Hi,Just found and started playing FlightGear a week or so ago, and love it! Kudos to those responsible for the game and all the objects, aircraft, and scenery! I hooked a couple of friends and my son up with FlightGear, too, and we have been having a blast with it. But I had a question...Is there a way I can host my own local FG server that my son and buddies can join instead of the pigeond.net one? The reason I am asking is that, while we can see each others' planes on the pigeond.net server, the redraw rate or data transmission rate or something makes each others' planes look really jerky, and the lag seems to be a pretty significant negative factor, somewhat limiting our enjoyment of flying around together.If one of us could host a server in our area that we could all connect to, since we all have high-speed cable internet, I would think this jerkiness would be much less and our planes would look smoother in the game, right? And, heck, if it is possible to host my own server, I wouldnt even mind hosting at least a part-time server other FG players in the US could join. I have hosted some first person shooter and simracing games online for up to 16 people on my current PC, and our cable speeds have even been upgraded since then, so I would think I could host 10 or so in FG with no problem whatsoever.Just wondering. If this is possible, I would appreciate instructions on what exactly to enter in the network option area of the game to host it, and what people would have to enter in their network boxes to join my server. Thanks!Clayton from Ohio, USA

>Is there a way I can host my own local FG server that my son>and buddies can join instead of the pigeond.net one?Yes, FlightGear itself can in fact not only serve as a multiplayer client but also as multiplayer server, where one of the FlightGear instances also serves as the server for other machines. You may get more information by checking out the help: fgfs --help --verbose or by checking the multiplayer help file under $FG_ROOT/Docs/README.multiplayer (which is also available from CVS).This file also contains various examples concerning how to set up your machines for multiplayer configurations. The file itself is a plain text ASCII file, so you should be able to use any text editor to view it.If you do check out said file, you'll also notice a reference to http://www.o-schroeder.de/fg_server - the webpage of the current maintainer of the multiplayer code in FlightGear, who also factored out a standalone server from the FlightGear code, which can be run in dedicated mode.>The reason I am asking is that, while we can see each others'>planes on the pigeond.net server, the redraw rate or data>transmission rate or something makes each others' planes look>really jerky, and the lag seems to be a pretty significant>negative factor, somewhat limiting our enjoyment of flying>around together.While this does not necessarily have to be the case, this may indeed be related to transmission times.>If one of us could host a server in our area that we could all>connect to, since we all have high-speed cable internet, I>would think this jerkiness would be much less and our planes>would look smoother in the game, right? And, heck, if it is>possible to host my own server, I wouldnt even mind hosting at>least a part-time server other FG players in the US could>join. I have hosted some first person shooter and simracing>games online for up to 16 people on my current PC, and our>cable speeds have even been upgraded since then, so I would>think I could host 10 or so in FG with no problem whatsoever.In that case, you may really find it most feasible to try using the server code from http://www.o-schroeder.de/fg_server as this server can run without requiring FlightGear itself.>Just wondering. If this is possible, I would appreciate>instructions on what exactly to enter in the network option>area of the game to host it, and what people would have to>enter in their network boxes to join my server. Thanks!Yes, this is indeed possible-the specifics may however heavily depend on your setup (i.e. router, firewalls etc.) so you will really want to check out the file $FG_ROOT/Docs/README.multiplayer and the additional references mentioned in there.Apart from that you need to realize that the multiplayer code in FlightGear is still under active development and currently also subject to a redesign effort in some crucial areas. Thus, some things may not yet work as expected or not even work altogether.