IMPORTANT: Standoff Episode 5 patch 1.30 now available

PopsiclePete

PopsiclePete

Mission programmer
A new, small (199kb) patch is up, available through the autoupdate mechanism. It fixes scoreboard-related stuff for new stuff to be revealed tonight or tomorrow.
 
Patch 3.31:

When autopiloting right away after launch, the sound is sometimes missing. Also, the light appears while the ship is still in the Hangar.
 
This is normal behaviour from the original engine; when near a capship and it's hummins sound, other sounds are sometimes cutoff. As for the autopilot light, it's always been there; we scripted the launching sequence by taking the control of the ship from the player, but the next navpoint is already set.
 
So... I finally decided I had the time to try installing Secret Ops / Standoff 1-4 / Standoff 5 v1.29. I'm sure it's been mentioned numerous times in other threads, but is there some trick to getting the automatic patching system to work? I haven't received any requests to access the Internet besides the launcher, and it hasn't tried to download any patches yet.
 
After install, your launcher says 1.29 ? Did you just download it from the CIC, or you downloaded it previously ? The version currently downloadable should be 1.31.

As for autoupdating, it should be as simple as having the option enabled in the launcher's options menu. If you have an outbound firewall software installed you may need to create a rule to allow the launcher to connect to the site.
 
Yes, the launcher says "Wing Commander: Standoff 1.29" in the title bar. Are you saying the current full Episode 5 download is version 1.31? It might be helpful to indicate what version the download is in the file name and/or download link on the Standoff web-site.

And yes, "Check for game updates automatically" option is checked and the launcher program is permitted access through my hardware and software firewalls. No other program has asked for Internet access at the moment.
 
How does the updater start? Does it start automatically as part of the Launcher process? Or does it wait until you actually start the main Standoff process before attempting to update?
 
hummm... you still haven't it working ? What is your OS ? Do you have a special firewall software installed or just Window's ? What's your Anti-Virus software ?

The autoupdate should happen when you start the launcher, or even as soon as you hit "Save" in the options menu with the feature enabled.
 
Ah, well that might be an indication of the problem. Whenever I click Save it says something about cannot connect to the web-site.

For the record, I'm using Windows XP SP3. As I said before, I checked my hardware firewall and it's allowing connections to standoff.solsector.net, I'm using ZoneAlarm software firewall which is already set to allow connections for Standoff Launcher.exe, and I'm just using AVG anti-virus which does not appear to affect the connection in any way.
 
What about the Windows XP firewall itself? You don't list it, so maybe you forgot about that one.
 
Good thought. ZoneAlarm disables Windows Firewall by default, though, and I confirmed that by rechecking it just now.

I start and exit the Launcher several times, also just leaving the Launcher on its own for several minutes, but nothing seems to happen. I'm quite stumped as to what could be the problem.

Edit: Regarding my previous post about not being able to access the web-site after saving the options, I just double-checked now - the message is to do with verifying my crius.net account.
 
Autoupdate runs right when Standoff Launcher.exe starts. You will know when it is working because you will get a "An update is available would you like to download it?" window with a yes and no button.

Very weird though, not sure what would be causing it to be denied now...
 
Did you completely kill zone alarm and try? Sometimes despite what you set up to allow, it still blocks stuff you need.
 
That's a good thought. Unfortunately the results are the same. I dare not go on the Internet naked (sans hardware firewall), that's just silly. I think I'll wait until my brother gets around to installing it and see what happens for him.
 
Do you mean you use Zone Alarm and an hardware firewall ? If so I think your fear of going "Windows naked" on the internet is greatly exaggerated; I've been relying on Windows Firewall only for years now without any problem. If you are using a router, remember this is already a big protection as your PC then uses a private IP address, which is not even accessible from the net unless you specifically configure the router to redirect packets to your PC.
 
Sorry, I meant that my router also acts as a hardware firewall. I suppose most modern ones do, but I just wanted to be clear. At any rate, I checked the logs and the router/firewall is definitely not blocking it at that point. Assuming, of course, that the program is trying to access standoff.solsector.net, because I certainly did not go there directly myself.

As for fears being founded or not, I know many people who go blissfully unprotected on the Internet without apparent issue. I also know of people who have been hacked within minutes of connection. If you haven't been hacked, maybe you're just lucky.

Edit: The reason I keep ZoneAlarm even though my router/firewall blocks attacks already is because it also allows me control over Internet access at an individual program level. At any rate, ZoneAlarm shouldn't be an issue here either because I did as Chris suggested and killed the program while trying to use the Launcher as well. Still no update.
 
I've been thinking: did you somehow block Internet Explorer ? The launcher uses some of the Windows DLLs for it's http calls, which may or may not be related to IE; but at least it'd be affected by any settings you would have put into your Windows Internet settings (which are also used by IE).
 
I have IE8 and just tested it now, it can access standoff.solsector.net just fine.

Sometimes when I start the Launcher, no window comes up at all. I have to kill the process in this case because it doesn't matter whether I leave it for five minutes or five hours, the window fails to show. Is this perhaps related to the updater functions? I have also been watching the network activity when starting the Launcher - there appears to be some communication, but it stops after short while without any indication from the program that it has found an update.

Thanks for persisting with me, anyway.
 
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