Suggestions for improvements
 

Hi KWo,

thanks for your effort for reactivating my account.

Here are a couple of Suggestions, experience feedbacks or even ideas, which i have come across after years of running servers and running podbot. I will put them all in this single thread for a better overview.

1. weird..after all those years, i found out a few days ago that if there is only 1 player on server and he is VIP on a map like as_oilrig: when he reaches target (helicpter spot) , all bots auto-die. This late discovery might be due to the fact that as_ maps are unpopular and i haven't installed any of those maps untill recently on a new cs server. Since there are two ways for bots to autodie (player death, NoClip) i would suspect user goes into NocLip mode after reaching target but i am not sure.

2. Man..years ago i asked for a plugin on another forum that would reset round when a player joins server while only bots are playing. No one likes to watch bots playing, even more so on large or 3rd party maps where it takes a very long time for bots to finish.. Then the player has to sit there for minutes and watch bots playing until the bots finish the game. They leave of course! It's a no brainer and probably one of the biggest problems with podbot. Since connor (i think it was him) gave me a plugin that has been working flawlessly for years, i never mentioned this big issue to you. Let me search...

here:
A plugin that i would appreciate (round restart)

I don't really understand how you could let users watch bots playing for minutes, which is the case for any default PB user as i understand. I think if i hadn't had this plugin i wouldn't even have used podbot all these years..as great as podbot is. There is no way CS players will watch bots play for a longer time. They leave! This is a fundamental issue.

3. As requested in a PM, i would ask for the Noclip Autokill feature to be removed. Gameplaywise there is no reason at all for killing bots after user goes into NoClip. And this causes big problems in Mods where e.g. users can go into NoClip as a SuperHero or where users can buy NoClip from a buy menu.


Thanls KWo for developing PodBot, which has become legendary and known worldwide.

Re: Suggestions for improvements
 

Remind me (I was not playing long time any as_xxx map) - what exactly is happening when the VIP reaches the rescue point? Isn't so the round ends (and it increases CTs wins)? If so - there is an easy solution - if Your autodie function is enabled, just increase a bit the time pb_autokilldelay (I believe You have it set as 0).
I accept Your point of view - but I'm just curious why nobody before You has never asked for that feature to be added for podbot mm? Actually - there is a similar function at server start only - when all players joined their teams, there is sv_restartround 1 called (or something like that). I have to find it again somewhere in the code (I'm sure I have seen it somewhere about 2 years ago, but I don't remember where) and express the functionality to this what You have mentioned (or with a cvar on/off).

Probably I'll switch it off (for experimental case) for the next build, but somebody has to test it with those mods You mentioned, if it works correctly. I don't know the reason why it is so in podbot code since the beginning (probably even the original podbot's author - Count Floyd - doesn't remember it).

Re: Suggestions for improvements
 

Remind me (I was not playing long time any as_xxx map) - what exactly is happening when the VIP reaches the rescue point? Isn't so the round ends (and it increases CTs wins)? If so - there is an easy solution - if Your autodie function is enabled, just increase a bit the time pb_autokilldelay (I believe You have it set as 0).

I don't know exactly what happens either. Yea the pb_autokilldelay could be a workaround. Yes, on that server the delay is zero. I hope this problem disappears once the "NOCLIP autokill function" is removed.


I accept Your point of view - but I'm just curious why nobody before

He He.., well i don't know either!!! :D What do you think? I don't know why..maybe the reason is that this forum is not really lively? Maybe because not many servers have bots installed? Maybe those admins are not so much into the finer details of server administration? Or maybe they just don't care. :confused: Hmm.. i don't see often servers having bots installed in a serious manner. You should browse the cs servers and see it for yourself what's going on. Imo the practical experience is best way to find out the answers. But it's not about how many ppl report a bug but it's about you considering the bug worthy of beeing worked on once you know it exists. Best way to find that out is ...again to try it out practically. Join a server (imagine you are a player) and see if you are annoyed by beeing forced to watch bots play and you idling around and if you feel like changing server.


You has never asked for that feature to be added for podbot mm?

Have i? Hmm.. :huh: I don't remember. But i dont think so. After connor gave me that plugin, i was fine..LoL. :blush:


Actually - there is a similar function at server start only - when all players joined their teams, there is sv_restartround 1 called (or something like that). I have to find it again somewhere in the code (I'm sure I have seen it somewhere about 2 years ago, but I don't remember where) and express the functionality to this what You have mentioned (or with a cvar on/off).

Sounds good.

Probably I'll switch it off (for experimental case) for the next build, but somebody has to test it with those mods You mentioned, if it works correctly. I don't know the reason why it is so in podbot code since the beginning (probably even the original podbot's author - Count Floyd - doesn't remember it).

I will happily beta test.