The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Now that the new patched release is out, lets collect comments, bugs and suggestions here. :D

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Heyyo,

Err.. Mal? in your readme it talks aboot:

Err... is there a cooperative mode? I've been searching for an rtcw coop mod n' no luck.. I even checked twice on the game modes... yep. still no coop. soo... do ya know if there is one? ???:(

[EDIT]
Btw, gj on the bot, it's even more fun than the last 2 releases.. nading was great fun in phase2, but bombing's are intense.. sweet. :D

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

I'll try them out after i reinstall RTCW (Had to reformat :()

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Woohoo for no crash problems. So far I haven't actually noticed any balance differences. I like how you took the cfgs out of the pk3, they're much easier to modify now. Tbh I didn't like the new skins and models so I took them out of the pk3 and put them in a seperate folder. They don't feel very RtCWish to me. Maybe there should be an option to toggle on/off the new skins and models. Otherwise good work! :D

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Not in the PC version. :(
Thats just a standard readme file.

Gate: Hmm, too bad about the skins: I got them from SP wolf (BJ from SP game, and paratrooper skins), and from ET (the uniforms). :-/

I should probably make them be a seperate pk3 file, so if you don't want them, you can easily remove them.

btw: you have a bot in there now, just type "addbot gate" at the console. :)

The differences are subtle, but they're there - I notice the bots giving a much better game now.

The complete list:

1. Black letters are allowed in name now.

2. Path file for Beach was revamped and improved. Bots should have fewer problems now, and play even better/smarter.

3. Quite a few weapon usage fixes for the bots.

4. Bots understand Friendly Fire now, and understand what they can and can't do when its on or off (no more medics trying to TK Revive if FF off, or teammates scattering if you throw a nade/airstrike if FF off).

5. Bots will switch weapons based on the map changes, then switch back (i.e. bots will be snipers before the wall blows, but after it blows, will switch to a diff weapon - then go back to sniper when map restarts).

6. map_restart bug fixed.

7. memory leak fixed.

8. The mod SHOULD show just the Fritz supported maps now. I've tested this, and it works on every test I've done.
HOWEVER - I have noticed where sometimes playing around in the cfg or mod directory can make it not work, I don't know exactly yet what causes it - but I don't believe its a problem with Fritz, but witht the game itself. Unfortunately it requires you to reinstall the whole mod to fix it. :-/ I am going to find out why this is exactly, and what can be done about it.

9. The bots understand when a teammate is doing an action that they want to do, even if its human. EX: in the war room - a bot may want to camp on the file cabinets in the corner but your already up there, the bots will now see you camping there already, actually understand what your doing there, and understand theres not enough room for both of you up there, and go camp somewhere else. This solves the VERY annoying problem where 2 bots (or a bot and a human), would "fight" for an action in a particular spot (especially camp actions).

10. The bots now understand if your not in their field of view when they are using an MG42, and will stop using it to attack you normally. This was an annoying bug in Wolfbot, and in the initial third release of Fritz: the bots hanging onto the MG42, even when you'd go behind them and attack them.

11. A few other things I can't recall ATM. :D

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Heyyo,

Got one tip for ya mal: make a .bat file that starts rtcw with frtiz.

simple, just like in your readme, just create a frtizbot.txt and put in:

wolf.exe +fs_setgame frtizbot

then save n' close it n' rename it from .txt to .bat and now once you execute that .bat it should start rtcw with fritz. It works no matter where the game's installed as long as they extract it in the right directories eh? :)

I've seen this done in many Q3A mods like Doom3, and even Q3A.

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

A co-op mod would be really sweet. Cough, cough. :D

Also, the list of maps only displayed Fritz-compatible maps until I edited the beach bots cfg. v583 :D

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Heyyo,

I soooo second that... a side project maybe mal? ;)

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

IIRC, someone tried that when RtCW first came out, but for whatever reason was not possible (or perhaps wasn't very easy to do without rewriting a ton of code), I don't know for sure, but I remember hearing something about it a couple years ago.

Either way - that would be a total and complete full time mod in and of itself, and sadly: I only have time for one right now, and its Fritz. ;)

Gate: Hmm, I'm wondering what it is about editing the cfg files that causes it to happen, because it happened to me when I edited the normal wolf cfg by hand. But, I didn't change any variables that would have affected the .dll loading (or so I think), so don't understand yet why this occurs. :-/

btw: did anyone like the new models/skins that I included at all? I'm wondering if I should just make it a seperate, optional download in the future if noone really cared for it (I like it personally, adds a new facelift to an old game). ???:(

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Maleficus...

I think the new skins look fine. I barely noticed them until I went up to one of the bots; admiring the beard :D . It's definitely cool having something new in, however I have to admit I would address the problem of toggling the new skins on or off for your final release. Everyone has their own opinions on them.

BTW: still looking forward to that DEPOT! LOL! I play on a 64 server...want my own! MY BOTS I CAN PWN!

I noticed something weird on Beach now that I come to think about it. The bots jumped awfully a lot in the Axis side in the radio room / spawn room. They tended to bunch up, but 2 or 3 minutes later separate. Otherwise, I have to say they are very impressive with nading and artillery striking.

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Heyyo,

I reinstalled, n' played once between each patch, and it seems to be fine now.. maybe that's all I needed to do? :\

anywho, I gave it a go, very impressive there Mal. I was attacking a bot, n' it turned to attack me, shot me a bit n' ran back into a room n' naded out the door.. since I had a flamethrower he burned up seconds later, but hurt me bad with that nade.. nice. ;)

lol, bots do love their airstrikes.. a bot misplaced one by accidentally hitting the wall on the outdoor staircase going out of the trench on beach and I guess he was trying to do it while trying to jump to the ledge on the right near the ladder, but couldn't cause he kept hitting the wall, so that's probably just a waypoint issue, easy fix. ;)

I noticed one more thing: I planted a bomb at the beach wall, and another bot armed it before I could, and then he went n' planted a bomb at the same site.. that was interesting. It's kindof like a guarantee the wall's gonna go down, and him helping me with my bomb after I just threw it down is great! gj on that Mal. :)

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Bots work great mal! Those Skins are perfectly fine. I did notice a couple things.

1. I was on the allies and we got upto the bunker on beach and an LT called for a medic and a medic called for ammo and they both just stood there staring at each other calling for ammo and a medic back and forth. Finally the medic buckled and gave the LT health packs and then the LT finally gave the medic some ammo. They stood there for a good minute and half.

2. I was on Axis and up in the spawn area sniping allies as they came out of the bunker and a few of them seen me right away and they'd sit there running back and forth shooting at the trench wall.

This wasn't all that big of a deal though, neither was the first thing, but i figured i'd mention them anyway.

Those are actually pretty minor. In any case, Great work Mal! :D

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Those spaces tend to be pretty tight, to the bots anyhow, and they sometimes jump around to avoid getting snagged on some lip. The RtCW maps were not intended for bots, and there are a LOT of small clipping errors, tiny lips, and bugs within the maps (ESPECIALLY mp_beach). You don't notice them anymore after all this time, and you get around and avoid them subconciously, but the bots do notice them, and sometimes need to jump to avoid them.

I don't think you'll be able to play with 64 bots on a server, unless you put them on a seperate box that you use as your server, then connect to it. :'(

Sorry, but they are a MASSIVE CPU drain when you get to those kinds of numbers, and its only going to get worse as I improve them and make them smarter. The "official" bot count I support is, and will always be, 16, tho 32 is possible on some maps without too much of a drain. :-/

Thanks for the comments about their nade/airstrike ability - I've worked incredibly hard on those systems. :)

In the next release, any GFX extras I add will be an optional, extra download. That way if you just want the bots, you can get them, and if you want some extra eye candy, you can get that too.


MarD: I checked out your demo - it had to be something weird with your install, because even the bots were affected by it, and I can guarentee it has NOTHING to do with my code. The demo itself showed all kinds of weird graphical glitches too. I'm glad the re-install fixed the problem. =)

Eng bots are intelligent enough to see the bombs of teammates, and know to arm them too, incase you die or get distracted. Its a feature I spent a LOT of time adding, and so far your the first to comment on it. Thanks. :D

Denny: Heh, I've seen humans do that, tho for not as long. Hell, when I'm a med I won't heal a LT who wont arm me when I'm running around with only a knife, and I'm begging him for ammo. ;)

When the bots get in a "Hey! I need some supplies here!" mindset, they can be one track minded about it, hence the stare down. Its something I'll have to test better (this is the first time I've ever heard of it happening, but knowing the code like I do, can see how it could happen).

The wall problem is a shortcoming of the code ATM - I keep the use of the pathfinder to a minimum, and if they think they don't need it, they won't use it. Obviously in this case they are wrong, and they get stuck, because its still possible to see your enemy by backing up. Its something I need to work on in the future (TBH: all of their combat systems need a lot of work).

Panzers Gone Wild always starts with the panzer, but he is another case where after the wall blows, he can decide to switch weapons, to something that is better for close quarters combat. Hence the switch to the venom. If you re-start the map, you'll notice hes got the panzer again. Its something only the allied team did last version (switch weaps based on needs), but now I had the axis do it too.

Next version, the bots will also changes classes based on needs (more engs to blow the walls, but after they're blown, more LTs and MEDICs).

Thanks for the positive comments guys - I'm glad your enjoying Fritz! :D

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Would Hyper Threading or 64-bit CPU's help in lowering the CPU demands?

Also i did not notice that they do switch weapons, i think that's great! And if you get them to switch classes based on needs that be sweeter! Oh what was the shove command again Mal? so i can bind it. :D

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Somewhat, tho to get the benefit of the 64 bit CPU, the game code itself, and Fritz's code, would have to be recompiled to take advantage of it fully.

Turning down the GFX options can help also.

I have a P4 with HT, so I don't have a problem TBH, but I've been trying hard to keep the basic requirements fairly low, so that anyone can play. Currently, I'd say you'd need at LEAST a P3, 1ghz and 256+ RAM.

Until this past Xmas, my DEV machine was a P3 866 that only had 128 RAM, and Fritz ran fairly well on it. In fact, I still use the P3 for testing, to make sure the bot doesn't run too slow. On a map like beach tho, where so much of the map is visible at once, the combination of high GFX settings, and a lot of bots easily brings the P3 to its knees. :(

And TBH - this can't be helped: more brains = more CPU usage. :-/ Thats why I shoot for 16 bots, as a safe number I can support under various computer types and speeds.

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Heyyo,

Heh, remember folks, we are talking aboot RTCW and not Battlefield1942.. RTCW's maps are small, so a smaller player count's always good unless you want to be slaughtered every other second. So a bot count of 16 is plenty fine by me. :P

For cpu usage? your bot's not too bad for that actually Mal. Definately not nearly as much of a cpu hog as the CSSBot... sheesh, even 7 of those things bog down my computer a bit... darn rediculous..

Oh, and the bot that tried to nade out the doorway n' got me? that was PanzersGoneWild, and I think he had one of those mp's or a venom..

I'm gonna tinker around, i wanna get more bots in the map. Is there any bot quota commands or anything? I'll rtfm once I get home so if there ain't np I'll just mod those .cfg files. ;)

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

I always play with 20 (10 per team) and it isn't too bad, i usually average 100-200 FPS (around 50-80 FPS with all those air strikes, lol). I even played 20 with Wolfbot.

Specs:
Pentium 4 2.8eGhz HT (Prescott Core)
1GB DDR-400, Dual-Channel RAM
128MB Nvidia Geforce FX 5700 Ultra
And a partridge in a pear tree! :D

It seems (from what i hear anyway) that 32-bit applications get a massive boost from the new 64-bit AMD CPU's anyway. Even more so than Hyper Threading.

I can only imagine what 64-bit apps run like. Hey Mal, what's the shove command again? lol :)

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Heyyo,

Heh, ya know what I wish RTCW had in mp? the boot. I loved the boot in sp.. open door? boot! break alarm? boot! reloading gun while fighting badguys? boot!

flip a switch up or down?... boot?... BOOT WOORKS!! :D

Ah the miracles of a man and his ability to kick.. it's quite something eh? :P

now, for mp they should've tied the boot to the shove command, so I'd be more like a boot command. That would soo pwn.. I also miss booting nades back at enemy's in sp and they boot them back.. hot potato of pain. :w00t:

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Well, the shove cmd isn't vanilla Wolf MP - its a feature of the Shrub mod that I really liked and included in Fritz. In Fritz, you can only shove teammates, not enemies or grenades. It would be fun to make it where you could kick enemies, but there is no model animation for it, so you'd never see it (imagine the confusion when someone was playing, walked up to a enemy, then got "magically" knocked back and wounded - it would be chaos).


Denny: Heh, I broke the shove cmd in the latest release. I was experimeting with something with the bots, and forgot to let humans use it again before I released the patch. 9_9 :|
So, currently only bots use it. :P If its missed, I'll add it back in the next release.

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

It helps only if bots start coming back in the other direction (toward you) in crawl spaces. Or if you wanna shove bots from a camping spot.

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Hey Mal, i had another weird encounter. I was on the Axis in the upper bunker maning the MG42 and someone kept taking pot shots at me (he'd fire once, then reload) and he kept doing this until i released the gun and looked and it was Ghost. He kept doing this so i gunned him down. Well he respawned and i then see hm jumping around tossing grenades at himself until he blew up.

He again respawned and he kept taking potshots at everyone, TK'ing everyone on our team. So i decided to spectate him. He was in the war room and again everytime one of our teamates moved he'd take potshots at them. And when he needed a medic, there was one crouching in the war room. He'd run up to him stare directly at the wall and again fire potshots into the cabinet.

He kept doing this, the whole round. But next round he was perfectly fine. Maybe it was some bad coffee? I don't know, did you set it up to where the bots sometimes get all crazy like this? He was the only one doing it at the time. I find kind of cool if you did set it up to where they do this, kind of brings the realism of pub TK'ers to the bot world.

Anyway, i thought i'd mention that.

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

sometimes i have a bad day and get a little crazy8D

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Ah don't worry Mal about the bot numbers...I just happen to be really used to playing in a large number of occupants in a server like 64. I really thank you for putting on the time into this not to mention people from the old Wolfbot site for suggestions into this. This mod would have not been possible without you and others that help out. I myself hopefully in the college aspect can learn more about AI so I can hopefully build off a better AI system in all future games as I get a kick out of bots mainly because:
1) they don't b*tch
2) Great practice
3) Amazingly almost human-like

WHAT I DO REQUEST THOUGH MAL IS DEPOT SOON!! j/k I am just wishing that was possible to be soon, but you have other things going on more important than this too.

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Hmm. Were you playing stopwatch? Because I don't understand how Ghost would have been on the axis team unless you were in stopwatch mode.

TBH - I haven't really tested Stopwatch mode at all. But, off the top of my head, I'm wondering about something: there is some info about the bots team/class/etc info that are saved off into the bots internal code and are referenced all over the place.

I'm wondering if that isn't the problem - in the bot's mind its still allies (since Ghost WAS spawned into the server as allies), so he SOMETIMES thinks its cool to shoot axis, and when the next round starts and he goes back to allies, there isn't any problems.

If thats the case, I'm going to have to look at this in the next version and rethink how I handle some of the bot's info internally. I'm sorry: stopwatch isn't a mode I play, so I never really looked at it or how it might affect the bot, but its something I can fix. :)

In the meantime, I'd just recommend playing normal OBJ mode. :-/

If thats not the case, then I don't know what to say - the whole reason for a bot like Fritz is much like PrestonKh said: they aren't lame, don't cheat/bitch/whine/hack/TK/etc. I'd never want Fritz doing those things.

I want to simulate INTELLIGENT human players, not lamers. :P

PrestonKh:

Good to hear you have an interest in AI. :D

I've studied AI on my own time for years. At first it was academic AI and its various applications, but in the last 5-6 years, its been game AI, which I find to be much more fun and rewarding.

If you really want to get started with AI, you don't have to wait for college - just experiment on your own with a game. Take a simple game like Quake2. A game that has some very basic AI in it already, that you have complete access to the code, and can easily find a TON of tutorials and examples on the 'Net to learn from. Quake2 had a LOAD of community bots, many of which became open source, and are great tools to learn from.

Thats what I did - I started out with Quake 1 actually, and wrote my first bot, learning how to intergrate it into the game, how to simulate a human, etc, way back in the day.

It will take you some time, probably months, maybe even years, before you have anything you can show off, but you'll have a LOT of fun in the process. :) =)

btw: don't worry - DEPOT will be coming. In fact, Depot will probably be the only map that I'll be taking a personal interest in its path file creation, and whoever paths for it, I'm sure I'll be bugging them with suggestions. ;) :D :P

Re: The patched Third Release comments thread
 

Yeah, it was stopwatch mode, and yeah i setup my map rotate to swap teams every other round. In fact, i thought the very same thing you did (not in so many words of course). But the thing was the following round he was still on the Axis and performed just fine.

I'd say just strip out the code that handles which bot plays for each team. I mean so they play as a team no matter which side their on. The bot config could still be used to setup which team they play for initially, but it isn't written in stone if you catch my drift. I hope that wasn't confusing. :)