Virtual Skipper

[Outspan]

Hi all.
Some of you might have noticed that I have setup an auto host.
Doing this has caused me one major hassle so I have send this mail to some of the nadeo email adresses I have been able to find.

I hope to find a devoted developer at Nadeo/Ubisoft which can do up this little patch..

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Dear Nadeo!

I am a dedicated software developer as well as Virtual Skipper enthusiast.
I am looking to find out if there are any really dedicated Virtual Skipper developers left in your organisation.

It has been a while since you have released any patches and there are no news wether or not you will ever release a new version of Virtual Skipper.

Virtual Skipper is by far the very best sailing/regatta game around.
The graphics are great and we enjoy it a lot.

I have made a setup where I host Virtual Skipper automatically and it has quite a few followes since I can now host games 24/7. (see http://autohost.dyndns.dk )

I only have ONE problem with this setup.

Sometimes peoples networks drop out and leaves boats racing as "ghosts".
My setup uses AutoHotKey and starts a new game every 15 minutes.

This means that if not all boats are finished by that time.
No ladder points are generated – nor do I get a result file.
I need the result file to generate the ranking list.

Now.. If you could release a very small patch that would do the following:

Every map has a property of “Time Limit” ...
When hosting – could Virtual Skipper automatically KICK all boats who has not arrived withing the “Time Limit”...

Lets say – I set the Time Limit to 00:15:00 – then after 15 minutes of sailing - all boats which has not crossed the finish line will get kicked.

This is a rather small fix and it could be released as a patch. I would take one of your old Virtual Skipper developers less than ½ a day to fix – and it would make all in the community very happy!
I truely hope you will consider this.

Thank you

Best Regards,
Allan // OutSpan
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[kiwi_bardy]

If Nadeo do make this patch, could they please make this setting a flag that can be toggled by the host on the host page?

So the host could switch the game from "Auto kick at time limit - Yes" to "Auto kick at time limit - No".

because a there are some old courses, which are very popular, and which are passworded... and the maker of the course is no longer active in the community (perhaps), so the password is no longer known/available...

It would be a shame if any of those courses became less usable because they just happened to have a time limit close to the average time it takes to sail them... so that some of the slower boats got auto kicked before they finished.

With auto hosting, yes, this is an excellent idea... it would just be a shame if ALL courses were forced to work this way... and a simple flag that the host could toggle on and off would mean no one was left unhappy...

[Outspan]

Well... Even easier fix then...

Every map has a Time Limit...
When the Time Limit is reached... Assign the ladder points -
and write the result file..

The rest of the fleet can finis

Nothing more to it..

Should be a very easy fix.

If you dont like it - then dont apply the patch - or...

(For instance - I dont like the new exe that write the result files as XML - simply because I cant tell spectators from DNF, DNC and DNSes - So I do not use it)


Redo the map - It cant be that difficult - can it?

// Outspan