reduce/avoid long ruleset sharing download times

[gmkieran]

Another NooGM question - as I start up my portion of the extended campaign we're running, all of the players have to re-download the ruleset, because our host has changed. I have found several threads relating to distributing a cached version of the ruleset under the appropriate campaign name as a workaround for long download times.

Unfortunately, all of those seem to include starting a client session of FGII while running the host session, causing the cache file to be created on the host machine and then distributing that file. When I attempt to log into the host from the client session running on the same machine, I get an error saying there is a license conflict. Is there an assumption that I have FGII installed on multiple machines (assuming I *have* multiple machines) and am, therefore, logging in from a different PC than the one I'm running as the host? Or am I just doing something wrong and there really is a way to run both a host and a client on the same box?

Alternately, is there another workaround that's easier? I did see the discussion on .pak files as means of ruleset distribution, but it was over my head like a circus tent.

help?!
thanks!
gmkieran

[Tenian]

To log into your own machine as a client use "localhost" instead of the four word things.

[Astinus]

If you do like Tenian suggests, you should have no dramas running two instances on the same machine.

I'm not so sure about .pak files, but it is quite easy to transfer rulesets by sharing the campaign.dat file. Once you've connected a client to the host (on the same machine) in the FGII/Cache/*YourCampaign* folder, you'll see a file called campaign.dat of approx 10MB.

Just transfer that to your players. Have them go to FGII/Cache and then create a folder with the exact same name as yours (YourCampaign) and drop the campaign.dat in there.

Pretty simple, no download necessary on game night. I do it all the time. If you have any issues, feel free to PM and I can guide you through it.

[gmkieran]

thank you for the information! that certainly helped - at least, I got FGII to start both a host and a client session on my machine. Unfortunately, the .dat file produced is over 62mb, not "approx 10mb". I have a feeling this has to do with the issue I'm having that my system is downloading the entire contents of my Host tokens folder (there is nothing in my Shared folder except a thumbs.db file generated by Picasa). Any thoughts on why it might be doing that? Or does that issue belong in the Houses of Healing?

thanks, again!!! All the help and advice is MUCH appreciated!

[Astinus]

Hmm, 62MB. Not sure why that's happening. Bit beyond my pay grade but someone should come along with a suggestion. I've been running a campaign for a year, with a custom ruleset, and my campaign.dat is still at 10MB.

I could be wrong, but my guess is Host tokens wouldn't be loaded into cache. But Shared tokens would. Do you have a huge amount of large images/maps in your campaign?

[gmkieran]

I agree, the Host folder *shouldn't* be loading, but my players have told me it is. I thought, perhaps, FGII was somehow reading the image.db that Picasa created in the shared folder when I actually had things in there, but I deleted that and it's still 62 mb.

I don't have any maps or images in this campaign, actually - it's intended to be my base character repository, with all the maps residing in campaign modules. I do have 8 or 10 resource modules (PHB, PHB2, DM, DM2, MM, etc). If I remove those, because they should also be part of the exported campaign module (?), would that reduce the size?

Thanks for all your help and info!

[Griogre]

Generally large dat files mean large maps and lots of shared tokens. Bear in mind the dat file is also the cache file so it covers all things that the DM has *ever* shared with his players. Thus even if your base campaign is player charater only - if you have used modules with maps that you no longer have activated those maps are still in the cache. Long running campaigns where the DM uses large detailed maps can have dat files that are hundreds of megs.

[Astinus]

gmkieran, you said you took over an extended campaign. Did you copy the previous GM's campaign folder into your FGII Application Data folder, or did you create a brand new campaign folder? That might have some bearing on the size of the cache.

Regardless, a free service like YouSendIt (https://www.yousendit.com/)allows you to easily send files of up to 100MB, so you could always just go with what you have. 62MB is a reasonable sized upload, but you only have to do it once, rather once for each player in FGII.

[gmkieran]

Well, so far in this campaign I have accessed 3 medium-sized map images during a trial run session. I have never had any tokens in the Shared folder and only a dozen or so tokens in the exported .mod file I used for the trial run. I have noticed additional odd behavior in my Tokens folder, however. Last night I completely re-organized my Tokens folders through Explorer. Today, when I accessed FGII, the old Token bags were sill in place, along with the new ones! I tried /reload tokens and FG ignored me. Is there a way to clear the tokens and start over with fresh Host and Shared folders? If I take everything out of the Host folder and start FG, will it register no available tokens (allowing me to then put back my tokens in their new file structure and have them properly recognized)?

I will certainly consider YouSendIt as an option, but I'd like to figure out what (if anything) I'm doing wrong, so I can avoid these problems in the future.

As always, thanks for the info and input!

[gmkieran]

Just wanted to thank everyone for the words of advice and guidance! The issue has been resolved. It was an ID10T error - when I first started using FGII, I loaded my entire token catalog into the 4E_JPG ruleset Tokens folder, thinking I'd always want to have all my tokens available. This also explains the duplication of tokens when I then loaded the same catalog into my Host folder. Life looks MUCH better from this side of the problem!

[Astinus]

lol. Great to hear you resolved it.