Retrieve server list and players

Rook · Post by **Rook** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 9:33 am

Is there a way to download the list of servers and then check each server for online players? (without the game running of course)

I wrote a program for another game (Planetside 2) that gets the list of your buddies and tells you which of them are online along with some other stats, so I was wondering if I could develop something similar for EM.

Post by **Marvin** » Mon Apr 13, 2015 3:28 pm

To be worth the time, it would need to be a program which runs almost as soon as you click on the launch icon.

Keitarooo · Post by **Keitarooo** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:56 am

Rook, I had the same idea

The server list seems hard coded into the game. But it doesn't change very often so it's not a problem hard-coding it too.

I plan on installing wireshark to see what EM send to get the player list on a server and then make some online page to display servers with player (with a CRON running to keep it up to date).

It would be cool to display the current players, and the "last seen" for each players too, maybe.

Rook · Post by **Rook** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:48 am

Well, as far as I remember it is easy to download the servers list, but the players list is in a binary format and has to be "decoded". So I stopped there.

SeeJay · Post by **SeeJay** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 9:29 am

This server site had it displayed in real time online: http://www.retroverse.com.au/evochron/

Keitarooo · Post by **Keitarooo** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 9:48 am

The list is empty

SeeJay · Post by **SeeJay** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:35 am

I know, but my point is that it's doable. He took down the server due to lack of players.

Keitarooo · Post by **Keitarooo** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:05 pm

haaaaaaaaaaaa ok

Post by **DaveK** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 10:34 pm

Looking at the Quake and the Flight Sim server details it doesn't tell you how many players are on but it does list when players log on and log off and carry out some distinctive action so you can work backwards and see who's still on.

It also shows that EM isn't the only game suffering from a sparsity of players - there are days gaps between any players being on the server and most are on alone and only for a few minutes. Having just tried it, I think it's easier to load EMII, interrogate the servers that are up and get a list of who's on.

SeeJay · Post by **SeeJay** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 11:02 pm

When I played on the Retroverse server you could see exactly what players that were on.
It logged and showed in real time.

xtom · Post by **xtom** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 9:52 pm

It would be good if the game showed how many players were on each server.

Janus · Post by **Janus** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 10:04 pm

Right click on a server. That will tell you how many players are on a server or if it is unavailable.

xtom · Post by **xtom** » Wed Feb 03, 2016 11:37 pm

Ah I did not know, thanks.

PaulB · Post by **PaulB** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 12:58 am

From post: 176142, Topic: tid=11871, author=Marvin wrote: To be worth the time, it would need to be a program which runs almost as soon as you click on the launch icon.

I don't see why Vice or someone doesn't just write a simple non-3D App to install and be an icon on your Desktop and you click it and it opens a similar looking Window as the Multiple menu in EM when youj can then click and option to see EM or EL servers and then right-click to see who it online just like you do in the running game.

It's quite a pain just to have to load the game to see if anyone is on when you know that if there isn't you aren't going to play.
That's my opinion anyhow.

Please give us a such a Utility (for EM & EL), Vice - or someone.
I can't imagine it not be simple to do for anyone who know how the "check" works and can program an App.

Bodega · Post by **Bodega** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 1:14 am

When you run a server there are a few text files in the working directory, one of them is a playerlist, in plaintext so that's probably how Retroverse was doing it. I usually just right click to find the server that's most populated and if none are, I just jump into Single player. So much to do, so little time...I've always got something to do in SP if no one is on MP.

PaulB, maybe you or someone else can get Shadou (owner of Outer Rim) and some of the other admins to run a scheduled task to upload the player list file to an ftp server that you can pull data off of for a site that updates every minute or so. It's a small plaintext file so bandwidth would be minimal. I think also, that a service you'd be providing to the admins is that they can easily see whether their servers are up during the day. I know Shadou has come home from work and TOR's been down and he had no way of knowing because no one said anything on the forums or our discord chat server. If he could check a website to see # of players and server status it would be very useful.

And PaulB, you said you don't know why Vice doesn't sit down and write a seperate app to view servers? I can't think of many other games that have this, when you can load the game and just see who's on the servers. Also, I'm sure he's busy squashing bugs and making community requested tweaks right now. Maybe he'll write it someday but I think you could get a community effort going between the server admins way faster.
[Edited on 2-4-2016 by Bodega]

[Edited on 2-4-2016 by Bodega]

Post by **Marvin** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 2:30 am

Or you could learn to write an application. Not that it's easy. It wasn't much fun learning enough C# to modify the Travel Buddy ... but, in the end, it was worth it.

Janus · Post by **Janus** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 2:42 am

I can program such an app; I think. But I would need to know the address of the list server and probably the protocols it uses. No guarantees, but from what I know of programming, it should be possible.

matchbox2022 · Post by **matchbox2022** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 6:37 am

From post: 184397, Topic: tid=11871, author=Janus wrote:Right click on a server. That will tell you how many players are on a server or if it is unavailable.

That's totally a sticky

PaulB · Post by **PaulB** » Thu Feb 04, 2016 7:01 am

From post: 184436, Topic: tid=11871, author=Janus wrote:I can program such an app; I think. But I would need to know the address of the list server and probably the protocols it uses. No guarantees, but from what I know of programming, it should be possible.

Email Vice and ask him - but do it so it can query both EL and EM servers.