Pete

Cloudflare is probably to blame there. Usually it just has one loading screen and lets you in. I've cleared the cache to see if that helps, but if you're still seeing the same issue do you have any plugins in Chromium that you could try toggling off and see if that helps? Might need to try one at a time and open in an incognito window so it's not loading anything from the cache.

Can you try clearing browser cache etc and see if it works? Perhaps try a different browser to rule that out as well? It's working for others.

Hi there, is it any better now? It seems to be a bit of a bot magnet which can cause it to slow down but we have Cloudflare in front of the server trying to mitigate bot traffic.

All sorted - not sure how that happened but should be visible now ??‍♂️ It was literally the only forum with visbility hidden for the Rookie member group but works now I've ticked the right box ?

@LameDuck This is all fixed now so you should be good to go I have noticed that over the years some download sites we referenced like GamersHell are no longer operating so at some point we may want to redirect to alternate download locations for those/host them ourselves (if we still have the files) or remove them.

Yeah I think the last game I made time for was Battletech because I really love the universe and the old MechWarrior and Mech Commander games. I've logged 197.6 hours until December last year (most in the first 6 months it came out) and that got me through the campaign maybe 2.5 times, so not sure about taking on something longer. That said, this is a website I've just discovered that puts it in the realms of possibility: https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=53702 but maybe next year - I've definitely got too much on at the moment ?

Phoenix Point Complete Edition is 34% off @Thorondor you usually post an image but linking to the video was easier ? I have a question - since I only saw the early videos and interviews for this game - should I get it? I'll likely not have time to play it any time soon and reviews seem positive, but a endorsement from you guys holds more weight than any external reviews ?. Also if this question should be split off into a topic in the relevant forum let me know - not sure what the protocol is in this topic ?

You may have noticed a bewildering array of changes in the forum software - some you'll like, others will take some getting used to. The forums finally received a software update after many years of me wanting to but never finding the time. It's a necessary upgrade as running such an old version is not sustainable in the long term. There is still work to be done on the forum theme in several places but the aim is to keep it simpler to update in future to keep on top of the updates. The main site software has also been updated @Zombie and anyone else who edits pages, give me a nudge before doing so as I'd like to do some tests on some non-live pages with you to make sure there are no shenanigans with the editor.

I'm happy for any subscriptions (they can be one-off, so like a donation - just set the subscription to 1 month and name your amount) and thanks to anyone in advance who throws some money into the pot but at the moment the system for that is for SC as the UFOPaedia side of things seems covered (for now) and I'd also have to work out with the host for UFOPaedia how we'd transfer that money properly between us if it was more of a joint subscription thing in future. Donations - you would really have to be set up as a charity or a not-for-profit organisation to be doing it legally and I prefer legal. There's paperwork and bank accounts to set up a not-for-profit organisation even if we wanted to take donations with no tax so it's almost as much effort as setting up another company, but if we do it as subscriptions and the tax element is included during payment then it actually counters some of the tax I get charged by Amazon for the hosting (In the UK we get billed from Amazon in Ireland so tax applies) so it all works out in the end. I think actually since you're in the USA you wouldn't see tax when subscribing - the system I'm looking at says "hey, you're paying the UK and you're in [insert country here], here's the applicable tax we'll add to that" which is zero in your case (or should be). I'm not in any hurry to set that up as we need to do some software upgrades here behind the scenes that take priority in June - when I have the spare time to do it. SC's not going anywhere so don't worry about that. Compared to UFOPaedia it's relatively low system requirements

Gee thanks, want a ban? I'll assume it was meant in jest Hobbes has already said it's sorted so I don't understand your replies really. Leaving it at the current host, who seems to have secured funding, is the simplest solution. To move it to another host is a lot of work to get it set up properly how I'd do it, and I don't have time right now for that anyway so I'm happy with the current resolution. If the topic comes up again we can look at it again but as far as I'm concerned it's all fine until Hobbes tells me otherwise. I am in the process of investigating subscriptions for StrategyCore but, running a business, I need it to take into account taxes so I don't get into trouble - once that's ready we have an acceptable method of funding both sites, though the next step is how to pass funds along to the guy looking after the UFOPaedia hosting. It may just be funding for SC to begin with. Subscription levels rather than donations is simplest for me.

Oh wow that's good to hear! I'm setting up another Amazon AWS (hosting) instance for StrategyCore and a few older sites - SC does still get quite a lot of traffic even now so if this situation comes up again in a couple of years I'll have a home set up for it that's scalable - my concern was I needed to keep this stuff separate from business websites as a busy day on the wiki has been known to make servers wobble a bit But yes - great that it's sorted for now - thanks for letting me know.

Thanks Hobbes. I checked out some of the latest updates for the MediaWiki software and seems as though it could take advantage of separate read/write databases that I have set up on Amazon for other projects which might help with the load. Can you let me know if it's still been slow or has it been okay on NineX's server these past years? Also, is there any appetite in the community to help cover costs? I could set up a subscription on Gumtree easily enough, but I can't absorb the costs myself and it would need to be on its own AWS instance (probably along with StrategyCore) so as not to impact any other sites I manage. Historically it's not been overly fun paying for servers and sorting out issues for free with less and less free time (though I did have help from Thorondor and Olav) - sorry if that sounds a bit mercenary of me but otherwise it just all sits as low priority after paid work and I'd rather support it properly if I was to take it on again.

Hobbes - could you let me know if you know what the costs are these days? The biggest problem I've found with MediaWiki (the software) in the past is that it's unnecessarily resource hungry and seems to play best on a dedicated server. This puts the cost at the right spec machine between $60-$120 per month, but usually at the higher end. Not sure how this tallies with NineX's costs though.

Cheers! Well I started again on Superhuman. Lost my soldiers and Skyranger in the first fortnight and there's no easy way to come back from that when you've spent all your money already, so did a restart (I don't think that was cheating?). Now in March, back to where I was on my Easy game - nearly researched Avenger, got Power Armour at least for my guys and gals, just about got Heavy Plasma, stumbled across Alien Base 1 so I can now do some harvesting of my own I did have to withdraw from a Terror Mission in the first month as my soldiers weren't equipped for Cyberdiscs, but the game fortunately threw me a Floater-only terror mission in Feb which was a lot easier (though all civvies died and one by my hand so scraped a Poor rating there). I expanded the base so fast I'm in a financial deficit so have been balancing building useful items with medikit sales to keep in the black - can't remember what financial woes trigger losing the game so I sacked a few spare soldiers and a second Skyranger that was mostly ornamental in its hangar - hopefully that will help. All good fun but remembering how much the aliens cheat is also part of the fun (night vision, knowing where you are after X turns etc).