Pathfinder 1.6.1

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Now supports the 1.2 patch (Expansion Pack)!

Pathfinder is a little utility for Star Trek Voyager Elite Force, that queries all internet holomatch servers for game status such as connected players, current map and so on. You can simply search for friends, which are currently connecte to any holomatch server. My intention was to write a very simple and intuitive tool without the extreme overhead of gamespy or similar progs. Compared with Gamespy there are some other advantages:

• uses much less memory, if you join a game, it will close itself and therefore use no memory at all while gaming
• the server ping is the time from your computer to the selected game server, not the time from the gamespy master to game server
• colored names are displayed correctly (control keys will be stripped)

 Pathfinder is free software, so you can use and distribute it without any fee :-).

• Screenshots
• Download latest version (111KB)

Installation

Extract pathfinder.exe from pathfinder.zip to whereever you want and place a link on your desktop (right drag&drop). Pathfinder needs the MFC runtime  which must be installed on your system. Most probably some other application has already installed these dlls (mfc42.dll, msvcrt.dll, msvcp60.dll). If not, you will get some error messages complaining that some functions or dlls are missing. You can get the newest MFC dlls from windowsupdate.microsoft.com.(vcredist.exe) or many other places on the web (Geheimtip: www.codestone.co.uk). 

Using Pathfinder

Connect to the internet and start Pathfinder. Using Pathfinder is simple: Click the 'Query Servers' button to query all running holomatch servers. The tables are now filled with the gathered information. The tabs 'Player list' and 'Server list' are switching between two different views. The first shows a flat list of all players currently logged in. The second shows a list of all running servers. If you select one of the server entries, the dependent table to the right shows all players logged on to the selected server. The 'Update' button requeries servers, but unlike the 'Query Servers' button it does not contact the master server at ravensoft. It simply queries the last known list of servers again. In the 'Speed' box you can select your internet connection speed. It determins the maximum number of parallel queries. The 'Include empty servers' checkbox does exactly what it says: it queries every server even if the master server says that there are no connected players.

No matter which view is active, you can search for a friend by entering his name in the field above the 'Search' button. If the player is found,  the corresponding table entries will be marked. The search is case insensitive. Every entered name will be stored to the registry, so the next time you can select it by entering the first few chars or opening the list. You can delete a name from the list by selecting it and pressing the 'Del' button.

If you have found a friend or server, simply click the 'Join' button. The game will start and directly connect to the selected server. The first time you will be asked for the location of the Start Trek Voyager Elite Force Holomatch Executable (stvoyHM.exe). 

You can customize the tables (sorting, width, coloumn order) by clicking in the header section, drag&drop headers, or using the right mouse button. All changes are saved in the registry (HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Pathfinder), so the next time you start Pathfinder it will look like the time you last closed it. When a table is sorted by one single column, you can search this column by simply typing.

Because Elite Force clients and servers have to be the same version, you can select the version of your installation. Currently 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2 are supported. 1.0 is the original game and 1.1 is the first patch released. The Expansion Pack works with 1.2. Sometimes the master server (master.stef1.ravensoft.com) does not respond. Don't worry, wait a few seconds and try again. If you still get an error, you will be probably behind a firewall, which blocks the choosen UDP port. If not, Pathfinder will query the last known servers. (The last known servers are saved to v10.dat or v11.dat every time the master responds. You can edit the file manually, if you like.)

Copyright

Pathfinder is © 2000 by Christian Rodemeyer. Pathfinder is freeware, which means, that you can use and distribute it without any charges. If you like it, praise my name and send me an e-mail ;-). Want to know how Pathfinder works? The source is available too. Because it uses some non free libraries, you will probably not be able to compile it, though. But it is sufficient to understand the essential parts.

The latest version of pathfinder will always be on my homepage.  

Expression of thanks

Many thanks to Steve Jankowski (author of qstat) and Kris Sum (kquery). Althoug I couldn't figure out how to use their programs for STVOYHM ;-) their source and documentation helped me very much. Especially usefull was the list of game query codes from Kris Sum.

Thank you very much!

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