Hey everybody!

As you know, Black Shark currently offers only basic server administration tools (manual kicking and mission loading). Some of you are looking forward to a full-fledged dedicated server option, and have already suggested certain features they would like to see. Eagle actually provided a quite powerful Lua based API, which you can use to implement more advanced administration features by yourself, given that you have some basic procedural programming skills in Lua. I have written a small mod which uses this API and allows you to run Black Shark as what I call a "pseudo-dedicated server". It is a purely serverside mod that enables a chat based interface and gives server hosts and players additional options to control the server. So far the mod offers the following main functions (most of which can be customized by the host):

Features included in v1
Server host functions
- automatic kicking for teamkills (human and AI)
- automatic kicking for too low score
- penalty time after kick
- automatic banning after too many kicks
- banning single IPs and whole IP ranges
- automatic mission restarting or rotating
- remote masterbanlist that can be downloaded from a webserver via http
- extended event logging including a chatlog
- message of the day and server rules

Subadmin functions
- appointing trusted players as subadmins (accounts are password-protected)
- subadmins can manually kick or ban players
- subadmins can manually load missions
- subadmins can (un-)lock the server

Player functions
- players can start votekicks
- players can start missionvotes to load a specific mission
- players can start missionpolls to let everybody vote for their favorite mission

You can download the mod files from here:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=40143

Finally I would like to thank guod and Chipwich for running the beta version on the SimHQ server and helping me test the mod. Your help is greatly appreciated!

My hope is that this mod encourages more people to host public Black Shark servers.

Acedy

Excellent work on this Acedy. The 104th is also using the mod on our black shark server.
Thank you again for all the hard work!

PoleCat Out

I'm not much of an online player, but I most certainly appreciate this addition to usefull mods that I've been seeing introduced. Thanks.

You are welcome fellas!

If anybody has questions, feedback or suggestions, feel free to post them here!

BTW, Doug told me that SimHQ want to use the mod on their server, so if you are playing on the server regularly it may be a good idea to read section 11 of the readme (you can download it from the link above), which explains the commands available for regular players. Basically these are (votes have to be enabled by the host):

/players
Displays a list of all players on the server and their corresponding IDs

/votekick:ID (example: /votekick:3)
Starts a votekick against the player with the specified ID

/missions
Displays a list of all missions available on the server and their corresponding IDs

/votemiz:ID (example: /votemiz:5)
Starts a missionvote for the mission with the specified ID

/mizpoll
Starts a missionpoll that lets all players vote for their favorite next mission.

/info
Shows a list of ServMan functionalities that are enabled on this server.

/help
Shows a list of all player commands that are enabled on this server.

/rules
Shows the list of server rules.

/resume
Lets players resume the current mission if it is paused.

/timeleft
Displays the remaining time until the current mission will be restarted automatically or the next mission will be loaded (if enabled).

To use a command you simply enter it into the chat console.

Version 2 has been released. Download and more info here:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=40143

Whew! When I saw "ServMan" in the thread title, I was afraid it was going to be a cookbook.