POD-bot back into shape.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Well, whoever said that first was right, the buying code of the bots was stuffed up in CS 1.5 : the bots DO buy extra weapons, indeed.

It happens only on CS 1.5, I just noticed it after SoUlFaThEr told me about it, and without him I would probably never have caught it because I happen to run this bot usually on CS 1.6.

The reason was that the buy shortcuts we use in CS 1.5 somehow don't work with bots. For example, a player can type "buyitem" on the console to get into the equipment menu, but a bot can't. The bot must do a "buy;menuselect 8" instead. If the bot does a "buyitem" command, strangely enough it's the previous menu that is brought back, i.e, the last menu where the bot bought a weapon. So the bots were in fact buying extra weapons when they thought they could buy nades or kevlars or stuff... 9_9

I've just fixed that. Now I'm about to tweak the cost function of the pathfinder, so as to hopefully have the bots learn the dangerous waypoints faster.

This means there'll soon be another release

*EDIT* oh BTW, SoUlFaThEr be happy man, all the crash bugs of the waypoint editor are fixed too. It doesn't crash anymore at round restart either. And I make the map reload automatically once you exit waypoint editing mode. To tell the truth there was also big security flaws with this waypoint editor (e.g, have the bots to run and thus use extensively the pathfinder while you add/insert/delete nodes in the waypoints list and paths in the path matrix at the same time, I mean how serious is that ??? Now as soon as you touch ONE waypoint, all the bots are frozen. To unfreeze them save your work and reload the map.)

@Cooley: Does the bot fail to reload ALSO when it's the only plugin running ? Try disabling all the other plugins and try again. I have no clue why the plugin would fail to reload, and I wish I could see it with my own eyes.

[SoUlFaThEr]

awesome

did you reupload this one?

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Once we're at it, I may as well add 2 points I noticed (I already mentioned one of them in another thread):

1. On my PC, the message "Max. number of players reached. Couldn't add bot" shows every few seconds. This happened after I opened a game and filled the player slots with the option "fill server with bots" from the Podbot menu.

2. When did you change the bots' interpretation of crouching WP's? Nowadays they run/walk until they reach an obstacle, and then they start crouching. Before, they always approached the crouch WP crouching. (sounds cacophonic!) I liked that more. And why?
a) If you thinks it's unrealistic that they crouch for longer distances to get inside a vent or whatever, then all it takes is a different WP placement.
b) It's an important tactical element - tell bots to crouch behind hedges, and they will sneak silently forward, unseen by the enemy.
c) It's now much more difficult for bots to get through windows etc., especially arched and/or narrow windows. I was just checking my de_bergheim WP's and I noticed that in one of those windows (which worked perfectly before), the bot needed 3 attempts to get through, and it sure didn't look very elegant...

*added*

3. Do connections from one WP to itself have any useful purpose? Afaik, all they do is cause an error message when you check or save the WPs. However, they can occur quickly - we all make typos, I guess. So why not make pointing a WP to itself impossible and instead display a message like "Cannot connect node with itself" or something? In that case the waypointer could a) be sure that no error has been written into the WPs, and b) read the error message and know that he typed in a wrong number. Possible or too much PITA?

[SoUlFaThEr]

T...the more i see you post the more me likes ya

first about T-Wrecks things:
point 1.....i dont have that problem.
point 2.....yes.....make them crawl TO a crouch waypoint again....his points are very clear and absolutely correct from all sides......i miss this as well like letting them sneak behind bushes like in cs_bikini out front of the house. and the window or vent thing is true.
point 3.....also a very good idea.....should be simple considering the other things that happened to this editor so far.


on to my stuff now:
i downloaded the bot again after you posted the crash fix.
i dont know whats wrong today or if you actually uploaded the new (no crashes after a save) dll ......but :

it didnt crash 3 rounds in a row with just saving and letting the next round happen......and then it crashed....and then consistantly.....as if it lost hold of not crashing as time went on.
so i reverted back to the RESTART idea from before.....and even that crashed now 3 times in a row(not even one success).......so im back to doing waypoints for one round.....a crash...a computer restart and a map reload...dang

another 2 things i noticed a few days ago thats not a problem, it just struck my curiosity and i forgot to mention it.....

1. when standing on any special waypoint......it changes color to light blue.....???
2. flags that are added to a waypoint are SEEN from a distance with its normal color code, (t or ct camp spots for example) but when standing ON the waypoint, the flag is shown by a green regular waypoint sprite....

those are CHANGES to what was.....how did that happen?

Hmm, i think he didn't upload yet..

This means there'll soon be another release

[sPlOrYgOn]

he meant the last update with a crash fix..

Originally Posted by sPlOrYgOn

he meant the last update with a crash fix..

Thats what i meant.. its all coming in a release..

[]'s

DT

[SoUlFaThEr]

few will quote themselves but, as these nice guys showed me...i cant read! :

Originally Posted by SoUlFaThEr

it didnt crash 3 rounds in a row with just saving and letting the next round happen......and then it crashed....and then consistantly.....as if it lost hold of not crashing as time went on.
so i reverted back to the RESTART idea from before.....and even that crashed now 3 times in a row(not even one success).......so im back to doing waypoints for one round.....a crash...a computer restart and a map reload...dang

Ignore this please PMB........the problem was in my waypoint.cfg......

for some wierd reason......pod(even after a reinstall) will not set it podbotmenu on the button it always did.....rather......on my B.......which is the buy bind(i put the bind in my config and it was making the bot crash).

also the vgui_menus wont turn off.....and its in my config correct as always......but now my console works normal again......win some lose some right?

shits all messed up in my house.

and after redoing the tundra,dust,havana,and survivor waypoints for this bot...with total 6 hours of testing these 4 maps...i love the bot.........

.......Tundra is just a non happening map.....they ignore the whole right side no matter what you do....its just the gay layout. it should be thrown out bigtime. i hate it thoroughly now(put it in there with de_wallmart and its like-named copies...WHERES THE WAYPOINT SOULFATHER?????) grrrrrrr.

in dust i finally understood why they camp so long:
they are simply waiting for the odds to even out. the last 2 will camp until theres only 2 left on the opponent team......then they move.....so its ok.....but many sit for a long time.......sometimes a group of 5 of them will just SIT, all on the same spot(and they arent stuck!). thats a bit too overdone but in a sense that decent team work.

[sPlOrYgOn]

they reload excessively sometimes..
right when something blocks the enemy from view they start reloading and even if it only blocks the enemy for less than a second.. so they end up facing the enemy reloading..
and sometimes they don't reload.. i saw a bot walk around a long time with 1 bullet left in the clip... the bot runs into an enemy and fires the last bullet and reloads.. while jumping up and down going around in circles..

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

I agree I'm clueless on why A* performs bad on Tundra. I think that's because the map space is unfarily distributed. At the surface there is a lot of space, hence a lot of waypoints, and all paths are relatively straight. This makes a lot of possible paths for the pathfinder to choose from (since this can't be seen as ONE big path, but a lot of them, like a web). And underground, the passage is only ONE path, and it's so twisted I'm sure it's much longer to walk it than to choose from any other path at the surface. I've been trying to do my best for 2 days to tweak this stupid pathfinder but so far I only succeeded in raising the CPU usage without managing to find the final solution. The playability of this map has greatly improved anyway ; now the VIP alternates all the possible routes at the surface, either on the left or on the right, up the ramp to the rescue vehicle or through the arch, one side or the other of the T building, and sometimes downstairs, but I must say it is very rare. It's a vicious circle anyhow, the more often the VIP reaches the rescue point with these routes, the more likely he'll take them again.

de_dust, however, is now perfect. I play it with modified SoUlFaThEr's waypoints (I added paths up the staircase and on the left of the ramp at the T spawn point and put one or two waypoints more under the tunnel) and the bots alternate routes, either the whole team rushing altogether, or splitting in several squads. The bots spread on the map completely, which is very nice. And the waypoint editor does NOT crash anymore now, I tested it thoroughly : if you manage to make it crash, I make myself a monk.

Here's the changelog:

+ Fixed shitloads of crash causes in the waypoint editor. Now when you edit
waypoints, all the bots are frozen. And once you save and exit editing mode,
the map restarts in order to recalculate the visibility table.
+ Made the spawn points display a translucent player model in wP editing mode.
May help waypointers when they want to put one waypoint at each spawn point.
+ Fixed buying code that was stuffed up in CS 1.5 because of the bots not being
able to use the same buy shortcuts as real clients.
+ Miscellaneous (very) little fixes in Austin's waypoint editor.
+ Waypoint editor: now displaying INCOMING path connections in brown (according
to an idea from SoUlFaThEr)
+ Fixed bots taking the hostages only to the last rescue waypoint placed (first
waypoint in the linked list). Now the bots take them to the closest one.
+ Added "autopath on/off" command to toggle automatic pathwaypoint creation.
+ Added "autopath setradius N" command to enlarge/shrink the automatic
pathwaypoint placement radius.
+ Tweaked the A* pathfinder so that the bots pay more attention to dangerous
routes and choose different paths as often as they can
+ Added a console command/podbot.ini file option to tweak the bot's pathfinder:
"danger_factor" (an explanation is provided in the podbot.ini file)
+ Removed obsolete "newmap" command.
+ Denied creation of pathwaypoints from any waypoint to itself.
+ VIP bot will now have a "coward" personality by default (no more VIP rushing
with that ridiculous pistol straight in front of hordes of AK47-armed Ts).
+ Fixed a bug where checking for waypoints validity after modifying them would
unfreeze the bots while still in waypoint editing mode.
+ CT bots now react immediately when they receive the "bomb planted" message
+ CT bots don't decide to camp anymore once the bomb has been planted
+ Fixed bug where bots would not pick up the C4 anymore when they see it
+ Terrorist bots now go and pick up a dropped bomb as soon as they receive the
dropped bomb message and they see the blinking point on their radar (unless
they've been scared off, or another good reason though).
+ Terrorist bots now reevaluate their goal immediately as soon as they receive
the message "someone picked up the bomb".
+ Rewritten player collision code, bots should avoid each other a little better
+ Tweaked some timers so that bots should camp a bit less now.
+ Fixed bug where bots would not alternate their camp directions.

I'm sorry for the problem of the plugin not reloading, but I really can't reproduce it.

Also I feel worried that you say the bot navigation is worse than before, because honestly I didn't touch anything there ! Are you sure of this ? Can I have a demo if possible (and if you can make the same demo with podbot 2.5 so that I can compare) ? I really don't see what may have gone wrong in the navigation code, but if it needs to be fixed again, I'd be glad to have some reference to compare it to.

There is still a bug with the bots when they decide they are going to camp and another bot reaches their camp point before them. The bots then don't seem to be able to change their mind and keep jumping up and down in front of the occupied camp point, wahey-its-my-camp-point protesting style. This one is a trickier one though.

Uploading the bot as usuals at
http://racc.bots-united.com/releases/podbot.zip

*edit* Feel free to tell me what works and what does not, because I haven't had the time to test each fix individually.