questions I need help with figuring out

Garry's Mod coding
#1

so instead of making several posts for each question I just grouped them all together into one, this way I don’t clutter things up and its all in one place. so what advise can you give me guys?

for starters, I have created my workshop collection, setup the resource.AddWorkshop("") stuff in the /lua/autorun/server/workshop.lua file, sync-ed my stuff on my hosts fastDL thing and all that. what I want to know about is how do I put the content for example for CS:S into the fastDL somehow and have people actually able to download it? so far I was able to put the content for the materials onto the server and have it sync-ed to the fastDL aswell. however it didn’t actually remove the need for having the games added to the clients. they still saw purple checker board materials. is there a way to actually have it download the files needed from the fastDL server? I’m assuming that it isn’t downloading them tho not sure tbh.

my second question is how would I go about removing the check that darkRP does when a player doesn’t have CS:S mounted to their game. since the stuff required for the server is included they won’t really need to have the game mounted anymore, I assume at least not too sure tbh. but if it will work without the game being mounted in I just need to know how to disable that little check for it being mounted in.

my third question involves a specific addon that we have that has been bugging me and my staff. we have the gbombs 5 chemical addon. inside the q-menu there is a check box for it to use the zombies from the game NMRIH instead of the normal hl2 zombies. the issue we have is that it isn’t actually using them, it still uses the hl2 ones. and we don’t know if it is again related to some clients not having NMRIH on their client, or if it is a issue with the addon. we tried contacting the addon creator to figure out but no response so we have been looking in other places for help with little luck

my fourth question involves the cache folder that I am seeing in my hosts file browser. inside it there is a srcds folder with a ton og .gma files(I’m assuming the ones from my collection) what exactly is the cache folder I am seeing? I don’t remember seeing that back in the past when I was working on gmod servers before.

my fifth question involves a term I have seem popping up a few times. what exactly is a redirect server? I’ve seen people calling superior servers one of those but from what I’m remembering that is an actual server you can play on. am I missing something here involving that term being used?

my last question is is it better to unpack my servers map files and put them into the map folder better then having them in the addons folder inside of an addon? I’ve noticed in console where it says its copying it to the folder it needs to be in and am curious if it makes any difference.

#2

1st
You better not put CS:S content to download by the FastDL, one its a ton of shit to download, two it will probably fill up a lot of memory from the clients that don’t have CS:S or someone that doesn’t have CS:S mounted and three I don’t even think that may be legal.

2nd
It’s better if you don’t, because imagine you’ve got CS:S downloaded but not mounted, that makes you realize that it isn’t mounted therefore making the players that have the game bought mount it in case they don’t have it mounted

3rd
I know nothing about this addon, probs i’ll do some research later about it.

4th
Before, the addons from your steam workshop collection got downloaded to the addons folder, now the addons folder is just for legacy addons and the workshop addons downloads have been moved to the cache folder.

5th
A redirect server is a server that is setup in… lets say that you’ve got your server on America, well, a redirect server would then be on Europe that would fake the servers ping, the servers players and therefore making players join it to yet come to a server with much less players than they thought it had and with much more ping. That’s a basic explanation.

6th
No, it really doesn’t make a difference, plus i find it better to leave all of the custom materials/models/sounds/maps/etc in the addons folder other than having a shitstorm of them mixed with the game files.

#3

response to 1. I looked into the legal thing and I didn’t find much but if a C&D happens then I’ll find out for sure, and its just a few textures that the maps need, not the whole thing from it and all that, just what is needed.

response to 2. I just mean for my server with the check, its just so that they don’t have it poping up for them, since they would have the materials needed already. I assume they would still get the check from other servers anyways right? or no?

response to 3. really wishing that I knew how to fix it XD been wanting to phase out all the hl2 stuff from my server. its killing my immersion XD

response to 4. that makes some what sense.

response to 5. that seems a bit shady tbh with the redirect server thing. does facepunch or valve actually do anything about that or is it just allowed?

response to 6. is it better from a “viewing the files easier” way or a performance way? if its performance wise better to keep it in the addon then I’d be fine with leaving it as is but if it is simply easier to use the filesystem then I can cope with it if it means there is some performance gain atleast. if its about the same tho then meh I can keep it as is

#4

1 Wouldn’t really recommend it, as because too as i said imagine someone that has CS:S but that hasn’t got it mounted, they’d re-download the files and have duped files, plus if someone doesn’t have CS:S which is COMPLETELY required if you’re going to play Gmod, its their fault.

2 Yeah they’d get the check on other servers, but if i remember properly, it was just a chat warning wasn’t it?

5 Yes, Rubat and Willox both know the issue and have been trying to fix it, but they somehow… find either other ways to do it or to surpass the checks and else. The current way of fixing this issues is by blacklisting the servers manually as i know.

6
Performance wise: Having map files (only map files, materials and models don’t really make any difference performancewise) on the Maps folder.
Visualization wise: Having them inside addons.

#5

If people need CS:S content but don’t own the game then tell them to use the SteamCMD to get it. There are multiple guides how to do it.

#6

well my whole idea behind the CSS stuff was to make the users not have to really worry about that sort of thing if possible. that way they could simply join my server and not have any issue. tho wouldn’t it simply not include the css content for downloading if it already has the game mounted? kinda like with addon files?

#7

Pretty sure it will still download. I wouldn’t send it since if users ever decide to mount the game, your downloaded version will override it. You also always have the possibility of being DMCA’d by Valve.