Online Play and Community

Community
You can find other SkyFighters pilots in the following places: If you're aware of any other places/methods SkyFighters players are using to communicate, please add them here. In the past there were a number of other forums/chat rooms, including donsgames.com and some IRC channels, but those have long since either ceased to exist or be used.
 * Facebook: There's a "Skyfighters pilots" private group.  Search based on the group name, then send a join request.  You should hear back in a day or two.
 * The SkyFighters Hangar: This web site (http://skyfightershangar.com) includes a chat room where online pilots meet to arrange games.  It also contains forums.  Note: while still used, this site has been experiencing some problems. Accounts for the chat room seem to have been deleted at some point in 2014, requiring all users to re-register.  The forum is still accessible for reading, but does not seem to be allowing new posts.  Also, the wiki hosted on this site appears to be gone.

Online Play
Important: Since the donsgames.com web site ceased operation it's very important to check the "Don't check for network games" box in the "Preferences" menu for SkyFighters. Failure to do so will likely result in the game hanging when attempting to join a network game. Similarly, when hosting, make sure to uncheck the "List game publicly" box in the "Start Network Game" dialog.

Online play requires the following:
 * A host who selects the mission/scenario to be played, hosts the game, and allows joiners.
 * Joining players who have the mission/scenario file chosen by the host and send a request to join to the hosts IP address.

Hosting
Before attempting to host a game, the host must attend to their network's settings. The host must be able to receive join requests coming in from outside their local network. In most cases, the computer serving as host will not be connected to the Internet directly but rather through a router, which allows multiple devices to share the same external IP address. Things unavoidably get a bit technical ahead, so if you're uncomfortable messing with network settings then hosting probably isn't for you.

By default, SkyFighters receives traffic on port 12301 (this can be changed when hosting a game). The type of traffic is "UDP". Both the router and your Mac must be configured to allow this traffic.

Router configuration:

 * The router must know which device to forward incoming traffic to
 * The router may act as a firewall, and must be explicitly told to allow the desired incoming traffic
 * In order to host in such a setup, something called "port forwarding" must be configured on the router. As each router manufacturer is different, there isn't a single set of instructions that will work for all of them.  The following web page gives a general description of port forwarding and how to set it up: http://www.wikihow.com/Set-Up-Port-Forwarding-on-a-Router

Be aware port forwarding requires your computer to have a predictable IP address on your local network. To guarantee this, you should set up a "reserved" local IP address for the computer on your router, then configure the router to forward incoming SkyFighters traffic to that address.

Note:  While it might seem easier to just allow all incoming traffic, doing so is a huge security risk. It's much better to spend the time to figure out how to allow just the traffic necessary for SkyFighters.

Host Mac configuration:
The Mac's firewall, which is enabled by default, must be configured to allow SkyFighters to receive incoming traffic. To do this go into System Preferences, select Security & Privacy, and then the Firewall tab. Click the "Firewall Options..." button, then the "+" button, and in the resulting dialog window navigate to and select the SkyFighters application.

Joining
Unlike hosting, no special network configuration should be necessary for a Mac joining an online game hosted by someone else.