A few more bot bugs

[Maleficus]

Originally Posted by Denny

I think so too, because if it can't be fixed it needs to be documented. Ithink i'm gonna make a whole section for these kinds of things, that way thier more noticable when reading the Wiki.

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!

[Denny]

Originally Posted by Maleficus

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.

Thats ugly, but this is a wolf engine bug.

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

Cheers!

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.

[the bindlestiff]

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."

[the bindlestiff]

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?

[Denny]

Originally Posted by the bindlestiff

The existing bot problem in Brescia of bots not being able to climb the moat ladder was particularly vexing, however.

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?

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.

Originally Posted by the bindlestiff

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

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

[Maleficus]

Originally Posted by the bindlestiff

he 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.

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.

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.

[Maleficus]

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.

[the bindlestiff]

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!!

[the bindlestiff]

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.