INFO How to make an HLDS Dedicated Server for MS:C

[BioRage]

Update:

These steps did not work;

login anonymous
force_install_dir ..\
app_update "90 -beta beta" validate
app_update 90 -beta beta validate
app_update 90 validate

login username password 
steam guard (If applicable) 
force_install_dir ..\
app_update 90 validate
app_update 90 -beta beta validate (did not work)

This indeed work.

Skipped the force_install_dir ..\

login anonymous
app_update "90 -beta beta" validate

Valve folder appears in;

C:\HLDS\steamapps\common\Half-Life\valve

 

[Thothie]

Can you manage to get the HLDS to launch without also launching the GUI? Cuz I can't seem to do that anymore.

I've no idea what's going on with this thing - it's something new every time.

Also, unless you did something foolish like put your server in your common\Half-Life folder, it won't find your Valve files there, those are the client valve files - though they are probably also under <your_hlds_path>\valve.

"force_install_dir ..\" causes it to install in the folder above SteamCMD, assuming you run it from there.

 

[BioRage]

Well, had it installed on my other tower - but it just blew up. I'm not to sure what happened, but it removed all my folders on my main drive.

I tried it on my other tower now, and my whole D: drive is missing stuff.

Edit:

Looks like it wiped my D: drive clean, odd.. 465 GB / 500, that explains my windows server aswell.

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/ ... 060434765/

 

[Thothie]

There used to be a flaw in that it tried to run: rm -rf “$STEAMROOT/“* to remove folders. BUT, if the steamroot folder didnt exist or youve moved folders, it would just run rm -rf “$/“* and...voila..bye bye data!

Remember the HLDSUpdateTool? That couldn't remove anything at all? *sigh*

 

[BioRage]

There used to be a flaw in that it tried to run: rm -rf “$STEAMROOT/“* to remove folders. BUT, if the steamroot folder didnt exist or youve moved folders, it would just run rm -rf “$/“* and...voila..bye bye data!

Remember the HLDSUpdateTool? That couldn't remove anything at all? *sigh*

Hah, well considering I've been out of the scene for quite some-time, all my HLDS skills are gone. This new STEAMCMD method is quite irritating.

I've just finished reformatting, and will get looking at an alternative tomorrow evening.

Any suggestion, unless someone can upload me a proper data file of STEAMCMD so I don't have to reformat again, haha.

 

[Thothie]

The last two links I put up seem live, one of them is from Steam:

http://media.steampowered.com/installer/steamcmd.zip

No promises about version though - cuz, well, it's Steam.

 

[BioRage]

The last two links I put up seem live, one of them is from Steam:

http://media.steampowered.com/installer/steamcmd.zip

No promises about version though - cuz, well, it's Steam.

Oh. I meant the whole folder. Steam CMD gonna wipe my drives again, I bet you.

Edit: Guess there's no harm running steamcmd again, since I just reformatted everything last evening.

Shame Steam CMD has been giving this kind of annoyance.

Note to all: Back up your drives.

--

Going to just got with HLDS, don't mind that it doesn't appear, unless Favorited. Results pending.

Edit: - HLDS doesn't work, auto-closes at boot strapper, looks like you have to fiddle with steamcmd.

At this point, not worth the risk of wiping my drive again, lol.

 

[BioRage]

Solution as of 2015-11-18

Warning: Use STEAMCMD at your own risk. I used it twice on two towers, and it wiped my drives CLEAN.

Note: HLDS method no-longer works.

What I recommend:

1) Run STEAM CMD on a separate computer that you do not care about, or use a virtual server, like VMWARE, ETC. - Then you can transfer the files over that STEAMCMD installs.

2) Follow the code below - I had to run the app_update twice

login anonymous
app_update "90 -beta beta" validate
quit

3) Once everything is downloaded, you'll have to move the "valve" folder and place it in your C:\HLDS. (Steam CMD installs things into the steamapps/common/..)

4) From here, you can move your MSC folder here - C:\HLDS\MSC

HLDS runs when I click the .exe, results for auto-restarted and other methods pending.

 

[Thothie]

Probably wiping your drives because you aren't telling Steam where to install it, and the computer in question does not have the STEAMROOT in its registry, so as the Thread of Horror indicates, it's deciding to wipe your root.

So don't skip the force_install_dir line. Point it to your HLDS folder, if not the next folder up.

And don't move your MSC folder - copy it - or you'll lose your client. Though better to point the installer/betapack at it, so as to have a clean install.

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

I'll say right now that I followed all of your steps in the original post, Thothie, and it helped me get my server running 100% with absolutely no confusion or issues.

 

[Thothie]

Well, that method is still working for me (thank the gods, as most the MSC dev stuff is on the same drive as the HLDS, so a wipe would be bad, even if I do keep backups), with the exception that whenever I run the HLDS, I get the GUI as well as the console, and can't seem to find a way to make it not do that.

That, and I can't get the damn thing to be visible in the browser, but think that's my router being screwy.

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

Well, that method is still working for me (thank the gods, as most the MSC dev stuff is on the same drive as the HLDS, so a wipe would be bad, even if I do keep backups), with the exception that whenever I run the HLDS, I get the GUI as well as the console, and can't seem to find a way to make it not do that.

That, and I can't get the damn thing to be visible in the browser, but think that's my router being screwy.

If you want it to just be a command prompt/console there's a really good autorestarter that uses that method.

https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=147880?t=147880

 

[Ayhur]

okey, i have do the server following the instructions, but i want know how to change bonus experience how you have in your FN server ( with 200% XP plus and 50% plus per player connect after first)

i want to do a server with my friends and for they not "boring" playing it (there are people that who have little patience for leveling), i want give their some help to the beginning when they will start to play the game.

can you tell me how do this?

 

[zeus9860]

Right now you can't, the xp bonuses are rigged for FN usage only.

The closest thing you will get to what you want right now is requesting test characters to play around in some maps. Which i doubt you will get either since they are usually used for testing new maps.

You can always start playing with them on FN since leveling there is faster...

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

okey, i have do the server following the instructions, but i want know how to change bonus experience how you have in your FN server ( with 200% XP plus and 50% plus per player connect after first)

i want to do a server with my friends and for they not "boring" playing it (there are people that who have little patience for leveling), i want give their some help to the beginning when they will start to play the game.

can you tell me how do this?

Play on FN dedicated servers with other players. The more people, the more XP

 

[Ayhur]

thank you all for your comments and urge me to play with you in the "FN " servers but want to play on my own server with my colleagues in a timely manner.

No thanks i don´t want a test char (i supose that will be a god player ... that's no enjoy)


I will try to find something for them find it more fun to start playing the game.

someone remember the olds map thats community created when game "have more people"... there were some map ("castle i remmemberd") for training fast the weapons. i haven´t see this map anymore. someone have saved it?

 

[Monika's_BFFEx0256]

If you're looking for cheat maps to "level fast" you won't find anything like that. If you're talking about a specific map that's good for leveling, The_keep might be the castle you're talking about (or b_castle).

 

[zeus9860]

Not sure if you are talking about cheat maps or not, there are some old castle maps in the game (lostcastle_msc, b_castle, the_keep, skycastle), these are the old ones i can think of, there are also some new "castle" maps.

You can still play with them on FN, only difference might be the ping/lag, you can also lock servers to have some privacy, but to lock servers you need 3 players in the server to start a "votelock" which will temporarly lock the server untill map is changed. (You can type votelock in console to check the temporary password, incase someone disconnects or u want another friend to join)

Also, you should check this: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=9592#p146017

The list in that link will help you explore as you progress further in terms of leveling. The colours represent the difficulty for each map, if they are green, it means they are easy for that level range, if its red, then its tough for that level range. Difficulty will vary as you get new items too.

It is probably for the best if you play on FN because if you end up getting your character messed up in someway or another with some sort of glitch or item corruption, there will be no saving it unless you have a backup of the character made each time you play, this is something FN offers. So if something bad happens like you can't load your character into the game, all you need to do is request a rollback here in the forums to fix the problem, if you are playing on LAN, nobody will be able to fix anything for you. Also i should add that your friends save files will be on your computer, not theirs. So if they want to play by themselves at some point on their own server, they wont be able to, unless you give them the save files or they start from scratch again.

The choice is yours in the end, playing on FN will make things alot easier for you and your friends.

Forgot to mention before, you can also request for FN access. Thothie will see if you are eligible to have access to it, having FN access means you can host your own server while being connected to FN, which means you get all the benefits of FN while on your own server.

 

[Ayhur]

hahahaha at the end you going to do to finish playing the FN server.

I have a question , I remember that could do partys.

If a high level makes group with a low level and kills a monster high level, low level gain experience ? and how many experience win? the totaly of expe of monster or a % of experience ?

 

[Wishbone]

hahahaha at the end you going to do to finish playing the FN server.

I have a question , I remember that could do partys.

If a high level makes group with a low level and kills a monster high level, low level gain experience ? and how many experience win? the totaly of expe of monster or a % of experience ?

The "party" system in MSC is really basic and is really just a name, and seem to be used to represent a guild a player is in. Basically, there's no extra experience or anything if players are in the same party.

 

[zeus9860]

The party stuff inside the game is a way to represent a group of players. You can create a party by typing "joinparty name" in console, if i'm not mistaking you can also type "leaveparty" to leave the party (if you want to make a new one). If you want to accept other players into your party, they have to type "joinparty name", if you are in the server while this is done, you will get a notification to accept the player. To accept i think you had to press enter(?) or perhaps type accept in console, it's probably one of the two.

The experience bonuses ingame come only from FN multipliers (200% by default + 50% per player in the server, i think bosses[enemies with elite under the name] get +100% per player, can't remember though). The way you get xp from killing something is based on the amount of damage you deal to an enemy.

Here's an example, you + 2 friends are fighting a zombie that gives 1000xp, you deal 60% damage, one of your friends does 25% damage, the other friend does 15% damage. Based on the damage % of each player, you would get 600xp, the next player would get 250xp and the last player 150xp. This isn't 100% accurate all the time since enemies can regen health or are sometimes capped in terms of xp values vs hp (like you can get full xp value from the enemy by doing 50% instead of 100%).

I should mention that you loose xp/gold upon dieing (you probably know this already), if i'm not mistaking you also loose all xp you would get from a non-boss enemy, like you do 60% damage towards an enemy and he kills you, those 60% are reset and the enemy will only have 40% worth of xp left to get. This will force you to play safe, basically going in and constantly dieing isn't the best way to deal with things, if you are close to dieing, retreat and heal, prepare for a 2nd round and so on.

One last thing, perhaps somehow related to what you said about higher levels and lower levels, there are maps you can play with slightly tougher enemies for your level, if you have a higher level player around willing to help you level up, he can tank the enemy for you or simply heal you and assist with spells, making the enemies easier to kill, logically if the enemy is tough for your current level, it should give a nice xp reward and perhaps loot. (also not 100% accurate, there are tough enemies that are just bad)

 

[Thothie]

Updating this, due to some things that came up when installing it on yet another system.

• Added instructions for using symbolic links
- If you're running your client and HLDS on the same system (say for map testing), seems you can safely symbolically link your HLDS to your client's msc and valve folders, saving some space and the need to update two folders.

• Nixed HLDSUpdateTool.exe
- Dead as a doornail.

• Added updater batch file
- Instructions to make a quick little batch file to update the HLDS at will.

Since the Steam Command Tool is so screwy, I may put up an HLDS framework sans the MSC/Valve folders soon (may not be entirely legal, but I dun think it's the sorta thing Valve will give a flip about, given that it is available for free, when their tool works right).

edit: okay, added that too.