There is one thing in EF that is a little ambivalent: EF can download maps and mods from Internet or LAN servers (if the servers are configured to allow this). On the one hand, this has the advantage that you don't have to search somewhere for a long time and download the maps manually and move them to the correct directory. EF takes care of this. The downside, however, is that you can get all sorts of things put into your installation in this way. Among other things also files which are not allowed on other servers because of sv_pure = 1 (which keeps you locked out there). So if you want to play it safe, you have to set the parameter cl_allowDownload to 0 in your config. However, this means that on servers that use maps, models or mods that you don't have, you immediately drop off when connecting. This may even happen without a corresponding error message (see also the section Problems with Map Downloads). If in doubt, it makes sense to check the logs to see where the problem lies.

Usually custom maps, mods and models (i.e. everything that is not included with EF by default) are provided by the server. Whether they are downloadable or not depends primarily on the server setting and the client setting. On the server sv_allowDownload must be set to 1 (or higher), on the client cl_allowDownload as well. Otherwise the client downloads nothing, or gets nothing from the server. But this ingame-download is quite slow by default. You can change it with variables like cl_chunksperframe xx on the client side, but it never gets really fast. Therefore, the ioQuake-based binaries for EF offer the possibility to redirect map downloads to other HTTP(s)/FTP servers, which then also allow download rates as usual from a web server.

To do this, sv_dlURL must be set on the server side (as well as sv_allowDownload "1" of course), e.g. sv_dlURL "http://your.website/folder". Then the download will be redirected to the corresponding directory. On the web server, of course, the required files should also be found in the corresponding folder and should be accessible and the same files. Correspondingly, to stay with the example sv_dlURL "http://your.website/folder", it means, for example, that the files must be in the folder folder/baseEF (upper and lower case is important!). So, as if the files are in the local game directory, with their corresponding parent folders baseEF or pinball. Otherwise the client won't find the files and the connection will simply be terminated without a sound. Also important: In earlier versions the cURL download only worked if the server was not called via https, but with http. So if the cURL download fail with a version 1.39 of Lilium Voyager or older variations like ioEF, please use HTTP only or upgrade to a newer version of ioQuake derived EF. In any case, the original version 1.2 cannot download via cURL Maps, so only the slow ingame download remains.

sv_allowDownload allows multiple options:

• sv_allowDownload 0: Don't allow any downloads
• sv_allowDownload 1: Allow downloads
• sv_allowDownload 4: Disable UDP downloads
• sv_allowDownload 8: Do not ask the client to disconnect when using HTTP/FTP downloads.

If you are a server operator, worried that others will make use of your own repository, you can instruct the web server to only allow downloads from your own EF server and teach EF to report to the web server: HTTP_REFERER "ioQ3://{SERVER_IP}:{SERVER_PORT}" on the EF server. Apache's mod_rewrite can now allow exclusive access to the EF server based on the HTTP_REFERER. In this way, others cannot use the upload.

The maximum bandwidth for UDP downloads can be set using sv_dlRate. However, the highest achievable rate is still 1 MByte/s per client. cURL downloads can still be faster.

Apparently there are certain difficulties when you take the server and a client from Thilo or Lilium Voyager. If files are missing on the client but map downloads are not allowed (default value, if nothing else is set in the config), you will suddenly end up in the main menu. The error message of the missing *.bsp file known from version 1.2 does not appear. If you need the map urgently, you should set the parameter cl_allowDownload to 1 in the config.

In both cases you can start Eliteforce from the console to narrow down the error. Additional information will be displayed there. In the jumble of messages you will normally also find the message that a certain map or other file (e.g. player model) was not found.

A special combination with ioEF or Lilium Voyager can make it impossible to download maps, although both client and server allow it: If the server has set sv_pure = 1, and the client is missing currently needed files, but it also has other files that the server does not know, nothing will be downloaded. You are kicked out of the game as described above, allegedly because a file is missing, but it is not downloaded. This can only be solved by either setting sv_pure to 0 on the server, or by the client moving the additional files to another folder.

Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force