Still protocol 45, which
has not been released.
New console command "mp effects": what has been captured and played, and why
the last contact was refused if one was.
Server: remove players who have been away too long
A dedicated server can remove players who are away from their game.
- "afk_kick_minutes" in the config's "players" section: 1 to 1440, or 0
(the default) for never. "afk-kick <minutes>|off" from the console or an
admin; a change is saved and applies at once.
- Away is doing nothing a player at their game does: not moving or turning,
not speaking, not sending chat, and not placing, moving or removing an
object.
- A minute before the limit the player is told in chat; at the limit they
are removed with a message saying why and that they can join again. The
log has an "[afk]" line.
- Admins are never removed for it. The time starts once a player's game has
loaded the map, and starts over after a map change and when the setting is
changed.
Votes on a dedicated server show as a card above chat instead of being
followed through chat lines.
- The card has what is voted on, the Yes and No counts, how many are needed,
a bar of how far Yes has got, and the seconds left. When the vote ends it
shows Passed, Failed or Cancelled for four seconds.
- Yes and No are two buttons, labelled with the player's binds. The answer
given is highlighted and can be changed. They can be clicked whenever the
cursor is free (chat, menu or console open).
- Two new binds, "Vote yes" and "Vote no", in the binds list: F1 and F2
unless changed, to keys or controller combos like the others. They are
read only while a vote is running, and not while typing.
- /yes and /no still work and show on the card. The player a kick vote is
about sees the card and has no vote in it.
- Console: "mp vote yes|no", "bind voteyes <n>", "bind voteno <n>".
Server:
- The roster carries the running vote (id, kind, tally, seconds left,
starter, target, label) and the one just finished with how it ended.
- A chat line is no longer sent for each change of the tally; the lines for
a vote starting and ending stay.
Fix: a dedicated server's roster may list more players than its limit.
The extra slots for reserved players and admins (33 of 32) made a roster the
protocol refused to encode, so with one in use the server logged
"Server error" every pass and stopped part-way through each one until
somebody left. Lobbies hosted by a player are still held to their size.
Fix players freezing on dedicated servers; reserved slots are extra slots; bone scale limit 2
Players stopping and jumping (1.1.6):
- The new sound messages begin with the same four bytes ("RMS1") as the
pose updates games send each other over their direct links. The game
took those pose updates for sound and discarded them, so a directly
linked player moved only when a whole state arrived.
- Game: only messages from the dedicated server are read as its sound,
pose or acknowledgement messages; anything from another player is
decoded as what it is.
- Server: poses and sound go through the server to every player, whether
or not two games have linked to each other. This fixes games still on
1.1.6 without an update, at the cost of more outbound on small servers.
Reserved slots:
- "reserved_players_slots" no longer holds slots back. Anyone joins until
max_players are on; the listed players and the admins can still join
after that, each adding one slot beyond the limit (33/32 and so on).
- An admin who is also listed counts once, and the total never exceeds
what a session can hold.
- The list holds up to 1024 players again. "reserved" in the console shows
how many extra slots there are.
Server:
- "bone_scale_limit" is 2 by default. The game's own skater height is a
bone scale, so 1 showed everyone at one height. A config that already
has 1 written in it keeps it until changed.
Server config:
- Written in sections, in reading order: server, access, maps, players,
anti_cheat, network, votes. A config from an older version, flat and
under older names, is read as it is and written back this way on first
start; only settings that are really new are reported as new.
- Renamed: no_bail, noclip, boosts, parties, voice_chat to allow_*;
global_bans to use_global_bans; welcome to welcome_message; speed_check
to speed_hack; score_check to modified_scoring; score_allow to
allowed_scoring_mods; map_pool and map_rotation_minutes to maps.pool and
maps.rotation_minutes. Console and admin commands are unchanged.
- Bans are kept in data/bans.json beside the config. A config that holds
them has them moved there; a bans file that cannot be read stops the
server from starting.
- Reserved slots are one list, "reserved_players_slots": a slot is kept
for each listed player who is not on. "reserved_slots" and the
"reserved slots <n>" command are gone; admins may take a kept slot but
none is kept for them.
- "tps" is no longer in the file: dedicated servers run at 20.
- "bone_scale_limit" is 1 by default: resized body parts are off unless a
server allows them.
- New: "pack_ms" (10), how long Steam may hold a message to pack it with
others; "finger_distance" (25); "steam_debug", which logs what Steam's
networking says, for connection faults.
Poses and skater sound between a dedicated server and its players use new
formats. Lobbies and the links between games are unchanged.
Poses (pose_codec.h, pose_batch.h):
- A pose is rounded once (rotations to 0.08 degrees, positions to a
millimetre) and sent as its differences from a pose of the same player
the receiver has acknowledged. Several players' poses share one message.
- The receiver acknowledges messages once a tick; the sender builds only on
acknowledged poses, or on the whole pose it sent reliably. Loss costs the
poses in that packet and nothing more.
- Fingers are not sent to players further than "finger_distance" (25 m).
- Games upload their own poses the same way, and the server acknowledges.
- About 300 B a pose at full rate against about 660 B before.
- The server no longer rounds rotations by distance: it saved little.
Sound (sound_codec.h):
- Each sample is sent as what changed since the one before, numbers rounded
to 1/1024. One reliable message a tick carries every skater a player can
hear. A stream is sent whole at its start and every two seconds.
- About 106 B a message against 368 B before, on a recording of real play.
Direct connections:
- "connection": "relay" (default) or "direct", with "direct_address" and
"direct_port". A direct server listens on UDP and is listed with its
address; players still sign in through Steam.
- Games connect straight to servers that offer it and fall back to the
relays after 5 s. Setting and "mp direct-connections" to turn it off.
Server:
- "bone_scale_limit" is 1 by default: resized body parts are off unless a
server allows them.
- Logs Steam's relay network status at start-up and in "net", and watches
the Steam sign-in.
- "pack_ms" (10): how long Steam may hold a message to pack it with others.
- "steam_debug": logs what Steam's networking says, for connection faults.
- "relay_everything": sends poses and sound through the server even between
games that have linked, for testing with few players.
- "net" shows pose sizes by rate, the share sent without fingers, and whole
poses sent.
Game:
- Only ReSkate's nametags are shown; the game's own are removed.
- "mp pose-dump <seconds>" records the local skater's poses and sound.
Tests: pose_codec_tests covers exact round trips, chains of differences,
held fingers, damaged input, the sender and receiver over a link that
delays, loses and reorders, and the sound format; with a recording as its
argument it prints sizes on real play.
Protocol 44: servers and games must both update.
Game
- Player distance (Settings > Interface, "player-distance"): how far
away another player is still built as a skater, 50 to 1000 m, default
120. Past it they keep their nametag or dot. All the way up shows
everyone. A player already shown stays until 15% further out, so one
skating along the edge is not built and taken down over and over. The
game ran a full skater for every player on the server wherever they
were, which is most of a frame on a full one
- Nametags are always ReSkate's own. The "ReSkate nametags" toggle, the
"Nametag style" button and the nametag-style command are gone; the
game's own nametags are never shown
- Nametag distance ("nametag-distance"): how far away a name still
shows before it becomes a dot, 10 to 500 m. Default 120, was a fixed
150, so by default the name and the skater go at the same distance
- Nametag dots ("nametag-dots"): off hides the dots for far players and
the ones at the screen's edge for players off screen
- Friends' nametags only ("nametags-friends"): only Steam friends get a
name or dot; chat bubbles still show for everyone
Server
- A player out of sight of another (half as far again as the low rate
starts, 255 m by default) is sent to them once a second instead of
five times. On a full server most players are out of each other's
sight, and at five a second each they were most of what was sent
- Rotations are rounded before a pose is passed on, more coarsely the
further away the recipient is: 0.04 degrees within the full rate's
reach, 0.16 within the half rate's, a third of a degree past that,
about 5 degrees out of sight. The pose is still an ordinary one. A
bone that turned by less than a step is the same bytes as before, so
the difference from the reference leaves it out, and the low bits of
the ones that did turn pack away. By distance only: a player the
crowd limit slowed keeps the fine rotations
- A recipient crossing from one precision to another is sent a whole
state of that player, since a difference from a reference of another
precision would carry every bone again
- "net" shows the size of the poses sent at each precision
Profiler
- A function in ReSkate.dll is reported by its address when the DLL has
no symbols. A release build named every one of ours as the nearest of
three exports, so a report could not say which was slow; the
release's symbols name the address afterwards
Server
- Dedicated servers run at 20 network updates a second, fixed for now:
whatever tps says in ReSkateServer.json is read as 20, and the tps
command no longer changes it. A busy server's traffic, in and out, is
its players' poses, and 20 a second is a third less than 30. Lobbies
keep their own choice
- A player who has not moved or turned for three seconds is sent on at
five poses a second; the full rate is back with their first movement
- "net" shows what a pose costs as sent, and what it would cost against
a reference renewed every second, every quarter second, and against
the pose before, measured on every fourth pose that arrives. It only
measures: a nearer reference packs smaller, and this says by how much
before the server is made to send them that way
Game
- The "/" menu on a dedicated server lists /w for everyone, and /msg,
/msg-party and /msg-admins for admins. The server already answered
them; the menu is the game's own list and never had them
No protocol change: a server built from this still takes 1.1.4 players.
Server: what each player is sent
- A crowd limit: each player is sent at most crowd_budget poses a second
(default 600, 0 for none; "crowd <n>|off"). Everyone at 5 a second at
least, the nearest at the full rate, the next nearest at 10. Before,
everyone within full-rate distance was sent at the full rate, which a
crowd of 40 turned into more than a connection carries
- A skater's sound goes only to players within the full-rate distance,
and in a crowd only from the nearest; it went to everyone
- A player who joins, or arrives after a map change, is shown the others
about seven a second, nearest first, and none while what they were
already sent is still on its way. Before, every outfit and every
stream went at once (and to everyone at once after a map change)
- Whole pose and sound states every 8 seconds instead of 2, on the
source's own clock, and slower pose rates sent on that clock too, so
recipients share one patch and compression (DeltaCache) instead of one
each. The settings survive a map change
- Object updates wait for a connection that is behind
Server: Steam connections
- send_rate (default 900 KB/s, "rate <KB/s>") is set as both Steam's
minimum and maximum, for open connections and each new one. With only
the maximum raised a connection stayed at Steam's 256 KB/s; set high,
what was lost was resent until the connection was full of resends
(about 1.1 MB/s reaches a player through the relays)
- A 4 MB send buffer, and a refused must-arrive message no longer ends
the player's session at once: 15 seconds of refusals do (30 for object
updates). A full queue used to drop everyone who was behind together
Server: seeing what is going on
- "net [player]": every connection's ping, delivery, queue and rate, the
traffic by kind (poses, sound, voice, outfits, objects), who uploads
most, and how busy the server's loop is
- A [network] line in the log every minute
- A leave or failed join says how it ended: closed by the player's game
with Steam's reason, connection lost, or closed by the server and why
- The queue time no longer prints Steam's "unknown" as a number
Server: other
- Reserved slots: reserved_slots and reserved in ReSkateServer.json, and
the "reserved" command; admins always have one
- The speed check flags a game at about 1.5x and over (was 1.06x), and
tells only that player; for the admins it is in the log
Game
- A remote skater with no pose for a second stays where it was for up to
eight seconds instead of being destroyed and rebuilt three seconds
later. On a busy server one slow frame did that to many players at
once, and the rebuilding made the next frames slower still
- Every waiting message is read each frame (at most 128 were)
- On an official server the role tags (Dev, Staff, Homie, Creator) show
for every player, not only the few the game is connected to directly;
community servers keep the old rule
- The server browser searches Steam at most every 15 seconds (45 after an
empty answer) and keeps the last list for 15 minutes when Steam returns
nothing, up from 2
- The game's own connections send at up to 900 KB/s
Cap outfit packets and stop dropping recipients when a relay cannot be
built. Add per-player relay limits for outfits, skater sound and voice,
and a back-off for Steam IDs that keep failing to join.
Throwdowns: only participants can write rows, turns and scores; a copy
that fails to spawn no longer blocks the others.
Throttle remote skater and skateboard re-creation, cap remote objects
per session, and show developer and friend marks only for identities
Steam vouches for. Route all connections through Steam's relays.
Dedicated server: validate map changes, clean player names, keep vote
cooldowns across reconnects, and cut ban labels on a character boundary.
