Has anybody played with a direct connection?

[SgtShultz2]

Whenever I go to the multiplayer lobby now I only get one red bar or zero bars. I used to get more bars than that, but something happened that so far is unexplained to me. It's Saturday morning and there is nobody in the lobby except for me.

So I thought I'd like to try to play using a direct connection. But the only instructions I get about that are open the 1945 port on my modem. I don't see how simply opening a port is going to make a direct connection to another computer.

I asked this question on the CC Bloody First tech support forum and nobody responded that they have actually played using a direct connection. If anybody has, how exactly did you do it?

[Divadov]

The bars only shows the time that you stay in the room, try to wait some minutes and you will see that the bars will change.

[STIENER]

why do you need to play with a direct connection? doesn't the lobby work?

[SteveMcClaire]

It is port 1944 that you need to open.

The game automatically attempts a direct connection when a client joins a host. If the host has not opened port 1944 to allow incoming connections the attempt will be blocked by the host's router, firewall, or security software. If the host does open port 1944 and allow incoming connections, then the attempt can succeed.

[WillKnott]

direct same LAN connection would never work for me. Direct connection assumes both ips are public addresses it would seem. Behind a NAT which almost all routers do, the local ip is private. Direct connect looks at the public ip and tries to make that connection, but with both hosts under the same firewall its just not going to work. We need an option to supply the direct ip/port combo, then maybe we can get it to connect.

SgtStiener...not everyone has the luxury of a high speed internet connection. In rural areas LTE is the only option. I have an opponent who I visit regularly, we try to play each other, but the lobby play uses our limited and costly cellular bandwidth and we suffer horrible lag and latency. If we were able to play direct connect over the lan side of the connection..we could use the lobby but play locally without the lag. I did some packet catptures and sniffing to see how this connect would work and the lobby will try to use the direct connection based on the public ip. Firewalls wont 'u turn' a packet from/to same ip..it simply doesn't pass the packet.

I posted more on this a while back Direct Multiplayer Connection Post

[z1812]

Try this. It is called Hamachi and I have used it with great success for online games. https://www.vpn.net/

[VonVolks]

How do you know if Direct Connect is working? I will try and connect via lobby as usual but will it show anything different if it works via CD?

[PipFromSlitherine]

You should see text on the game setup screen which says "Direct Connection" once you are both in.

Cheers

Pip

[WillKnott]

ORIGINAL: z1812
Try this. It is called Hamachi and I have used it with great success for online games. https://www.vpn.net/

Im aware of Hamachi..however...I dont want to run the game over the internet if both computers are literally sitting next to each other using a switch in the same room on the same private subnet....hamachi creates a vpn over the internet. In this scenario the internet is still being used and packets travel the same connection. What Im asking is to use a local switch with local ips so the packets dont travel over possibly high latent error prone internet connections which are common when one doesn't live near civilization.

On a good news front, in one of the last patches there was a mention of network improvements. I did get a chance to play a couple of games with my friend out in the country after the latest patch update currently available. We each used our cell phones and tethered our laptops. We did play for an hour or so with 'acceptable' results. Not extensive testing, but the experience was better and we agreed that whatever improvements made in the patch relieved some of our issues. We need to play more to see if its doable long term.

Id love to know if anyone has been able to setup a direct connection with TBF and how they had their network setup. Im simply using a 24 port switch connecting 2 pcs on a local subnet with private ip's. There is a firewall performing NAT to allow connection to a 100mbit internet connection. During a packet capture on both hosts, the traffic talks to a public ip. So, each packet going to the other computer travels out the internet up to the public ip, then back down the same internet to the other computer, then any tcp ack's have to travel the same internet back out and then back. All this stacks up latency. The latency of the internet connection on a 'good day' is around 30ms but I've seen days where the lobby ip is spiking in the 100s at times. All the while, i can ping the other side's local ip at less than 1ms. That is what I think of a 'direct connection' would be great for.

[Natasha18]

Direct connect looks at the public ip and tries to make that connection, but with both hosts under the same firewall its just not going to work.

[SgtShultz2]

I wish there was as way to play this game by connecting 2 computers without using the internet. It would be a lot more successful, as the game could be easily played at gaming conventions that way. No more internet problems, which has been the singe biggest problem with this game and all the earlier versions. An earlier version of Close Combat allowed 2 computers to be connected together. But why should I have to buy that earlier version just to play computer to computer? I can't recall now what that earlier version was.

[WillKnott]

I did extensive testing trying to direct connect without internet. Running packet captues on firewall and host and client showed it always wanted to go to a public ip first to 'setup the connection' and would return my public ip on the router. We were on LTE a few years ago, but we managed to get games completed over it. Eventually I ended up with a Fiber connecton and my freind to comes over to play and we keep a solid enough connection. There are a few game ending drops, but we make progress overall.


I saw your PM, and replied, but it shows stuck in outbox...maybe it will eventually go through.