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  FORTS LIVE STREAM  --  WATCH A MATCH LIVE
  Designed by   BitrotDeamon (Destruco , IAmDestructoMan) and  Claude
  Download      www.forts-tools.com
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WHAT THIS IS
------------

Watch a Forts match in your own copy of the game while it is still being
played -- roughly a minute behind, in real time. You look wherever you like,
zoom in on whichever fort you want, and use anything the game itself gives you.
It is the real game, not a video.

There is nothing to install. One small program and one settings file. No
runtime to download, and nothing added to the game.

HOW TO WATCH
------------

  1. Unzip this download to a folder of its own.
  2. Run observer.exe -- or double-click run_observer.cmd beside it.
  3. A window opens showing how far behind live you are. The game starts by
     itself once there is enough of the match to watch. You can start watching
     at any point and you will always see the match from its beginning.

The address of the broadcast is ALREADY FILLED IN for you in observer.ini, so
there is normally nothing to edit. Two other settings can usually be found for
you as well -- your game and your own match folder. Run the program once with
them left as they ship and it offers what it found and asks before writing it
down. It will only ask you to choose when there is more than one game account
on this machine, because picking the wrong one would leave you watching nothing
with no sign anything was wrong.

WHAT YOUR MACHINE NEEDS
-----------------------

  * Your own installed and OWNED copy of the game, with Steam running and
    signed in. Family Sharing will not do: it is exclusive, and it would lock
    one side out part way through.
  * The SAME version of the game as the match. Steam updates on its own, so
    this can change without anyone doing anything. On a different version the
    program stops with a message rather than guessing.
  * At least one saved match of your own first. Any skirmish will do, once.

THE DELAY
---------

You always watch a little behind live, and that is deliberate. The match is
played at the same speed you watch it, so starting level with it leaves nothing
in hand and the first hiccup stops the picture. Sitting a little behind is what
keeps it smooth.

When you are watching a public broadcast, the broadcast itself sets HOW CLOSE to
live anyone may get. Asking for a smaller delay in observer.ini can only ever
put you FURTHER behind, never nearer than the broadcast allows -- it is a
fairness setting the broadcaster chooses, the same for everyone watching.

IF SOMETHING DOES NOT WORK
--------------------------

Every message names the problem, says what to do, and carries a short support
code. The three most likely, in order:

  1. It sits at "Connecting" and never moves.
     Usually the broadcast is not running yet, or the address in observer.ini
     is wrong. Check that a match is actually being carried, then the address.

  2. "This machine's game is a different version from the other machine's."
     Let Steam finish updating, then start again.

  3. "This machine has no saved matches yet."
     Play any skirmish on this machine once, then try again.

Your machine gets a file called live_<number> in its own match folder, which
shows up in the game's list of saved matches. That is this program's working
file -- the number keeps two watchers on one machine from clashing -- and it is
safe to delete.

If you are still stuck, observer.ini names a small file (viewer.dat by default)
written beside the program as it runs. Keep it, with a note of what you saw, and
hand it to whoever gave you these programs -- it is the one thing that lets them
see what happened. It is not readable text, on purpose. It holds nothing about
you and nothing about your machine.

If a folder in your path has an accented letter, save observer.ini as ANSI
(Notepad: File > Save As > Encoding). Modern Notepad saves UTF-8, and the
program will tell you if that is what went wrong rather than just saying the
folder is not there.

ADVANCED  --  HOSTING YOUR OWN
------------------------------

Want to broadcast a match yourself rather than watch one? That is a separate
download -- the host package, from www.forts-tools.com. It carries the two
programs the person playing runs, and its own notes on setting them up. You do
not need it to watch.

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  www.forts-tools.com
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