Sometimes people can't join my game

[BeTe]

Sometimes... Idk for A28, but in older releases it sometimes worked when I restart/re-login/re-host.  I see there's no "STUN" option anymore, too?

Idk how Starcraft 1 / Bnet and ShieldBattery works perfectly and not 0AD. 

Whenever I host, someone types "bete i can't join"...

Idk how many people have this issues but this is priority #2 (lag/game performance when higher population is reached - is priority #1). 
I'll just close 0AD and play other RTS now.

Edited Monday at 21:51 by BeTe

[AlexHerbert]

Last time that happened to me it was a very little detail in my router config after my internet provider made some work in the area

Edited yesterday at 00:15 by AlexHerbert
Language reasons

[Vantha]

On 23/03/2026 at 2:49 PM, BeTe said:

I see there's no "STUN" option anymore, too?

STUN is now always enabled.

 

You can try enabling UPnP on your router or manually configuring a port forwarding. There are a bunch of guides on the internet about how to do so, how exactly depends on the model of your router. There's also a section in the FAQ about it: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/wiki/FAQ#how-to-do-port-forwarding

[BeTe]

20 hours ago, Vantha said:

STUN is now always enabled.

 

You can try enabling UPnP on your router or manually configuring a port forwarding. There are a bunch of guides on the internet about how to do so, how exactly depends on the model of your router. There's also a section in the FAQ about it: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/wiki/FAQ#how-to-do-port-forwarding

Thanks man, I know for that  - did it long ago but never worked consistently. 

 

But I don't think players should be expected to bother with router configuration. Can't this be solved by default? How Starcraft 1 works for me?

[guerringuerrin]

@BeTe 

The main difference is that StarCraft relies on Battle.net servers to help players connect and, if needed, even relay the connection, so you usually don’t have to configure anything yourself. In contrast, 0ad uses direct peer to peer connections between players, which means it depends much more on each person’s network setup, router, and ISP. That’s why StarCraft tends to “just work,” while 0ad can require extra configuration in some cases.

Now, one might think “why not just build something similar and add a server to handle this”
It sounds simple, but in practice it’s quite costly, both in terms of development time to implement it properly and the ongoing resources needed to keep it running reliably over time.

[BeTe]

58 minutes ago, guerringuerrin said:

@BeTe 

The main difference is that StarCraft relies on Battle.net servers to help players connect and, if needed, even relay the connection, so you usually don’t have to configure anything yourself. In contrast, 0ad uses direct peer to peer connections between players, which means it depends much more on each person’s network setup, router, and ISP. That’s why StarCraft tends to “just work,” while 0ad can require extra configuration in some cases.

Now, one might think “why not just build something similar and add a server to handle this”
It sounds simple, but in practice it’s quite costly, both in terms of development time to implement it properly and the ongoing resources needed to keep it running reliably over time.

what's cost? How OpenRA has tens of servers (they don't do peer-to-peer but every game goes via server afaik)?

I mean we don't have thousands of players, these days processing power shouldn't be expensive, is it?

And isn't this main priority? If guys already invested thousands of hours in developing this great game, shouldn't it be finished to work properly? God knows how many players are annoyed by this...

I mean, IK it's open source but...  there must be a way

[BeTe]

P.S.

i wanted to try new release and play Rated to update my MMR a bit, but this really bothered me I kinda lost will to find hack to play. Also lag/performance... Really essential things imo.

Edited 2 hours ago by BeTe

[guerringuerrin]

50 minutes ago, BeTe said:

what's cost? How OpenRA has tens of servers (they don't do peer-to-peer but every game goes via server afaik)?

I don’t mean to suggest that your observations aren’t a valid concern, I’ve also experienced connectivity issues after switching ISPs, and I’ve felt some frustration. I’m not the right person to give a definitive answer. However, my limited understanding of the topic leads me to think that moving from a P2P system to a server-based one is not as trivial as it might seem. I hope I'm wrong  about this 

Edited 1 hour ago by guerringuerrin

[Arup]

after the ai bubble bursts,hopefully the prices come down enough for crowdfunded people like WFG to get smth like it

[Vantha]

3 hours ago, BeTe said:

Thanks man, I know for that  - did it long ago but never worked consistently. 

 

But I don't think players should be expected to bother with router configuration. Can't this be solved by default?

Using a VPN could also solve it for you.

 

The two possible solutions would be

- dedicated servers: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/3556

- support for IPv6: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/4301

both of which, yeah, aren't trivial to implement.

[Seleucids]

30 minutes ago, Arup said:

ai bubble

There is no bubble. It is what it is. Get used to LLMs