[Roach]

Ok let me see if I can take this in sections.

Most server company's are scared of bots, and understandably so, most bot programs/mods take up alot of resources on a server machine and to be honest we would prolly not rent/host a server of this kind. Reason being is most server companys make their money putting 20 hosted servers on a machine that should only host 5. The get away with this cause most servers rented sit there empty most of the time. Should one get real busy it is usually moved to a faster, better machine. WE DON'T DO THAT! However we have watched the Fritzbot server closely and have found that it does not require near as much cpu as most bot mods. The memory usage is no higher than any other RTCW 64 slot server, in fact it's a little less. However this 64 slot server was born as a tool for advertising our server company, however this effort has been cripled by the inability to change the g_motd and the absence of banners to let our players know where to download maps and the like, also no way to inform players that there is a web site and forum attatched to the server at http://roach.centralfragzone.com . nor can we say "need a server?" check us out at http://centralfragzone.com If we can not rectify this soon we will be forced to take the server down.

NOTE: every openion is valuable, sadly we can not use everyone's but we do value that input.

WARMUP
First, I have so many mods/cvars in my head I can't seperate them at times, lol but try seta g_dowarmup "0" I think that turns it off. But JMHO no warmup is crazy, thats the time I run to the coffee pot and fill my cup, while some are feverishly trying to get that bowl filled or that doobie rolled, some are running down the hall to drain their Wang, and some are just changing sides and classes. Your thinking in "local host" mode, on a dedicated server it sometimes take folks as much as 45 seconds to load the next map, so on map changes I allow 60 sec for warmup and on the second round only 20 sec to change classes and such. In my experience, not enough warmup time or no warmup time caused early dropoff and more spectators.

SWAP AND SHUFFLE
In my rotations, I shuffle teams at the change of a map and swap teams on the second round of that map, I do so cause Me and most of my clanmates " http://phatom1.org " can't stand stopwatch and most players I know don't like being on the same team round after round, since I have set up a generous warmup time you can use that to switch to the team you want to be on, but no system is perfect and not all will like it no matter how it's set. Now swap and shuffle may seem crazy in regard to the bots since they are fired and re-hired at the beginging of a new map, but My thinking is toward the 20+ "human" players I hope to see in the future.

MAPS
Yes, I would like to run more maps and diferent maps on the server and my clanmates and I spent 3 nights trying out several maps on the server, and choosing the most "stable" maps. We ran ypg_kings as well as tundra_rush_beta as they were some of our favorite maps, What we found out was several of the maps are not stable, and the bots would do funny things like not shooting at human players or just forgetting what they were doing and would just jump around. Crapshoot spotted this and uploaded a new waypoint file to me for ypg_kings but it would still do the same thing. We are finding out that there seems to be a diference in how waypoints and maps work between "home grown" servers and "real world internet dedicated" servers. Any of you that would like me to test a map/waypoint let me know at http://roach.centralfragzone.com in the forum and I will try to put it on the rotation and see how it works.

BOTS
I realize that diferent maps require diferent classes, however, running a fritzbot server is only a smidgeon of what I do and I don't have the time to customize every map so I chose a full condoment of bots that would get the job done, per side there is 2 medics, 2 engineers, 2 LT's, 1 sniper, 1 panzer making a total of 16 bots. I am going to add per side, 1 flammer, 1 venom, 1 fg42 and 1 more engineer bringing the total to 24 bots, but that will depend on resources. Remember this is not an "at home" server where maybe you and a couple of your buds will be playing, this is a 64 slot public dedicated server where there could be many human players, too many bots will spoil the action and "small maps" are out of the question.

SKILL
This is not my first time hosting a bot server, I hosted the early "Wolfbot" mod and found that too much skill level on the part of the bots would cause for an empty server. I like the fact that I can set their overall skill high and their aim lower so more new players can enjoy as well, In the future I am going to put a "ringer" on each side, that will have full skill level. Also this will be an additional bot making the total bots on the server 18, up from 16 since I have a class/weapon missing, I have no venom bot.

PUNKBUSTER
Sometime back I was asked to turn on punkbuster, I did and I didn't like the way it made the server run. Punkbuster is a joke for RTCW anymore anyway they have not done a real update for this game in a long time and those that are gonna hack already have hacks that punkbuster is not gonna catch. There is even a PB blocking hack now that really makes it useless. So for now PB will be turned off. I may however subscribe to http://punksbusted.com and use their ban list, I have not made my mind up yet.

ON THE SIDE
All this is moot if I can't whip this into a valid advertising tool, I know Mal has his head burried in ETBot right now and can't stand the idea of banners on the server, but from the point of view of a server admin and hosting provider, without the means of broadcasting information to the human players really crippples this mod. Maybe Mal can make a special version of the mod just for me that will fill my bill " hint hint " lol

Thanks again for the input and Happy Fraggin!