Friday Facts #330 - Main menu and File Share Shenanigans

[stribika]

Good on you for setting up a proper file server. I avoid these blinky boxes like the plague. VPN servers, IDS-es, file servers, all this garbage. If I didn't install the OS, it's not going on my network.

Btw hardware RAID can also eat your data, be careful with these things. They use unknown formats because why not, and when they die, you might not be able to buy a replacement anymore.

[Dae]

deer devs,
i work with nas in my job;

2 option are usefull. synology
and FreeNas

synology have a very good hotline, product are really strong and user friendly.
Freenas are more cheap, and better if you like "make by hand" =)

[Molay]

Minor point: I'd deem map editor one of the least used aspects. I'd certainly put it below mods. Though it really doesn't matter much. Sensible changes overall. The current menu is quite unwieldy.

[bobucles]

I think it'd be fine if the "continue" button changed to a "reconnect" button if multiplayer was the last game played. For bonus points, the button can have a popup showing exactly what it thinks "continue/reconnect" thinks it's supposed to do. So if it's trying to reload a game it shows the game info, and if it's trying to reconnect it shows the server info (including IRL time since last connection). Pic related.

[plepper1]

I like the idea of the Continue button. I also like the suggestion of having continue single player be a separate button from continue multiplayer (continue vs rejoin).

95% of my playtime is a single player game. I only occasionally join multiplayer games, but by the time I'm again in the mood for a multiplayer game, that previous server rarely still exists.

Likely not the normal style of play, but my $0.02.

[mrudat]

It sounds like you want HA (high availability) for your file server, not just RAID. I assume all of the NAS vendors support HA, Synology does at least.

Do you have a UPS for the NAS? It could be dirty power, which the NAS isn't designed for because it assumes it will be hooked up to a UPS, while PC power supplies can't make that assumption.

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I think setting the main menu background to the screenshot of the save you would continue makes sense.

[5thHorseman]

It's no skin off my nose as I never play multiplayer, but it'd really suck if I did about 50/50 on an every-other schedule and therefore had the continue button be wrong almost all the time.

[Illiou]

While you're at changing the menu, maybe you could also have a look at adding time and date to the save file display?
(As described in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=63426)

[PaQ666]

I've been using Netgear NASes for years, newer broke. Probably are not better or worse than others. One good point though: RAID data is accessible from Linux PC if necessary.

[MEOWMI]

While you're at it, it would be a really nice idea to be able to sort saves by date!

And if you feel inclined, maybe a list of the last servers you played on?

[RoseSolane]

While you're at it, it would be a really nice idea to be able to sort saves by date!

While a "Continue" button would work for me in most cases the option to sort saves by date would be really nice.

[OvermindDL1]

ZFS is fantastic!

As someone working a few years with T5 servers with ZFS I have to disagree. It was OK unless more than 50% disk usage, otherwise it was getting painfully slow. Now we switched to x86 with a different FS and evweything works fine even at 99% of used space. I don't even know which FS it is - I support software not OS and from my perspective it just works. Which wasn't the case with ZFS.

T5's run Oracle's ZFS, which is not the ZFS linux runs first of all.
Second, I haven't heard of SPARC's having issues with even Oracle ZFS's, and certainly not at an over 50% disk usage unless a drive was failing. Plus what do you mean by painfully slow, ZFS does a *lot* in RAM, was the RAM exhausted?

Plus, I'm curious what filesystem you are using now?

[Squelch]

I haven't read through all the replies yet, but I had something cross my mind when I read the FFF this morning. In regards to the Continue button, will it recognize if the current active mods match the last save? The reason I ask is... What happens when you play a solo save, then go onto a server with a different set of mods, then decide to go back to the solo save via the Continue? Will it prompt a mod sync much like you get when joining a server if the mods don't match? I didn't see anything mentioned in the FFF about this happening, so I had to ask when it popped into my thoughts.

With 0.18 now live, your fears have been realised. Continue does not check mod versions, so continuing a game with 0.17 mods, you'll be met with a wall of migrations. This situation will be exacerbated by the requirement for explicit major factorio versions and the inevitable slow update of mods therefore rendering any modded game unplayable in 0.18 for a while. (assuming the mods add content)

[mzimmer42]

Hi, please consider the "opposite" of "Continue": When you are in a game and go to the menu, I would love to have a single button (including the current save name) that saves the game and exists to the main menu (maybe even closes the game <- maybe make this toggle-able in the settings). Best

[Honktown]

Oh, no you posted about ZFS.

I got to do our FreeNAS server with a 16TB+2 ZFS2. Automatic rsnapshot for a few of our computers. There were something like nine scripts needed to write to get each computer all set-up in one pass, including one in which I manually edit'd sudo to set up the backup user, from a different computer. I miss those days.