A few more bot bugs
 

1. Whle playing Tram the other night, I discovered another Medic bot bug. Several times while I was being revived, the medic bot would not crouch, so his stab with the syringe was in the air. He'd make a few attempts, then stop in place. Eventually, an enemy would come by and shoot him to solve the problem. I belived I was lying against walls on those occasions.

2. While playing Brescia, all the allied bots had an extremely hard time climbing the ladder from the moat. Mostly they got stuck at the bottom. I watched a bot who had the "secret documents" repeatedly try to climb the ladder, backing up and running at it again and again. I finally descended, shot him, picked up the docs and ran to the finish. This happened on three rounds (on the fourth I had the docs myself). Bot_skill was set at "2."

The only way for the allies to win this map is for a human to grab the documents and carry them to the finish. If a bot gets them the game will hang until the time limit runs out.

3. Another problem with Brescia was that it would crash the system after a few minutes of play when thef0x and I and 14 bots were playing. I tried in in simple MP mode today and didn't have a problem, but then I was the only player in the game. I tried in Fritzbot (just me as the only human player), beginning with just 4 players and gradually increasing that by two (while playing several rounds for each increment of 2 bots), where it crashed with 12 players (11 bots and me) after about 5 minutes. Bot_skill was set at "2."

4. The bot problem of obiting around the flag poles on the Norway map still remains.

5. And now for another mystery. I finally got my Fritzbot dedicated server up and running. When I joined the first map, I seemed to be invisible to the enemy bots. I could stand directly in front of them and they wouldn't see me, even when I shot at them nose-to-nose. Same thing on other maps. Tried reconnecting, but got the same situation. Somehow I have become invisible. Bombs or arty will kill me, though. Thef0x isn't available at the moment, so I can't verify whether it will happen to him as well, when he connects. On my listen server, this has happened to me once (post #7 of "Carentan map bugs" thread).

Thef0x noticed this happening to him during a couple of the maps last night on my listen server, although I remained completely visible and vunerable throughout the night (I got shot many times!).

SEVERAL HOURS LATER:
After reconnecting to my server several times and still having the problem, on the last two times my invisibility to the enemy had "disappeared" (pun intended) and now everything works. Why????????

BTW, the bots are present now on each map when I log in -- it appears that they are happily playing the map in my absence because I always enter in the middle of a game. Maybe they're practicing for combat with the humans. . .

Will have to verify that it will still work if more than one human is logged in.

AND A HOUR OR SO LATER:
While playing in my dedicated server the "invisibility" returned after playing several maps. Even after several disconnects and reconnects. Very disturbing. . .

I can be killed by getting in the line of fire, by ricochets, by air and arty, by falling, but the bots just see me as a non-enity obstacle to be jumped over or avoided. I can walk up to a bot and shoot him point-blank without the slightest notice from him.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

When we played last nite (Friday) and early this morning, Some of the maps I was able to run free throughout the map, killing at will, the bots played the game like i wasnt even there.

I got some good knife work in though.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Dude your paying to much attention to the flaws of Fritzy.

This mod is not perfect but at least it provides an exceptional alternative to on-line action.

I personaly couldn't be hapier with fritzbot. After All the mode is still in beta stage, and, true your observations a valid and I'm sure are being taken note by Maleficus but judging by your must recent post, It seems as though Fritzbot is more a problem than a solution for you.

Anyways, Long Live Rtcw and Fritz. :)

P.S: Im going to Jail on monday for a string of drink driving offences, at least when I get out I'll have fritzbot to comfort me :P

P.S 2 : It was really nice being apart of this community. Keep it up fellas. i'll enjoy Fritzy for many years to come but for now, Thanks Mal for Fritzbot + Denny, 420 blunt, Crapshot, Craig for the waypoints.

Thanks & Good bye.:(

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

I think I can speak for everyone on the team when I say thank you.

I hope things go well for you.

Cheers!

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Hey Bindle, could you attach you're server.cfg for us. These bugs happen on you're server correct? We're thinking maybe you have some cvars that aren't agreeing with Fritz too well and it would help to know what kind of server cvars you have set just in case.

Sorry to hear about that btw Slick, i hope everything goes well and all. Thanks for the comments, I appreciate it. :)

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Nevermind, i found out why Norway is messed up, the flag actions have improper entity settings on them (i have no idea why i did that, doh!). I'll update and release with the next pack update. Thanks Blunt for helping with that, and to you to Bindle for noticing the bug.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Hey, Slick. The idea is to make Fritzbot better for all the world to use. That means finding discrepencies and fixing them. That's what a "beta" stage is all about.

Yes, I enjoy playing Fritzbot, too. But it can be disappointing to a player when he plays hard and long, only to find out that it is impossible to win the round because of a bot problem, or, like now, when he is just an invisible player, able to wreak havoc at will without being shot at (not too much fun in that).

I expect that Mal, Denny, Blunt, and Crapshoot spend a lot more time coding than playing at this point. Thef0x and I spend several hours a night playing hard on the different maps, sometimes we'll be on the same team, sometimes on opposite ones. Thef0x is an experienced games player, I'm a novice player with lots of experience in things digital from designing microchips to coding in assembly language. We both are sensitive to small problems that occur during the action and want to do our bit to iron those out. We're not complaining or griping!

Denny, my server.cfg is attached. Mebbe you can glance at it and find something awry. Right now my dedicated server is useless to us because of the "invisible" problem. Playing on a "listen" server is fine tho (except for f0x's lag problem).

BTW, Norway is one of our favorite maps. Let us know when your fixes are ready to use. Thanks for your work on this!

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

I actually don't code at all for this mod and have played quite a bit on a dedicated server. I've never seen the 'invisibility' bug.

I'll test mine with bot_skill 1 / bot_aimskill 1 as those 2 seem to be the major differences in our server configs.

Your feedback is appreciated bindle. Please keep it coming.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

I only helped code the FG42 and some of the key binding stuff for the fritzbot menu and barrier exemptions and objective fixes.

Anyways, I'll take a look at that server.cfg in a bit, thanks for posting that. I mainly asked for you to post it so mal could look at it and maybe see what's going on if it's something server cvar related (you never know).

Norway will be out with my next pack release which i hope will be in a couple weeks, they'll be a few more maps supported and a couple other updates (Market Garden for sure, because the allied bots have an impossible time beating that map) as well so it'll be worth the wait. It's kind of a tough time for me now with Finals and i got a certification test Tuesday and some other things so i've been kind of sluggish waypointing for the time being. Sorry about that guys. :(

I'm gonna say this to the public just so they know. I know that in some cases my waypoints may seem crappy or whatever. But i want to let you know that my main goal is to get the bots running the maps well enough so they go where they need to, they don't get stuck and they complete their tasks and objectives as needed. My goal never was to make perfect waypoints. Bugs with my path files are always welcome (like the Norway stuff) so again, don't be bashful.

Also keep in mind Fritzbot's gameplay is varied, sometimes the bots will play hard and hold you off for long periods of time, and sometimes you can blaze through a map in less than 3 minutes (even playing the same map too). I like how it plays like that because you always face a new challange or get by quick and easy, it adds more variety.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

By "coding" I meant waypointing as well. Takes the same kind of talent and time!!

Market Garden is one of my favorite maps. It usually takes two human players on the allied side to win for the allies. One of us guards the canal to keep the axis from getting close to their allied objective, and one of us swims the river and blows the tower. Sometimes it takes only one human to do the job if he gets the timing right.

BTW, in WW2 the allies did not win Operation Market Garden. They had too many bridges to cross, their intelligence about the german defenses near the parachute drop on the critical bridge was faulty, and they greatly underestimated the fight left in the germans at that time.

One of the great things about playing with Fritzbot is the variability -- nothing happens the same way twice! Of course, you can eventually figure out the general route the bots will take, but there's plenty of differences happening. The bugs that I'm looking for are those where the bots do not behave properly in their environment and disrupt the flow of the game.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

I haven't even been on the Net much the last 48 hours, until last night, because I've been busy preparing for school finals, and fighting the flu (still am too). So, you can imagine how seeing hour by hour updates about bugs could be preceived as being very frustrating for us, especially since we don't get paid for this, but do it for the love of the game and the community.

I'm still sick as hell, so will prolly come across more cross than I mean to be, but we need time to examine issues and bug reports. Most of us can only work on Fritz a few hours a week because of Real Life(tm). All of us here have full time jobs, school, and families to raise that come first before working on this mod.

We want Fritz to be the best it can be as well, but it will never be perfect, because none of us here is, but we will do our best.

Cheers!

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

I guess i see where you're going by saying that, coding is more tedious and timeconsuming though, not only that things vary more in coding. Once you get the base waypointing skills down, they remain constant no matter what, coding is more variable. I think that makes sense, kind of...:|

Anyways i enjoy waypointing. In fact, i enjoy waypointing more than playing the game even. I find it fun getting the bots to work well on a map and fixing things so they work better, granted it has it's fair share of frustrations too. It gives a great feel of accomplishment when you finish though.

Market Garden is one of my favorites as well, i use to spend hours playing on big pub servers on that map and it was great fun. I kind of tried to mimic the bots to play it same or similar but it didn't work out 100% atm, so i hope this update will better and finish the map.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Just found the cause for the invisible bug.

Setting up private client slots, and joing the server using the private client password somehow makes the bots not see you.

Thx for submitting your server cfg bindle, I was able to find this bug by looking thru it. A fix will be submitted tonight.

Cheers!

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Oh god -- I can feel myself slipping down the pathway to learning waypointing because that's the kind of pleasure that I get too -- making a program work well, locating bugs and stamping them out, and receiving satisfaction from seeing my work being used. Gotta go now -- have to download the Waypointing Tutorial!

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Yuk, the flu, hope all goes well with that Mal, i hate getting the flu and it's only a matter of time before i get it as well. I don't care though, hey i'd rather have the seasonal flu than that avian flu that stuff sounds nasty.

I hate to say this as well but Mal is right. Fritzbot is great to work for and i'd love to work on it all the time (even if i wasn't being paid), but unfortunately school and my girlfriend and such come first and they take up alot of time.

I also want Fritz to be the best as well, in fact i've played many retail bots and i say Fritz beats them hands down even with the little quirks it'll never be perfect of course but if it's close enough, that's fine by me.

We don't want you to get the impression that we don't want bug reports or anything so we hope you don't take all this the wrong way. We always welcome bug reports and such, but try not to focus too much on the small bugs rather than the big one's (like the invisibility bug is a big one) Waypointing bugs are always welcome though, big or small.

Hell yeah, by all means do so if you want. I always support people wanting to learn how to waypoint. Be sure to keep up with the wiki and threads just so you know who's all doing what waypoints and such. :)

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Mal, you are terrific!!!!

While sick with the flu, preparing for winter finals, you took time to look at my problem and ferret out the culprit.

I'll be on the watch for your fix.

On behalf of all of us players who use Frtizbot, I want to enthusiastically thank you and your helpers for all the time and effort that you've put into this "labor of love." Like all of us (well, most, anyway), we have other lives - work, family, etc. and well understand that you have limited time to put into this.

We'll try not to be so "nit-picky" about the details and just report the major "play-damaging" bugs that we encounter.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

OK, I checked, this looks like an engine bug.

For whatever reason, if you have the sv_privatepassword set on the server, and the client that connects has this password too, the engine overrides the game and declares that clients entity slot as not being in use.

Thats why the bots didn't see you: for both speed and safety reasons, I check first to see if you even exist (by occupying a entity slot) before I have the bots test if they can "see" you.

This safety check is needed, because if you suddenly disconnected, you could crash the game.

I can't fix the engine bug, because it's source isn't avaiable, but I could hack/hardcode it so that private clients didn't work anymore, which is ugly.


Either way, in the mean time, I suggest you take out private clients/password from your config, and just use g_password if you want to run a private server.

I'll play with it more tonight to see if I find a better solution.


Denny: I think this is going to need a wiki entry.

Cheers!

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

BTW: checking some of your other bug reports, and playing ingame, it would appear that a lot of the "visibility" based bugs you reported would be caused by this privateclient/password issue, since there are a lot of places in the code that do basic safety checks based on your entity slot. Also possibly your
crash problem.

Try it with it off, and let me know if you notice any of these issues as much anymore. Also, try it with bot_skill set to 2 or 3, since skill one is supposed to suck! :P

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

I think so too, because if it can't be fixed it needs to be documented. I think i'm gonna make a whole section for these kinds of things, that way thier more noticable when reading the Wiki. I'll wait and see if you come up with something new on this just in case.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

I'm in the midst of checking this out now. The private client password "sv_privatePassword" has never worked and thef0x and I have been logging in with the normal "g_password."

I have just edited my server.cfg to delete the private password seta and also to disable the g_needpass requirement. But the server insists that I enter the "pennycreek" password to join the game. Somehow the rental server has set this in concrete somewhere. So at present I'm unable to test it without a password.

I'm going to try some more to get rid of the private password thingy . . . will let ya know.

Thanks for your help so far.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

OK, new patch up. I've decided for now to just disable sv_privateClients and sv_privatePassword totally. If you set them, they will be reset to NULL by the game. Thats prolly all you need to note in the wiki. Ppl can use g_password still for a private server.

BINDLE: this will totally disable privatepassword, so it won't matter if you take it out or not. ;)

Thats ugly, but this is a wolf engine bug.

Get the patch, try it out, let me know! :)

Cheers!

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Okay, i'll add a note for it. It actually would work better in the FAQ rather than a whole section since it's disabled so i think i'll just do that.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

HEY GUYS!! I'm happy to report that the bots are gunning me down like Dillinger.

Great debugging, Mal! Get well soon.

We'll play the maps tonight where we've reported bugs and let you know our what we find.

Feels good to solve a sticky problem, doesn't it?

BTW, since I foolishly posted my passwords via the server.cfg attachment, I've now changed them. If anyone wants to play the server, PM me and I'll give you the new one. And I've upped Bot_skill to "2."

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Last night thef0x and I spent a number of hours playing a dozen maps on our new server. Had a great time, discovered no new bot bugs. The existing bot problem in Brescia of bots not being able to climb the moat ladder was particularly vexing, however.

The "invisibility" problem popped up during our play. We were going through the map rotations, everything was normal, the map changed to "Base" and I suddenly became invisible. I tried disconnecting and then reconnecting, but still the same. This carried over to the next map in the sequence (Beach). At the next map rotation (Brescia), I returned to normal and remained so for the remainder of our session. Curious . . .

I've got a question about "mp_theguns" for those of you who have played it. When I get to the actual guns themselves, my frame rate drops drastically to just a few fps when I attempt to climb the ladder up to the gun carriage. It happened to thef0x as well. Later, I ran the map offline by myself without bots and encountered the same slowdown.

To check out whether this was due to my 2-yr old video card, I reduced the screen resolution from 1280x1024 to 800x600. This increased the frame rate while in other sections of the game, but it still struggled while in the guns area. Is this a characteristic of this particular map?

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

The Brecia ladder thing is no doubt a pathing thing, you should PM craig about that.

That mp_theguns thing may just be exactly that, a mapping thing, maybe the guns or map aren't optomized properly and the engine is drawing more than it should at that particular location. Mal told me how the engine works, it uses a potentially visible rendering system in which wolf will draw parts of the map even if you can't visually see them. You can see for yourself by entering /r_showtris 1 in the console and it will show you what RTCW is currently rendering in the map. If it's showing a whole bunch of the level at that specific point, then yeah it will cause slowdowns. Another reason could be simply due to the fact that those are pretty complex brushes and it's difficult for you're card to render quick enough.

Unless a bot is caught somewhere or having troubles somewhere those could be the only reasons really.

For the time being anyway, we'll worry about the small bugs/quirks later. :)

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

1. Path issue, hopefully craig can fix. I'd make a note of it in his map thread in the waypointing forum, so he can see it and know it exists.

2. I'd still be sure to get rid of private clients in your cfg. I have it where it will clear out private clients at the start of each map, but if your execing cfgs during game play, your just as likely to turn it back on and bring your problems back for the duration of that map.

3. Denny hit this one on the head - its how the engine draws the map, and how good (or bad) the mapper optimized the map. It takes a certain amount of skill to control just how much is drawn properly: sometimes the mapper just doesn't know how to control it, sometimes you can't just because whats being drawn (a large, open area like the gun room). Mapping is as hard as coding and is an art form unto itself. We can't fix a mappers mistake/choices.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

OK, I put up a little patch where it now will clear out private clients no matter what, if you ever change it during gameplay.

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

Ill try out the patch tomorrow night. Just finished 4 hours of play on our server. Many times, don't know what triggered it, I became invisible to enemy bots. Then it would go away for a time, then return. Would happen in the middle of a map, sometimes carry over to the next one, sometimes not. Won a few rounds that way. Only way to tell was to run right up to an enemy bot and stare him in the face -- if I got shot, I wasn't invisible!! Interestingly, it never happened to thef0x all night, just poor little me. . .

I have a map rotation config which continually cycles on its own. We played 2 rounds per map, went thru 15 maps before calling it a night. I had to disconnect partway thru because my mouse quit on me (some sort of PS2 problem) -- switched to USB and was back in the game.

I don't have any private client password assignments anymore, but I just noticed a "seta sv_private clients 2" still remaining in my server.cfg (which is only exec'ed once when the server starts up, as far as I know). I'll get rid of that right away.

Re theguns map -- I wasn't expecting you folks to do anything about it -- just wanted to know if anyone had experienced the same thing.

Thanks for helping me with these issues! Hope you're beating the flu, too.

Just grabbed the patch, still named "Fritz_053a", I see (I renamed it "ad" to keep the patches identified in my files). BTW, how are you able to make changes to the qagame dll without changing the byte count?? The number of bytes is usually the way I can tell if something has been changed, apart from the file date. Lotsa fun!!

Re: A few more bot bugs
 

We got in three hours of play last night and i'm happy (?) to report that the enemy bots were gleefully killing me at every opportunity! Not one instance of the "invisibility" syndrome. It looks like that problem has been squashed.