POD-bot back into shape.

[CoCoNUT]

Last week I did waypoints for cs_downed_cz with podbot 2.5/metamod. I optimized them with the old Podbot (CS 1.5). The waypoints worked perfectly, absolutely no error-messages. I played with these waypoints for several hours myself. Now I tried your latest podbot-release- and I get "no-path-found"-messages over and over, and I don´t know why. The bots don´t seem to use any camping-waypoints. Please be careful- maybe the old camping-code is bad, but we have not enough high-end-waypointers to do waypoints for the thousands of maps out there.

Maybe you can get rid of all of these podbot-limitations by creating a new bot with a completely new waypointing-system and editor. Your podbot_mm from 03.26. works VERY fine.

Please always keep in mind the waypoint-compatibility with old pod-waypoints.

Anyway, great work so far. Keep it UP!
Thx for all the hard work you put into this project.

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Oooooh no... OMG, nooo... tell me it ain't true... all those camp WPs again?!? *Me takes rope and goes looking for a sturdy tree* :'(

CoCoNUT has a good point there: There aren't many waypointers around there who a) know and use your PB plugin and b) don't suck . It will take a lot of time to redo all camp WPs in all the maps I waypointed so far.
Pierre, I think this might be a point where we (mostly you, actually) ought to wait a minute and think what's better:
1) Dropping "legacy" PODBot compatibility for enhanced features (but only corrected camp WPs may not convince ppl that it's worth the change).
2) Keeping the bot compatible with PB waypoints, at the same time sacrificing some neat features.

Of course the ideal solution would be one that fixes the camp WP problem without giving up compatibility, but if you say it's impossible I trust you.

One little consolation is that if the plugin no longer is fully PODBot-compatible, all WPs made for it will be something exclusive, and new high-quality WPs won't have to face so much (90% shitty) competition. However, in this case I suggest that the bot be distributed under a new name to reduce the danger of a waypoint chaos - old PB ppl downloading CoCoNUT's or my plugin waypoints and players of your bot running into trouble with old WPs which they thought would work as well... If anyone searches the web for WPs, he will need a chance to easily distinguish between those that he can use and those he can't use.

Gee, I hoped my 100th post would be a happier one...

[sPlOrYgOn]

or maybe all the podbot based bots can adopt the camp waypoint fix then all the new podbots will all be compatible.

[Whistler]

Thanks, but I've found another l33t code in the Quake1 engine, although I don't quite understand it but it works...

 float	anglemod(float a)
 {
 #if 0
 	if (a >= 0)
 		a -= 360*(int)(a/360);
 	else
 		a += 360*( 1 + (int)(-a/360) );
 #endif
 	a = (360.0/65536) * ((int)(a*(65536/360.0)) & 65535);
 	return a;
 }

[SoUlFaThEr]

leave that camp fix/adjustment in there!!!!!!!!!!! just go in and erase all those camp spots.....this bot chooses its own camps spots anyway even if there isnt a camp waypoint there.......and they choose wisely actually. a simple fix

even if we have to fix our best maps(yer never going to play all of them anyway)........i am now presently fixing camps on these officials that i just spent 6 days doing........but the way these camp spots work now......i DONT CARE!!!!!!!!!! they are going to be EVIL cuz im making them aim in headshot range already.(you can aim them up and down, its placed where you point!!).......i got 15 maps done already.....both as_ and all cs_ are finished......

dont take it out PMB.........these are separated already with a name guys......

its "podbot2.6mm" so sites will have 1 podbot section and 1 podbot2.6mm section on thier sites to differentiate......
and whoever else is paying attention to this bot are simply among the Elite.....people will follow what's GREAT, not whats "o.k."......

its only a question of time relax

besides.....with the adjustments so far to the editor......im waypointing a map in 2/3's less time than before and they are even more exact than before also.....(that is if im not tired hehe ).....this simply means it will take on much faster...and i wont be the only one noticing this. me and Austin worked on these editormenus for a good while.......and the things are awesome speed increasing options!

@CoCoNuT:
a small bit of advice on your waypointing.
after seeing what you did with the new CS1.6 maps.....you need to turn off that autowaypoint function FOREVER. learn to place by hand.....and you will have good waypoints........there was nothing but bad connections everywhere......no radii adjusted...no bad connections erased......you will see how easy it is to do GOOD waypoints without autowaypoint on.......and using the new menu option to adjust the pathwaypoint set distance before placing waypoints.....which will stop the bad connections!!

so easy now!

its much easier than you think try it out.....T-Wrecks was listening to me and look at his work now!!!

A minor annoyance I just noticed... when bots chat, the corresponding lines in the log files appear to have some sort of newline character in them, at the end of the chat message, so it looks something like this:

L 04/02/2004 - 19:13:21: "Johnny<167><0><CT>" say "I hate these stupid comments, Joe!
" (dead)

This is with a version dated 3/22. Anybody else notice this? Everytime I notice a bug I check here and there's already a fix for it... maybe this is one I find first?

I haven't tested the latest fixes yet, I'm eagerly waiting for some improved waypoints first, but overall I'm amazed at the performance of this bot Keep up the excellent work

edit:
AFAI can tell, this is true for every bot-chat message...

[SoUlFaThEr]

i may need 2 more days for those standard map waypoints for you......with camp spot fixes...

sweet!!

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Well... first I'm gonna finish my custom map WP pack for ALL PODBots, i.e. with the old camp WPs. I'm almost done anyway.
Then I reckon I'll start again for the new MM PODBot. *siiiigh*
So they really aim at where you pointed the WP, right? Even at the corresponding height. Tell me more about that... do you specify a single point now, or a certain angle like before? How does that height thingy work when you want a bot to monitor a slope when camping? What's a headshot against a bot standing halfway up the slope then would be a bullet into the ground if the enemy is on top of the slope, and in the best case a "hat-shot" (if those bots were wearing sombreros) if the enemy is standing at the bottom.

@SoUlFaThEr: Now that you'r into the waypointing stuff again, how do you think about joining forces in order to provide an "officially approved custom map WP pack" packed with 2.6 MM PODBot? I suppose there's a nice number of custom maps you already waypointed, and in the case of those maps it will be faster if you fix your existing WPs than me making them all new. I would then add my WPs for custom maps (with new camp flags, of course), and the result would already be a nice bunch of WPs. Then we could see which kick-ass maps are left and decide who does which map... How does that sound? Just occurred to me, it might save ppl some trouble and ensure they get good stuff, so that the qualities of PMB's bot really show. Let me know how you think about it...

[Austin]

Originally Posted by >BKA< T Wrecks

@SoUlFaThEr: Now that you'r into the waypointing stuff again, how do you think about joining forces in order to provide an "officially approved custom map WP pack" packed with 2.6 MM PODBot?

I think this is an awesome idea. I would do everything I can to support your efforts including putting in any more changes you may need into the wp editor. Plus I have super pro map installers I can make for each map. Two clicks and they are correctly installed on anyone's system. Check one out here:
Austinbots.com/maps
Go ahead and run one. I would like some feedback to make them even better, but I think they already have everything they need. The great thing is I wrote a program that scans all maps in the maps folder and then makes sure all the associated custom files needed by the map are available then it GENERATES these exe map installers automatically. WOW! This means I can generate the installers for ALL maps in my maps folder in a minute or two. Having these installers is FINALLY helping to get people who play on my server, to install custom maps.
I would really like to see this happen and I think in fact it already is happening.
A review of the lets say the top 100 best custom maps for bots, with totally debugged perfected waypoints to match, all with no-brainer 2 click custom exe installers and all hacked to supports 28 bots teams!
WHAT DO YOU SAY!!!!
GoGoGOGOGO!