ProTanki protocol

[WolverinDEV]

Hey @Assasans,
I'm not sure if you're still interested in this project or if you have moved on.
Nevertheless you wrote that you have a quite some trouble with the protocol after the protocol update.

I've attached you a dump of all packet ids, their fields as well as the model ids they belong to.
Additionally I added my own list of human friendly names for easy understanding (please note that this list is not complete as I mainly created it for my own purposes).

If you're interested I can share more details about the protocol so you can easily implement the new one.
Except for the encoding (and a few adjustments here and there) I haven't encountered any big changes.

pt-encryption-context.as.txt
human-packet-names.txt
pt-scpacker-packets.txt

Regards
Markus

[WolverinDEV]

BTW a fully working protocol implementation:
https://github.com/WolverinDEV/protanki-protocol-rs

[Assasans]

Hello, I glanced over packets and am interested in further development.
I'd like to rewrite the server in Rust because I don't have enough computational resources for JVM-targeted development right now.

I also saw DaniloPalmeira/protanki-server, which works with new protocol.

Thank you for creating definitions for all packets.

[WolverinDEV]

Well running rust analyser is most likely way heavier then spinning up a JVM 🤕
But I do understand your reasoning.

It's interesting how many starting approaches exist writing the server from scratch :D
I'll probably keep the protocol files updated on the protanki-protocol-rs repo and complete documenting the yet unknown packet ids.

BTW do you know a little bit about the history of pro tanki and so on?
I'm pretty new to all this kind of stuff. (PS: I'm also in your DC)

[Assasans]

I know only the fact that ProTanki are made by the same developers as GTanks, which were closed 1 year after release of ProTanki.

I made a chart of Tanks projects earlier (grayed out - closed / unmaintained):

[WolverinDEV]

Ahh that's a pretty need chart. Are you sure that GTanks is a reimplementation of the original TO or just their source updated?
As well why did GTanks close?

[prodkleins]

As well why did GTanks close?

Their online was at very low spots, with often times where there was 0 players online.
P.S they didn't care anymore because of their success with ProTanki.

[WolverinDEV]

Ahh reasonable. So ProTanki is just the more popular version of GTanks, right?

[prodkleins]

The newer version of tanki, people are not as intrigued with very old tanki nowadays.

[WolverinDEV]

Can you estimate how popular ProTanki is?

[prodkleins]

3000 active players at a time*

[WolverinDEV]

Hui that's ~50 % of the regular Tanks player base

[Assasans]

I have 2018 version of GTanks' client & server and it uses same protocol as ProTanki before update (why would they use hacky text protocol if original TO always used binary protocol).
Also, the GTanks codebase is a lot smaller than official Tanki Online's (I have Alternativa_Projects.rar archive that was leaked in 2010).

Decompiled server code

As well why did GTanks close?

There were too few new players. When you reached one of the first ranks you had battles with only high-rank players that kept constantly killing low-ranks, though they gave away crystal drop you still wouldn't be able to rank up.

[Assasans]

BTW a fully working protocol implementation: https://github.com/WolverinDEV/protanki-protocol-rs

By the way, may I use your code in this repository under MIT / Apache 2.0 dual license?

[WolverinDEV]

@Assasans the argument with the protocol is pretty reasonable.
The more I dig trough the more easy does it seem to create a pretty simple TO server.
As far as I can the, the hardest would be implementing an anticheat (which PT has btw.).

@Assasans would you mind sharing the old gtanks server with me?
As PT and GTanks are developed by the same person? there might be some insights of what measures they take to enforce "proper" game play.

[prodkleins]

@Assasans the argument with the protocol is pretty reasonable.
The more I dig trough the more easy does it seem to create a pretty simple TO server.
As far as I can the, the hardest would be implementing an anticheat (which PT has btw.).

@Assasans would you mind sharing the old gtanks server with me?
As PT and GTanks are developed by the same person? there might be some insights of what measures they take to enforce "proper" game play.

the protanki anticheat is very poorly made