I don't know how popular
boswars is, but my nephews and I sometimes play it over the LAN and we've quite enjoyed it. But there's no support yet built in to run it as a dedicated server. According to their
FAQ:
Quote:
Q: Does Bos Wars support a game server, meta server, lobby or anything like that ?
A: Not yet, but this is a planned feature.
|
It can be played over the Internet of course, but all players must know when the server will start and the host name for connection.
I thought this might be done using a program like
xmacro and cron.
It's fairly straightforward, with a few minor variables (as far as I can tell so far).
1. A cron job starts boswars every 2 hours. (5:50,7:50,9:50, etc)
2. A customized script similar to the one below is called.
Code:
#!/bin/sh
# start the boswars server 10 minutes before the
# next round begins
echo "MotionNotify 957 444" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonPress 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonRelease 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
sleep 2s
echo "MotionNotify 853 427" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonPress 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonRelease 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
sleep 2s
echo "MotionNotify 935 493" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonPress 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonRelease 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
sleep 2s
echo "MotionNotify 976 367" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonPress 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonRelease 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
sleep 2s
echo "MotionNotify 1115 631" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonPress 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonRelease 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "MotionNotify 1125 617" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
# sleep for 10 minutes, allow people to join
sleep 10m #Game will start a a few seconds after the top of the hour
# automate click to start game after players have joined
echo "ButtonPress 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
echo "ButtonRelease 1" | /usr/bin/xmacroplay :0
3. cron job kills any instance of boswars every 2 hours (5:45, 7:45, 9:45,etc)
So the minor variables which have to be considered:
The positions of the boswars window for the x and y coordinates
Any known or unknown security exploits in network play
The server "player" will be neutral or inactive, unless he happens to be at the computer at time the server starts and desires to play.
By the way, the example above starts the server with the 4-player "hospitality" map with the default options on version 2.6
