Running a LAN game

Starting up server and joining it

First of all, to start a server, run "vegaserver".
When it starts up, it will give you an IP address and port number. If you don't already have it memorized, make sure you know what it is.
- If you have a firewall enabled, you will see an image like the one here. Be ready to deal with it for vegastrike as well.
Start Vega Strike (double-click vegastrike.exe)

Run ./vegaserver in one terminal window
- You will need to run "/sbin/ifconfig" to determine your IP address if it does not tell you.
Run ./vegastrike in another terminal window and enjoy.

On each computer, select "Multiplayer" and then "Independent Server".
- Type in the proper IP address, and put in a Callsign. Each player needs a different callsign.
- The password only matters if you set up a server password in vegaserver.config.
You can run a copy of vegastrike on the computer with a server too (in fact, you should.).
- If you do that, it works fine to leave the default of "localhost".
Click Join Game
- If all goes well, you will be brought to a ship selection dialog. It contains every ship available for purchase. I recommend a light/medium fighter of the ".stock" classification. There are a few that come with (really good) weapons equipped. Most will be empty. Really, I don't understand why some have weapons, but most including the milspec don't.
- NOTE: You may see "No ships available" or something of the like. That could be a result of having a duplicate callsign or a lot of things. Check the vegaserver console window for details.
Once you are in the game, hit "d" to dock to the planet (named "Market").

- Go to the weapons room to buy upgrades since your ship will start out with nothing. The 13500 starting credits will not cover much, but some armor, shields and basic weapons is a good idea.
  - NOTE: There is a bug where whenever someone buys something everyone's screen will close off the categories again.
  - NOTE: If you find something that fails to upgrade or that leaves you with 0 credits, this is a bug. Report your starting ship, the number of credits, and approximately other upgrade types you have also gotten before. If you have anything else, sell it if you can, and your credits should be refunded.
- As to changing starting credits, this involves editing the mission file. More about this later.
Launch from the planet. Don't attack people while they are docked at a planet, since it's mean and makes the other person have to rejoin.

Keep in mind that there are a lot of bugs if you engage in some of the weirder situations (ejecting, accepting missions or buying other ships). Such actions might end up in the client getting dropped from the game.
Turrets usually will not work. I have some ideas on how to fix these, but this is not high priority. This also means don't get a capship that only has turrets and no gun mounts.
You may end up at a main menu-ish screen with a message "Connection closed". This either means that the server was closed or else is due to a bug. It's generally easier to hit "Exit Game" and restart if you see that.