Proletariat Inc.

Spellbreak Community Edition

Spellbreak Community Edition is split into two apps: the client and the server.

The client includes all the graphics and menus you would expect from a game. Each
player will need to run their own copy of the client.

The server runs without any graphics, menus, or other obvious form of interactivity. It
was never intended to be given out to players (and apologies in advance for its
eccentricities).

To host a match, you need a server that is accessible to the players that you want to
join your match. The rest of this document details how to do that.

Table of Contents
● Clients and Servers
● Player Location Matters
○ Local Players
○ Internet Players
● Running the Server
○ Prerequisites
○ Choose a Game Mode and Run
● Additional Notes and Troubleshooting
Player Location Matters
In order for players to connect to a server, they need to know the server’s IP address
and Port number. Spellbreak defaults to using port 7777, but the IP address may be
different depending on where the player is connecting from:

● For players on the same local network, check out the Local Players section.
● For players connecting over the internet, check out the Internet Players
section.

Local Players

When you have players on the same local network as the server (e.g. in the same
home or office, both using the same internet connection), then finding the IP address
should be simple.

Microsoft recommends following these steps, which will result in something like the
example below (with the IP circled in yellow):

Alternatively, if you are comfortable with using the command prompt, you can open a
prompt and enter “ipconfig” to get the same information.

Once you have the IP, you combine it with the Spellbreak port (7777) with a colon, like
this:
 192.168.113.41:7777

Each player will need to enter this address/port combo into their client to join the
server.

If you have no internet players, then you can skip down to the section titled Starting a
Server.

Internet Players

Due to how most home and office networks are set up, players not on the same local
network may need a different IP address to connect to your Spellbreak server. To find
out if that is the case for your server, open a web browser and search for “what is my
ip?”. For example:

The circled text shows up on most internet search engines, although if it does not,
then try one of the suggested web pages, as there are many common and free pages
that perform the same task.
This IP address may be different from the local one obtained in the previous section. If
so, then this is your server’s public IP address.

● If your public and local IP addresses are the same, then you can skip on to the
section titled Starting a Server.
● If the IP addresses are different, then your server is behind a NAT Gateway, and
you will need to configure that gateway to accept connections on behalf of
your server. That is covered in the following NAT Gateways and Port
Forwarding section.

NAT Gateways and Port Forwarding

In most homes, the ability of one of your computers to host a server is blocked by a
piece of technology called a NAT Gateway. Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) only
give each subscriber a single IP address, and a NAT is what allows that single IP
address to be shared across many computers and devices.
A Spellbreak player on the internet needs the IP address and port of your server in
order to connect, but the only IP address that the internet can see is the one
controlled by your NAT. So the NAT will have to be configured to accept Spellbreak
connection requests, and pass them along to the computer that is running the
Spellbreak server.

Configuring a NAT in this way is called “port forwarding”. How one sets up port
forwarding can vary wildly with different devices and manufacturers, but the
following steps will attempt to give an overview that covers most scenarios:

1. Find the configuration page or app

Find the configuration page or app for your modem/router/wifi access point. This is
different for different devices, and if you got your device from your ISP, then contact
them.

● This is likely the same place you’d go to change your wifi password.
● It may be accessed via an app you have to install on your phone.
● It may be accessed as a web page, but with an address like “http://192.168.0.1”
or “http://10.0.0.1”.
Often the specific address is found by taking your local IP address and changing
the last number to a “1”, e.g. if your IP was “192.168.1.104”, then the
configuration page might be at “192.168.1.1”.

2. You may need a username and/or password

The configuration page/app may require you to log in. If you don’t have the required
user and/or password, then it may still be set to a default value. Try doing an internet
search for your device’s brand/model along with the words “default password”. If
nothing else works, you could also try contacting your ISP.
3. Find the Port Forwarding settings

Find the “port forward” settings. There may be nested menus with options like
“Firewall” and “NAT”, like this:

Or there may be a more generic “advanced settings” that lists a bunch of options, like
this:

Or it may be under a title that calls out apps and gaming, like this:
4. Add an entry to forward Spellbreak connection requests to your Spellbreak server

Once you find the right place, you’ll need to provide the following pieces of
information:

● Protocol: You will need UDP, but it is fine to choose an option that covers
multiple protocols, for example “Both”, “TCP/UDP”, “All”, etc.
● Device IP: set this to the server’s local IP address
○ This field may be called “Target IP”, “Redirect Target IP”, “Reserved IP
Address”, or something similar
● Port: 7777
○ It may ask for a range of ports, in which case you can try specifying the
first and last ports as both “7777”, or set the first to “7777” and the last
to “7778”.
○ It may ask for multiple different ports, e.g. an “internal” and “external”,
or “source” and “destination”. Both should be set to “7777”.

5. Test it out

Go on to the next section, where we run a server and try to connect!

Remember that local players will use the local IP, and will not go through the NAT to
connect, so if local players can connect, but internet players cannot, then it is most
likely a problem with the port forwarding.
Running the Server
You’ll need to download spellbreak-community-version-server-windows.zip, and
extract it into a folder of your choice.

Prerequisites

Before running Spellbreak for the first time, you may need to run the Unreal Engine 4
Prerequisites installer. The installer can be found inside a folder named “Prereqs”.
Both files are executables (they have the file extension “.exe”).

● For 64-bit versions of Windows, run “UE4PrereqSetup_x64”

If you aren’t sure which version of Windows you are running, follow this link for easy
instructions on how to find out.

You only need to install the prereqs once per machine, and the installer is the same
for both the client and the server, so if you’ve already done this for the client, you
don’t need to do it again for the server.

Choose a Game Mode and Run

Spellbreak servers are run via the batch files in the root folder. There is one for each
supported game mode, and a single server will only play a single match using that
game mode.
Each of the “Start a <mode> server” file will open a text window and a bunch of text
will start scrolling by:

It is normal for many of the lines to say “Warning”.

The first time you run a server, you will probably see a Windows Security Alert popup
like the one pictured below. You should check both check boxes and click “Allow
access”.
If you clicked “Cancel” or unchecked one or both boxes, then you might need to
manually unblock Spellbreak by following the steps outlined here.

At this point, give each player the IP:port combination determined in the previous
section, and they should be able to connect.
Additional Notes and Troubleshooting
● Players won’t be able to join the server until the server is done loading the
world, which can take up to a minute or two. Usually the server is ready for
connections a few seconds after the text has stopped scrolling.
● Make sure you don’t have multiple servers running at a time as they can fight
over port numbers. If you are using the included “Start a <mode> server” batch
files, then you should have a text window for each server. Closing that window
should shut down the corresponding server.
○ Another way to verify how many servers are running is to open the
Windows Task Manager, and switch to the Details tab, sort by Name, and
then look for “g3Server-Win64-Test.exe”. There should only be one of
these per server. You can right click on “g3Server-Win64-Test.exe” and
select “End Task” to stop it.
Note that if you see “g3-Win64-Test.exe”, that is the client.
● If you aren’t using the included batch files to run a server, then the server may
not give you any indication that it is running, apart from being listed in Task
Manager. To shut down such a server, you’ll need to use the “End Task” option
in Task Manager mentioned in the previous note.
● If a client sits on “connecting” for a long period of time, then either the server
isn’t ready yet (i.e. it is still loading the world), or the client is being blocked
from talking to the server at all. The problem may be port forwarding, or it may
be something else.
● If a client immediately gets a “could not connect to server” error, the match
may have already started, and so the client is being rejected. It may also be a
problem with port forwarding, or it may be that there are multiple servers
running at the same time on the same machine.