What is ping and why can’t I reach servers?

[MassiveDynamic]

EDIT: If you are having this issue read the last 2 posts for all the info you need.




I finally talked my son-in-law into buying Factorio from the Factorio.com website (I HATE Steam).
The plan was to play multiplayer together and help him get started in the game. However whenever either of us set up a game, the other could not “reach” the other. The ping section said “calculating” then “can’t reach”.
After about an hour of fruitless research we decided to both join a public game that we coild reach and play on that third party world. Thank you to the host who graciously allowed us to do so. The poor guy’s base was surrounded by large biters and we tried our best to fight them back. Anywho, can anyone help us with this ping issue? How do we connect to each other?

[Koub]

[Koub] Moved to Technical Help.
Playing with your son-in-law, chances are that you don't live together. I also assume one of you tries to host the server on his computer. If I'm right, then he probably will have to do some port forwarding on his internet box so that the communication coming from the Internet on the port Factorio is communicating will be transmitted to the server. Search for "port forwarding", you'll find plenty of what you need for the setup, just on this subforum (but you can also google it).

Playing both on another's server, as all this only needs to be done on server side, makes it obviously transparent for you. And playing within the same local network also doesn't need such things, as it's only needed when trying to get things communicate from the Internet to you local network.

[MassiveDynamic]

Thank Koub.

But can I get an answer that is written as if to a 5 year old impoverished non tech savvy child?

Just because I own a computer does not mean I know how it works. (humor)

Seriously, I tried logging into my router but I can’t find any settings that vaguely resemble port forwarding or any of the other terms that show up when I search port forwarding.

[valneq]

Your router manufacturer might have decided that "port forwarding" is too technical a term, and just use different words that are supposed to be easier to understand for non-experts. The exact wording will depend on the manufacturer and router model.
You should be able to find out how to do that when asking a search engine for the model number of your router and the term "port forwarding".

Some additional information on the wiki might help you, too:
https://wiki.factorio.com/Multiplayer

[MassiveDynamic]

Ok, thanks, I’m getting closer. See pic.

What do I do for Server IPAddress and Configure originating IP?


EDIT: I think I got it figured out. I had to put my laptop IP in that spot. Now I have to wait for my son-in-law to get on for a test drive. If this works I will be done. Just in case someone else needs this info, I had to research my specific router online to find my port forwarding tab as it was not easily seen from the front page. It was behind the Settings, NAT tab.

[valneq]

I have not been doing any network stuff for a long time, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Other people might know this way better than me.

I would guess that "Server IP Address" is the local IP of the computer that acts as a Factorio server, so the computer that this incoming port is being forwarded to.

Keep in mind that when the other player wants to connect to your server via IP address, they should use the publicly visible IP address, not the local one that you add here.

On many routers, by default you will not always get the same IP when connecting your computer via DHCP, so you might want to reserve a fixed IP, and not use a dynamic one.

Furthermore, according to the Wiki, the protocol should be UDP and not TCP, since Factorio uses UDP exclusively.

Whether or not you need to "Configure Originating IP", I don't know. You might need to try either option.

[Koub]

Ah fine, you found the right page.

If I understand the settings page correctly :
- Service name, you can write "Factorio server" (it's plaintext, for you to remember what that rule is there for next time you come back)
- Start and end port should be identical and set to the port you want people from Internet to connect to you. You can choose whetever port you want, let's say 34200.
- Translation start and end port should be the ports the Factorio server will be listening on your computer : 34197.
- Server IP address should be your computer's IP address. Important note : be sure your computer is not getting random IP addresses, but gets a fixed address (if you have a DHCP setting, you'll do that there), else you'd have to change that value every time you want to host a Factorio multiplayer game
- protocol : UDP

Then, when your son-in-law wants to connect to your Factorio server, he should choose to "connect to address", and enter your public IP, the one you get here for example https://www.whatismyip.com/ (or you can google for what's my IP and choose from there) and the port we chose (34200) with the followind syntax : IP:34200.

Well I hope I got it right, I hate having to du such things, good thing I never multi.

[MassiveDynamic]

Thank you. So after several days of fiddling, and researching, I THINK I have it working. This video is a great help. I would call it Port Forwarding for Dummys. This guy walks you through the entire process, so you only need a little knowledge to follow it.


https://youtu.be/9goLYRuaaqY

[MassiveDynamic]

Still stuck. Koub?

B110C917-5AA8-45E4-B234-03A78D59E147.jpeg (101.17 KiB) Viewed 3911 times

[Koub]

Oh thanks, but I don't have issues with port forwarding : I'm familiar with the concept despite never having done any (I've been working in IT for 20 years, so I understand how it works and why this is necessary). Also I barely ever multi, so never needed to do port forwarding @home
I was just trying to help you play with your son-in-law ^^