Hi peeps,
Thought i'd put this down in a forum post to save dragging admins out of their playtime. New servers don't really allow much time for personal gaming, so putting it here should take the load off a little.

The server appears quite stable with only the occasional spaz attack (and fewer than some i've been on). But i've found a couple of niggling bugs that seem to occur:

1: Only happened once so far, but somehow I spawned back inside my vehicle on log-in with the associated crunchy bones swiftly followed by death. It hasn't happened since, and I can only think it was something to do with a server reset. Whilst I logged out normally, it was pretty close to reset.

2: Unable to change clothing. I experimented a bit with this and I finally managed to change clothes as long as I got rid of ALL my inventory, except tools and bandages. At all other times, I got a '.can't count magazines' error or something similar, and the clothing was taken. No model change though, and I was still in civvies, but carrying civilian clothing.

That's pretty much all the bugs i've found so far, which isn't bad at all. Now, possible features....

1: On the login message, it says to sell guns/cars for gold. I saw another post regarding towing/lifting and how much of a ballache it was to install, but in truth, it's a huge part of scavenging in dayz. Whilst unrestricted heli lifting can be a little OP, simple towing of vehicles is almost a standard requirement. If you do happen to find a vehicle that you can sell, at the moment you'll have to hide your existing vehicle, lock it (if it locks), take the new vehicle to be sold and then buy a cheaper vehicle to get back to your car.

If it wasn't for this, then I suspect more players would be selling vehicles (especially armed ones, once they've got the humanity) and it may tidy up quite a lot of the vehicles over the map.

2: PlayerID linked buildables. I'll admit, I have virtually no knowledge of this. But as far as I know, if you die for any reason at all, you have to replace your plot pole. That on it's own is a pain in the tits, but not a massive problem. The problem arises when the admins get constant calls for 'can you remove xxx for me?' due to death removing your ability to deconstruct anything you've built already. There appears to be a fairly brand new release of a mod based on a much earlier 'linkable ID' mod, and it apparently doesn't affect/ruin existing bases

Linky: epochmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1104...kers-from-plot-pole/

I think both of these may make quite a nice addition to the game, although as I said my coding knowledge is limited and I understand how difficult it can be to get mods to play nicely. As for downtime and testing, I have no issues lending a hand if someone tells me what they want me to do, i'll do it. And I often find that the people who moan about restarts/downtime etc often change their minds when they find out how much the game has improved for them.

Any thoughts? This is possibly the best server i've played on so far and the working overpoch traders are worth playing for alone. Just thought that the above might also help out

first of Thanks for bringing this to our attention and being part of the forums as for bugs... my knowledge is limited unless i do extensive research on how to fix.

1. sometimes hick ups in the database can occur when restarts happen... or an admin jumping the gun a lil too quickly to shut down the server seconds before the server restarts to edit/add something in the server. which can cause a lil bit of data loss and push u back a couple minutes from where you logged out..

2.'cant count magazines' ive seen that before when chaging into a stalker skin through "Player Morph" but didnt know it was happening with normal players on the starting skin.. maybe dy3 can give u more information on that

Server Features.
1. i totally agree with heli lift and vehicle tow ive pushed the idea many many times.. but i fear it got pushed back on the to-do list due to other features or fixes have higher priority. since its, in my experience, a delicate process to add R3FLogistics, it might be coming to the serve a little later than i hope for:-( but definately a must-need feature of the server
LINKS- epochmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/8550...-and-towing-working/
epochmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/2112...for-locked-vehicles/

2. the plot pole thing, i did look into that with your link-http://epochmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/11042-release-a-plot-for-life-v11-keep-your-buildables-on-death-keep-historic-buildables-turn-on-boundary-markers-from-plot-pole/
and also found this 1 epochmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9552...ers-update-16042014/
or this 1 epochmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9366...-pole-after-you-die/ definately a feature to look into to make life alil bit easier

Expect to be added
-Arma Skin Trader - epochmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1237...6-buy-any-arma-skin/
-ALL OVERWATCH TRADERS - epochmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1248...movehicles-in-menus/

other feature ive looked into
-No Salvage on locked vehicles
-No Damage On Locked Vehicles
-Bandit Perks
-EVAC Chopper

Thanks for the reply Bio.

It's a new server and the priority has to be stability, ease of use and performance. Fiddling around with loads of mods before those things are in place would probably be a bad idea, so that's all good.

I mentioned that plot pole mod as it appears to be the most recent one and seems to cover a number of player annoyances in one mods rather than 2 or 3.

The other mods you've mentioned look cool too. There was also a Masterkey mod that i'd never heard of until I browsed the Epoch site. Seems quite a good idea, given the limited toolbar space and THAT moment (and most people have probably done it...I know I have) where you clear your inventory completely for some reason and forget that keys are regarded as 'tools/weapons'. Then wonder where some of your keys/tools went as you busted the safe/vehicle limit and it dumped them on the floor somewhere....), it might be a good addition.

There's lots of fluff on the mod site, but equally some awesome ideas. I know the towing thing is a sod to set up after having a read through the mod topic, but all good things come with time.

The no damage/salvage thing equally is a biggie too. If you left your vehicle unlocked, then you deserve to lose it. But no-one likes to come into a server to find someone has taken apart their vehicles piece by piece. Especially if you've royally annoyed someone and they do it every...single...day.

The bandit/hero perks were a new one to me, but a great idea now i've read up on it. Although i've run from the coast as a 'mature' player on more than one occasion, there's no denying that it gets old.....really, really fast. Doesn't seem overpowered and the only people I could see complaining about it would be anyone who likes to pitch a tent on the coast hills 24/7 with one eye bigger than the other through all the sniping.....

The Evac chopper is an odd one though. Unless something changes, I can run in any given direction (or normally to the nearest high ground) and probably find a damaged, but useable vehicle in a couple of minutes. It might be a good gold sink for people who have loads and loads of cases, but I couldn't see it being used all that much.

After browsing through the mod list, I can't see anything else that jumps out at me. But thanks for replying and giving a general direction of the server. Everything takes time and this wasn't a demand for features. Just keep doing what you're doing

Cheers

I'll address these as you've numbered them:

BUGS:

1: I've seen you either crash or completely lag out several times. I'm pretty sure the server and database have attempted to move you back to the last "safe" place your ID was recorded at. In this case inside your car. I also think you were in a locked car and that's why it broke your bones. (People can use a hotkit to (rarely) get into locked cars.)

2: I think this might be down to the skin you were trying to equip. Let us know when it happens again. I've had a friend put his bag on the floor (Epoch forces this, it's not us) to change skins and his bag has completely vanished. We now throw everything into our car/heli before skin changing.
I did see the "unable to count magazines" message when I was trying to implement a new skin trader but haven't seen it since.

FEATURES:

1: Yeah towing/lifting is on the cards. Eddie and I had a quick play around with a mod for it this evening but noticed a few problems such as cars being towed turning invisible. The lifting seemed okay but you had to be under 30m (is the altitude measured in meters?) to drop the lifted vehicle. The old mod we'd used allowed a drop from any height and would deploy a parachute which looked pretty cool. The test also revealed you could lift locked vehicles. This is a big problem and a bit of a pain in the ass to fix. (We need to rip out the part of the Epoch code which handles unlocking vehicles and adapt it and tell Epoch to ignore the old code and use the new code. It's annoying but we'll find a way.)

2: Plot poles aren't needed to build at all. But if I remember rightly you place them to stop other players within 30m building crap on your land. I'll look into the mod you linked tonight.


So yeah, at the moment there's a bit of a backlog interms of "new stuff we want" and "stuff to fix".
There's 2 major problems in the way:
1: I hate switching the server off to test this stuff when there's people playing. I don't like interrupting people's fun. So I have to wait until the early hours to test. Most days I can't do this because of work the next day. I think from now Eddie and I will takes turns installing mods because of the timezone difference.

2: Epoch Patch 1.0.5 is nearing. The more we add the more of a hassle it's going to be to re-add everything when 1.0.5 rolls out. I'm dreading it because I'm not 100% sure I can remember how I got Overpoch working and all the Overpoch related topics on the Epoch forums have been deleted.

Hi DY357LX...Thanks for replying. You're probably right about my connection. As I said, that issue only happened the once and it hasn't happened since. Virgin Media....fast, but about as reliable as a mesh condom...

The clothes thing happened with 2 different clothing. I'll have a look tomorrow to see if I can replicate it again. I've been knobbled by that backpack issue on previous servers, but thankfully it doesn't seem to happen here.

The overall main priority is whatever you guys want it to be. It makes sense holding off on mods, especially with this patch incoming. Must admit, I didn't think they'd continue to update Epoch as they've been working on the new zombie - less Epoch 3.

As you said, the towing/heli lifting causes issues and no one wants vehicles with cloaking devices. I hit enough things already....

The heli dropping height thing. Most servers I've been on recently had the drop height set quite low. The parachute is a nice touch, but I've never heard of it. There's a 'loading' mod that let's you physically put a vehicle in a suitable heli and you can then air drop it where ever you like. It then drops on a parachute (hopefully) intact.

The plot pole thing was just an idea that seems to bug most people. I don't think I've ever built without a pole due to an unhealthy fear of someone building stuff over my doorways.

As for the server downtime, you'd hope people would understand that the downtime is nessecery, especially on a new server. Unfortunately, it often doesn't work out that way, so I get where you're coming from. Most nights I'm on stupidly late and if the server is being modded, no worries.

I'm slightly concerned that most posts are being read as whining, accusatory, demanding or just arrogant. They're not intended to be any of those things and I'm sorry if they've been read that way. It's obvious how busy you and Bio are behind the scenes from the admin thread. Thanks for all your efforts.

Thought i'd plonk this here as there soesn't appear to be a dedicated bug thread, and I'm not entirely sure what changed that could've caused this.

No big deal really, as shortly afterwards a lying numpty shot me down and has gained a prestigious spot as the one and only person on my shoot-on-sight list....

Anyway, back to the point....I parked my armoured SUV where i'm planning to build my base earlier today. Nestled into some trees for cover. When I logged back in this evening, the SUV had somehow transformed into an armed Blackhawk....in the middle of the trees. Cut down said trees and did a very bad takeoff (as commented on by pip) to sell it to get a new SUV.

As I said, no big deal as both vehicles cost the same. Just very, very odd.

And it gets stranger....when I flew to the hero trader, there was an armoured SUV there. I'd already bought a new one, but wandered over to it all the same. Found I could unlock it.....

Somehow a Blackhawk had spawned in place of my SUV, which then took itself across the map to the hero trader. If it wasn't for the Blackhawk, i'd suspect a hotwire kit but it just doesn't seem to make sense.

As I said, it's a non issue for me now but thought you might like to know in case it's a sign of anything more widespread.

Ed