Echo Griff. Thanks a bunch to everyone! Hamachi has it working great, though Pilot gunner over the net is a bit choppy for the client, but not that bad.

More gurus here than in the himalayas. Anyway, what works for me with my DLINK 614+ router (I'm on a wireless connection) is to take the IP of my gaming machine and stick it out into the DMZ while playing. Wife and kids can still surf on their puters, and I can fly...no issues. Note, if I don't put my puter out into the DMZ, then I always will get stuck at the 2-bar screen. Doesn't matter if I'm hosting, or connecting. I use Norton Internet Security, so still have the personal firewall running and that doesn't present any issues.

Klink sends.

It is funny to read how one person can get things to work while someone else can't. You mentioned Norton's personal firewall running and Beerdog has to completely disable it to even work with Hamachi. Anyway, just glad to know that Longbow 2 is now an option for MP. Now, if we could just survive a mission.........

Does using that Linksys router affect your ability to join up or only your ability to host? I'm almost ready to get online so I'm very curious about this issue.

The Linksys WRT54G router will not allow you to host missions even if your computer is set to the DMZ. Players will be able to connect and even finish up the mission planning process, but everyone's computer will freeze up when the host hits the fly button.

As for a client, no problems at all. I have flown with the router firewall and WindowsXP firewall on (as long as you allow network access from the XP firewall).

Oops, I guess I should also be more specific about Hamachi also. Hamachi eliminates all problems stated above with the WRT54G router. You can play as Host and Client without any problems and you don't have to mess with the firewalls.

This is so frustrating. It's silly that some firewalls work and others don't. There must be some sort of autodetection going on here by LB2 that we're not finding.

AV8R, do you have a list of supported Firewalls?
Maybe we can whip up a table and post that info.

So if you can host, we'd need the following.

OS and patch level.
Hardware Firewall (vendor, model, firmware
version). Also what ports you used and mode (DMZ, port NAT, etc).

Software Firewall (vendor, version).

PosG,

Ive long intended to put up a post thread here to have people list their configs that work. Thats kinda what I asked for in the first hardware success thread I did way back when I had success with the combo of hardware FW and DMZed Router.

Maybe the time has come to be explicit about the request.

PosG, I agree. We need the list of firewalls that are tested to "agree" with LB2 for the Multiplayer SOP.