Ian and I had set up at time to meet (3:00 PM EST) for another round of Mig Alley Internet Multiplayer. I ran a bit late in traffic and arrived home at 3:20 and in two minutes we were communicating via ICQ. I suggested we do some preliminary testing of our internet connection between stations, and I sent him the freeware UOTrace, a utility originally created for Ultima Online. It can do singular pings and traceroutes, along with unlimited polling of any IP. I found my connection to him to be above average. The average ping was 228ms with 0% packet loss (over 100 packets sent). A trace showed we went through 14 Hops to get to each other, which to me means there are 14 opportunities for a problem, but it appeared at this time all was well on the route. I had Ian run the same tests and the results were similar, so into Mig Alley we went, with the knowledge that as far as Internet Multiplayer goes, the conditions won’t get much better than this for any of you out there.

      As I connect to the internet using a 256K up/down cable modem and Ian uses a 56K Analog modem, it made sense for me to Host. I started the game, and the order of selection went as follows;

   1.Multi-Player
   2.Internet TCP/IP Connection for Direct Play
   3.Create Game

At this point I changed my name from “Player” to Icer, changed the Data Rate to Low, Game Type to Deathmatch, Scenario to #4 (Same Altitude), and hit Fly to enter the chat screen waiting for Ian to enter. He appeared just a few seconds later as “Player”. I didn’t have a chance to ask if he had problems connecting with the name changed. He seemed to have a problem entering a game at another time and leaving it as “Player” allowed him to enter (so I don’t know if he just didn’t try it this time). We went to flight and were in the air, paused, with a “Waiting” bar filling with red as we synced up. This only took 5 seconds and the fight was on.

It started out with us at what seemed like the same altitude and reasonably spaced apart. After our first pass I quickly realized that my “Auto Padlock” had magically been turned on again! Now, not only have I had it turned off, but my settings.mig is set to read only! Well, the combination of the view flipping me outside, the DM starting at only 5K, and my lack of skill (the biggest factor), I hit the ground a LOT during the beginning matches... 8-). After a few deaths I changed the setting and it stayed...for a bit. First thing I noticed about our play this time (as opposed to our first attempt) was the lack of “Resyncing” (pausing with a red “Resync..” bar filling in for 30 seconds or so ) during the fight. Our first endeavor had it resyncing every 2 minutes or less. The difference this time it seems, wasn’t the fact that it didn’t NEED to Resync as many times, it just wasn’t DOING it as often as it should have been!

Ian reported seeing me in front of him while I was filling his plane with holes from behind, and I saw the same thing when he was killing me. This is obviously NOT a good thing and it effectively ruins multiplayer. You can’t have long pauses followed by transporting planes AND you can’t have (padlocked) phantom enemy wingmen leading you on a nice level pull while the REAL enemy lines up and blows you to hell!

Another problem is how you re-enter after dying (I had a LOT of practice here!) You are dropped in a plane at about 5000 feet AGL and (maybe) a one mile separation regardless of your opponents position. It appeared to me that the opponent was always behind me then I re-entered, and the few times Ian died it seemed he appeared in front of me, at 5K. That is not, in my opinion, nearly enough separation OR altitude for these fights. I would like to see the ability to choose at least starting altitude (40K?) in the future, and possibly a 5 mile separation to give time for both ships to get into whatever position they prefer. Of course the multiplayer code itself is in DIRE need of work first.

On a side note, we also tried 1 vs. 1 Team Play choosing Migs vs. Migs and Migs vs. Sabres. While the same multiplayer issues surfaced I found flying the Migs to be more of a challenge and more enjoyable in dogfighting. It may be the damage those orange golf balls did when they hit, as very few hits produced a fireball in the sky. Ian tore the end off wing and my fuselage looked like a sieve at one point in a single pass. How do I know? Well, switching to a different Scenario in multiplayer switched me to Auto-Padlock AGAIN! At that point it was of no matter and I had seen enough. We had totaled approximately 25 kills with Ian the clear victor. (Not strictly true! - Ian)

This sim has the potential to be the finest white-knuckle dogfighting multiplayer simulator ever produced.

It just isn’t there yet.

Icer

03 September 1999

For the Techies amongst us….

The machines used were a P3 450, Voodoo 2 SLI, 256mb Ram Intel BX-2 motherboard & a P2 300, Voodoo 1 with 96mb Ram Intel BX motherboard.

Each PC had a 3 Comm PCI Ethernet Combo card installed & the connection was via BNC & CO-AX cable on a multi drop or bus architecture as opposed to a RJ45 jack & a Central Hub.

Here are my Lan Stats:-

Pinging 124.100.1.2 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 124.100.1.2: bytes=32 time<10ms 
TTL=128Reply from 124.100.1.2: bytes=32 time<10ms 
TTL=128Reply from 124.100.1.2: bytes=32 time=1ms 
TTL=128Reply from 124.100.1.2: bytes=32 time=1ms 
TTL=128Ping statistics for 124.100.1.2: 
 Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: 
Minimum = 0ms, Maximum =  1ms, Average =  0ms

Initial findings

The MP options are as per the manual & consist of :-

1. Death Match

Here you have the option of setting up various initial engagement scenarios like
same \ different altitudes, flyby etc.

The Variant on the F86 is found under the Paint Shop option as well as the ability to choose what Aircraft & Side you fly for. 

2. Team Play.

This section provides additional engagement scenarios that are applicable for multi aircraft & players; a few examples include Elements Scattered or Close, Random or Initial advantages. 
Again Plane Selection, Side & Variants can be found under the  Paint Shop option.
 
3.  Quick Mission

Now this option plays like the Training Missions in the Single Player part of the game & allows the user to choose a particular Strike Package like UN Bomber Strike, Armed Reconn etc.
The player is also allowed to choose both Aircraft, Side & its Variant. This provides a lot of fun & with the vacant aircraft padded out with the computer AI some nice furball action beyond the games 8 multi player limitation can be achieved.

Ok lets cut to the chase……..

If you have read the problems already mentioned on this site about Multi Player over the net then I am afraid the news is not good.
The same Re-Sync Problems exist on a Lan game as they do in ON-Line games,
although not as frequent, its still annoying to get an aircraft lined up in your sights only to have the game  Re-Sync & the aircraft disappear to another part of the sky. 
I have to say however that during some games on a Lan, the aircraft did stay in the original positions after a Re-Sync.
Various problems were encountered if players joined a game that was already in progress, these problems were painfully apparent when players tried to join a Quick Mission after being shot down.
The reason I mention the Quick Mission is that the manual states that during a Quick Mission game, should the player die then he should be able to exit the game go to the Frag Screen & rejoin if there is a plane available i.e. one that is under AI control. 
This resulted in various Re-Sync problems & even game crashes for the player connecting & occasionally the Host of the scenario.

The A.I seemed very poor during the game on both sides & the amount of aircraft
flying into the ground trying to evade their pursuers was starting to amount up, during one game I counted at least 5 aircraft “Ploughing” in.
I could not find an AI Difficulty setting during the Multi Player setup so I can only assume the game is using the settings from the single player side of the game, I
think this applies for the Flight Model also.

So, who ever sets up the game or is the Host needs to check the settings in the main part of the game before the scenario battle commences.

Setting up the game is quite easy & I have yet to have a problem during the initial “Hook Up” & Connection Phase.

The only other gripe I can see at the moment, & this applies to the Quick Mission scenarios is that when a player dies & there are no more AI aircraft available, you are just left with a view of  the smoking hole your aircraft left in the ground or the Flight Line up, Frag  Screen.

There is not an option at present for you to be a spectator & watch the rest of the battle.
Indeed the lack of views on offer in the game overall is very disappointing & compared to Rowans previous releases like Overlord & Flying Corp the viewing system is rather “Basic” indeed.

The lack of data provided in the cockpit Info Line on who or what has been padlocked in MA’s current version really needs some looking at (I have emailed Rowan about this).
The Info Line needs to indicate at least the Call- Sign of the friendly aircraft that you are tracking, So that during the ensuing dogfight you can keep track on where your wingman or lead aircraft is. 
This lack of info really shows up in MP should you be flying in pairs with your fellow On Line pilot & need to keep “Tabs” on his her location.
 

Conclusion

So there you have it, short & sweet, but straight to the point, this is just quick look at MA’s multi player aspect of the game & as mentioned in this short review there are a few shortcomings, however, Mig Alley with its approach to the subject & its setting is a welcome change in the desk top flight jockey world, a real step forward for all flight simmers no matter what their capabilities.
 I therefore hope that when Rowan sort these minor problems out in both MP  & those in the single player campaigns, this will indeed be the Flight Simulator to beat. 

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