Conan Exiles Dedicated Server Launcher (Official Version: 1.7.5 / Beta: 1.7.7)

If you can point me toward some documentation or “how to”, that would help.

I managed to negotiate being able to spend a few hours here and there to work on features, but if I have to spend hours searching on how to do things, I’m not going to be able to implement these new features very fast :slight_smile:

So the updated feature request list is now:

  • Possibility to show the number of connected players (and eventually their names) so admins can know when they can safely do maintenance reboots
  • Possibility to reboot the servers more than once a day (to fix performance issues on large RP servers with a lot of mods, buildings and players)
  • Adding an edit field for people to add custom command line parameters
  • Possibility to set the processor/core affinity options to tweak performance
  • Possibility to check for workshop updates while a server is running
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Roiger that sir, I will find you documentation on this mater.

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I recently started having trouble actually saving changes I make in the launcher. That is to say if I tick or untick stuff like “Restart daily at” or “Start server if not running” or change the time values for the restart, the “Save Changes” button remains greyed out. At least as far as the restart time is concerned, it seems to take over the changes even without me using the Save Changes button (which strikes me as odd, but there it is). I’m using the latest version 1.0.17.
edit: Found that the issue apparently was that I set the Maximum Tick rate to a higher value than what the launcher accepted. Setting it back to a lower value allowed me to use the save settings button again.

As far as feature requests are concerned: If you’re looking into a way to have multiple restarts per day, would it also be possible to have weekly or even monthly restarts instead? I figure it could be done a bit like with google calendar event scheduling

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Another change I’d like to see is being able to edit the Mod List (and possibly the other greyed out values like name and passwords) even while the server is running and make those changes at the next restart. So if we know we want to add (or remove!) a certain mod but don’t want to restart the server for that right away, we could just change the values, save those changes and the launcher adds them to the ini the next time the server is shut down for whatever reason.

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Ok, so it’s a problem of the tool not indicating the the value is not valid.

I’ve been thinking about removing the “led lights” (except for port testing), and instead change the color of the message to red when the value is probably incorrect, still let people save anyway, but display a warning message about it that “some values are out of range so you may experience issues”.

This way people are protected, but if you want to try your luck, you can.

As far as feature requests are concerned: If you’re looking into a way to have multiple restarts per day, would it also be possible to have weekly or even monthly restarts instead? I figure it could be done a bit like with google calendar event scheduling
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Not a bad idea, but in any case I still need to be able to specify a reference time, can’t afford to restart at any random time.

Another change I’d like to see is being able to edit the Mod List (and possibly the other greyed out values like name and passwords) even while the server is running and make those changes at the next restart. So if we know we want to add (or remove!) a certain mod but don’t want to restart the server for that right away, we could just change the values, save those changes and the launcher adds them to the ini the next time the server is shut down for whatever reason.

I guess allowing for save at any time would also work with the change mentioned earlier, with a “the server is currently running, saving parameters may malfunction, yada yada, do you confirm yes/no”.

Regarding saving updated values on shut down, that’s probably doable, but I fear the current code structure is not super flexible. It was really originally a hacked around tool designed to help people have a server running, if I had said I would build a complete server manager I would probably not have been allowed to work on it… paying the price now :slight_smile:

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Oh the LEDs turned red alright, I just didn’t read it as “illegal input, can’t save.” but more like a “unsupported input, use at own risk.”. My mistake and doesn’t necessarily require fixing, even though you’re welcome to take it as feedback on the usability of the tool. :wink:

Oh yes, absolutely! I didn’t mean to imply that a selection of the day alone would be sufficient!

Certainly a possibility, though I’m not sure if it would work in the case of the mods or other values. I suppose that might also depend on when the launcher reads and writes the settings. I can already edit the inis manually and for the most part the launcher shows those edited values but I’m not sure if it (or the server) won’t undo the changes after the restart.

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I made a new version of the tool, no real major new features. but I had to refactor some code before I could reasonable work on the new features:
http://cdn.funcom.com/downloads/exiles/DedicatedServerLauncher1018.exe

  • The INI file loading and saving has been completely rewritten, normally your ini files should stay nice and clear, without duplicated entries
  • All buttons are now active at all time: The users are responsible in knowing about what they are doing, like not updating things at the same time as the game server
  • The number of connected players is now displayed in the status bar (changes from “Game server is running” to “1 player connected” when somebody starts playing)

So basically, I need some of you to download the tool and validate that it does work correctly with the new rewritten ini file reader/writer.

Regarding the number of players, it’s a quick hack: When the log file gets updated, I search for the latest “LogServerStats: Sending report: exiles-stats?” string, and I extract the value of the “players=” part of the string.

What that mean is that the information only gets updated every now and then.

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Alright, I tested the launcher and so far it seems to be working fine on my test server. I’ll be able to give more feedback about the players online feature or any issues that might crop up after all once I’ve introduced it to our live server.

One thing that I’d prefer to see changed back to the way it used to be is the “Save Changes” button. In prior versions it was greyed out if the settings in the launcher match those in the ini files (meaning there’s no reason to save any changes because there are none). With the button always being active, I don’t get that information anymore.

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Good thing I only commented out the code :slight_smile:

So basically, just to make sure:

  • You are fine with having all the edit fields always enabled (even when the server is running, or being patched)
  • The Save button should still be active even if some invalid (red) parameters are in the UI
  • The only case to have the Save button grayed out is when the internal UI matches the INI file content
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Yes, exactly. Though that’s just my opinion. Other users of the launcher might obviously disagree with me there. :slight_smile:

By the way, this is probably not something depending on the launcher but the server itself, but so far I’ve been able to verify that both a changed server password and a changed mod list will be used after the next server restart (so working as expected). I know that it’s possible to change the server password even while the server is running as an admin within the game (and the launcher will even detect this change and reflect that fact!).
Anyway that’s probably a limitation of the game itself and nothing that could or needs to be changed by the launcher.

I am not aware of any changes that can be made with the launcher while the server is running that would somehow “break” the game - be it right at that moment or after the next restart.

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I know that it’s possible to change the server password even while the server is running as an admin within the game (and the launcher will even detect this change and reflect that fact!).

The launcher checks the modification time of files, so everytime a log file or relevant ini file is modified, it gets reloaded and parsed (which will override whatever you had changed in the launcher that was not yet saved, and probably even when you changed that was saved because I don’t think the server actually reloads the ini file before resaving it)

Yes, exactly. Though that’s just my opinion. Other users of the launcher might obviously disagree with me there.

Which made me wonder about something: I know there are other similar tools (example: Dateranoth’s ConanExilesServerUtility, the Conan Admin Tool - CAT-, Server Thrall, … ), most of them having features that are not available in my own tool, so ultimately, why did you decide to use that one instead of one of the others?

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That’s an easy one to answer: I wasn’t aware of any of those aside from the last one. :smile:
That being said, I think there’s a definitive advantage in using the semi-official Funcom tool especially considering how responsive to our requests you’ve been all around.
I haven’t looked much into those alternatives yet, but one thing that’s probably true is that your tool offers a lot of user friendlyness without having to manually edit config files.

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@MidnightFC could you try this new version?
http://cdn.funcom.com/downloads/exiles/DedicatedServerLauncher1019.exe

Dedicated Server Launcher 1.0.19:

  • Fixed the behavior of the Save Changes button (it stays grayed out if nothing has changed)
  • Fixed a manifest problem that resulted in the UI cutting in two when font scaling was set to more than 100%
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Seems to work as advertised for me. :+1:

One minor suggestion that can probably easily be appended to the next version (doesn’t warrant an update on its own) is using the 24h format instead of the am/pm notation. Case in point I accidentally set the server to restart at 10:00pm instead of 10:00am a few days ago because the am/pm description is hardly visible. Alternatively I suppose you could also make the field a little wider. It looks like, whatever tool was used to build the UI, didn’t consider the space the little up/down arrows take up when it set the width. But overall I think the 24h notation would be more functional anyway. :slight_smile:

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It’s supposed to be in 24:00 format already, guess there’s some hidden “local” parameter I missed, you will never see me default to AM/PM format, even under duress :smiley:

For the record, which locals do you use? (time format, keyboard layout, time zone, …)

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It’s the US version of Windows 10 so it defaults to the US keyboard layout etc. I set the timezone to UTC to make it easier to convert things like restarts to all the timezones of our playerbase.

There’s also another weird bug that resets the restart time after it’s changed and saved. I haven’t been able to pinpoint exactly how and when it happens. I’ve had it happen to me a couple of times but since I’m occasionally a bit of a scatterbrain I blamed it on myself having done something wrong. :wink:
This time I decided to take screenshots to be sure and it actually happened again.

So I changed the restart time from 10:00 to 19:00 yesterday because a mod required an update and I like to utilize the automatic restart function for its warning messages. This screenshot was taken right after that restart:

Incidentally, posting the screenshot here I can say for certain that the 4 players connected part cannot be correct, because the server wasn’t accessible yet at that point.

After that I waited until the server had started up far enough for people to actually be able to connect to it (e.g. it shows up in the steam server list with 0 people online):

This screenshot is taken 12 minutes after the first one and 16 minutes after the restart. It’s plain to see that I changed the restart time back to 10:00 and saved that change (button greyed out).

This morning I checked the server again and lo and behold, it has indeed reverted back to the 19:00 restart time:

Changing it again made the changes actually stick.

It’s noteworthy that this has happened before version 1.0.19, so it’s not caused by the changes made in that version.

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May we have an option to select the primary type of the server in the next version please? PvP, PvE, PvE-C

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I’ve avoided so far to add any of the settings that could be changed in the in game interface, because these had historically a tendency to change often, also there is no clear limit of where we want to stop.

Basically the launcher is there to make it easier to get your server running, but after that you should just log on it, and then set up the parameters in the admin interface in the game.

The official servers settings are a mix and match of multiple parameters: There’s no “PvP” or “PvE” setting, what there is instead is a bunch of different parameters set to different values, and these have been regularly changed based on the community requests, adding these in the tool would be probably a permanent race for me to add this or change that.

Now, let me think out loud, maybe what would work is an easy way to apply community made sets of settings, like kind of templates that people could share, and that the tool would allow you to apply automatically, like for example a “Peaceful Role Play” template, with PVP disabled, faster XP, etc…

Then if somebody wants to make a “PvP” template, that would work as well, just select it and it would apply whatever parameter is necessary.

I’ve seen your message, did not have the time to look at the problem yet.

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Thanks for your reply, all makes sense, :slight_smile:

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No worries. It’s not urgent and I’m aware that - even though you’re now able to officially work on the tool - it’s still more of a side project. Look into it whenever it’s convenient and if there’s something I can help with, just let me know. :+1:

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@MidnightFC could you try this new version?
http://cdn.funcom.com/downloads/exiles/DedicatedServerLauncher1020.exe

Dedicated Server Launcher 1.0.20:

  • Forced the Restart Daily and Minimum uptime date control to use HH:mm:ss format to ensure 24 hour format is displayed (instead of AM/PM on US machines)

I’ve not looked at the weird time change, but as a first step, validating that the control correctly uses 24H format instead of 12H should eliminate some potential issues.

Btw, do you think 1.0.19 is worth putting as the new official version (right now it’s still 1.0.17)

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