Earthcall Planet Ring FAQ

Earthcall is a homebrew open source server for Planet Ring. This is the official forum for both the online game server as well as the open source project itself. Meet other players, report bugs, and have fun!

Moderators: Indiket, Neoblast

Post Reply
User avatar
Neoblast
DC Developer
DC Developer
Posts: 314
https://www.artistsworkshop.eu/meble-kuchenne-na-wymiar-warszawa-gdzie-zamowic/
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 8:51 am
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 1 time

Earthcall Planet Ring FAQ

Post by Neoblast »

What is Planet Ring?

Planet Ring is an online dreamcast game which features 4 multiplayer minigames,a messenger
and a simple HTML like website system (TEML) to show the user pages about anything the
server admin could imagine, including images. This was the first console game that had
multiplayer gaming while voice chatting people all over the world. It was given away by
the Official Dreamcast Magazine number 15 in the UK, also it was sold in stores. Some
other countries like Spain got it for free with the microphone upon getting the dc to
connect to a certain ISP (Telefonica).

FEATURES

Minigames:

-Dorobo 2Players(voice chat) -> Trease hunt, guide the other player through a maze with your voice
-Splash 2Players(voice chat) -> Battleship like game, sink all of your opponent ships while chatting
-Ball Bubble 4Players -> Get as many bubbles as possible and boycott the rest
-Soar 32Players! -> Different race types using an air pod/ship

Other:

-Messenger
-TEML
-Online Rankings

What is The EarthCall Server?

Earthcall is an open-source Planet Ring server written for use in multiple Operating Systems. It is developed using the SDL.net library, so it should work fine in Windows, Unix and Mac Os X. It has been mostly tested on FreeBSD, but also runs successfully on Ubuntu and Windows XP/7/8. It should run on any Unix environment as well.

Project website : https://code.google.com/p/earthcall-project/

Features list
Full-functional server for Planet Ring (users, profiles, games).
Internal Messenger system that includes Profiles and Messages.
TEML support in Info Center.
Ranking Leaderboards in Ranking info counter.
All 4 games work: Soar, Ball Bubble, Dreamdorobo and Splash.
VoIP games supported with our additional tool for PC-DC users (coming very soon).

TODO list
Implement Game Exit command.
Implement User search filters.
Implement Ranking stats screen at the end of a game.
Finish Ranking for Splash in TEML boards.
Implement 8-player games in Soar!
Add admin commands: message to players, and option to kick/ban.
Implement a Webserver query status.

HOW CAN I CONNECT?

This game is dial up only so no bba's are gonna work here folks :(

In order to connect you will need one of the following methods:

- A working dc-pc server like this one here
- A netopia setup with a line simulator, like this one
- A regular dial up connection plus the sylverant pso/planet ring patcher, that you can get here and here.

Plus (obviously) a planet ring game, and if you don't have any other way to do the redirection to our server, the planet ring patcher.


Router Ports
First, check that your router doesn't block any connections, so you will need to open the following ports in your router's NAT configuration:

PORTS -> USAGE IN THE GAME

7641 TCP -> Main server

7648-7654 UDP -> Attraction, users and other data handling

8001 TCP -> TEML requests

1285 UDP -> VoIP Negotiation

1028 UDP -> VoIP Messages

DNS Redirection
If you want to connect without using the Planet Ring boot server, please redirect DNS petition "master.ring.dream-key.com" to our server "dctalk.no-ip.info"

VoIP issues
Back in 2000, Planet Ring connections were using dial-up through PPP protocol. Nowadays, most PC are working under a NAT network, and that's the main problem with VoIP.

Planet Rings tries to obtain the other player's external IP from the UDP packets when it is doing the VoIP negociation (Splash and Dreamdorobo games). The problem is that PR gets the local internal IP, instead of the route external IP. So, when it starts sending messages, it sends them to a wrong IP (the other player's local IP).

A workaround we have developed is the 'VoIPEarth' program that does two things:

Capture VoIP packets in promiscous mode.
Craft a new packet with the same content, and the correct address.
If you plan to use VoIP functionality:

Compile VoIPEarth program (you will need 'libpcap' devel library in your system).
Create a config.ini file at same place as the program, replacing the text with your values:
the.dreamcast.ip
the.internal.pc.ip
the.destination.ip
the:pc:mac
the:router:mac

On Linux systems, you might need to run with sudo powers.
Input device must be set in promiscous mode, but you can use the same device to read and write


-CURRENT VERSION: 1.0b

-AUTHORS: IberDC Dev Team 2013 -> Neoblast & Indiket http://WWW.DREAMCAST.ES

-SPECIAL THANKS: DCTM, Impulse, BlueCrab, Kohle, Chui, Mekanaizer, and some more people...
You know who you are!!!
User avatar
PH3NOM
DC Developer
DC Developer
Posts: 576
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2010 9:29 pm
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 5 times

Re: Earthcall Planet Ring FAQ

Post by PH3NOM »

Cool stuff Neoblast, congrats on the release!

Hopefully there will be some people able to join in and play?
User avatar
Neoblast
DC Developer
DC Developer
Posts: 314
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 8:51 am
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Earthcall Planet Ring FAQ

Post by Neoblast »

Getting it setup can be tricky, but it sure is fun...
Post Reply