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Waypoint Forum A place to request waypoints for a specific map, or to check on the progress of waypoints for your favorite maps.

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Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints
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the bindlestiff
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Default Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints - 15-03-2006

I've had similar problems with the route system. See my earlier post in the forum "Can't make my routes work!" for some history. You need to take some care in placing the alt-roams. If that is done correctly the bots will follow your routes when they choose to do so. The keyword here is "when." They are supposed to randomly choose between the pathactions supplied to the route node, but my experience is that they will usually go the shortest way regardless, but sometimes will take your specified routes.

I have tested this many times. For a dynamite action, say, by setting all of the pathactions to the same route, running a team of 10 or so engineers with no enemies to obstruct them, and repeatedly restarting the game while following them each time to see what percentage go where. With all the pathactions the same they should always take your route, but they don't. About 80% of the time they'll take the shortest way even if it's not the specified route. Very frustrating, to say the least, when you want to control the flow of the game! I think that it's a bug that needs some looking at.
  
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Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints
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CrapShoot
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Default Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints - 15-03-2006

another point I forgot to mention is the route radius. It should cover a large enough area so that they are inside it when they get their goal to be used with the route (route_action).

I've never seen the issue you describe bindle. Could it be a route radius that's too small that is the cause of this?
  
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Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints
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Maleficus
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Default Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints - 15-03-2006

Routes are team specific, you can't make them for both teams currently.

1 = Axis
2 = Allies

Routes are random, its literally determined by a random number generator as to which is picked, the code looks nearly the same as this snippet of psuedo code below:

Code:
 Route_Chosen = rand() % (NumAvailable_AltRoutes);
There is no magic in which alt roam action is picked, its one line of of code.

Make sure the Goal Group of the alt_route action is a valid one (i.e. its not -1). It can be ANY number other then -1, else its considered turned off.

Make sure the radius of the route itself encompasses where ever the bot is - the bot's WHOLE body should be well inside the radius.

Make sure the route itself points to a valid, active action goal.

Consider how you place/space the alt_roams, as I detailed in another thread.

Cheers!


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Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints
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Valiant
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Default Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints - 15-03-2006

It seems to me now, in retrospect that the majority of the variables that need to be set - I have done. My big point of confusion was the exactness of the alt-roam's placement and figuring out if they have any kind of inobvious limitations.

In the longrun I think my real issue here is that I've misconstrued the meaning of the route system alltogether. You see, in my mind I thought that you were essentially highlighting a particular path as one preferred path to a given goal. Meaning, if you have four paths, and I place a route with an Alt-roam on path #2 and #4, the bots will recognize those two paths and give them priority over other possible paths. I also loosely assumed that the bots habit of taking the shortest possible route is a reflex action when no routes (marked paths) are available. Apparently this is ALL wrong.

The reality as best I can figure is actually this:
Four valid paths to action 1 are available. Path #2 is the shortest, I add my route pointing to action 1 - and place alt-roams to designate paths #3 and #4 as optional courses for that route. What happens now is that the bots take Path #2, and at their whim decide to take #3 and #4 as optional, but available ways to get there. Giving no particular priority to them just because *I* thought they were important. The bot is headstrong, and thinks for itself which is obvious in other aspects of their behavior. I'm slowly catching on that I'm not so much teaching the bot how to play the game - the code does that - as I am giving him a cheat-sheet for where the goodies are on the map and a quick list of ways around the solid stuff heh.

At any rate. There's still a few minor quirks to be ironed out here and if anyone finds anything majorly wrong please, please, tell me so I can at least attempt a fix. The attached zip contains a minor tweak to the aiscript and miniscule variable changes in the .nav file. This will likely be my last update for the time being unless anyone offers good advice, points out a catasthrope I overlooked or later on I spot something horribly wrong myself.
Attached Files
File Type: zip mp_schwalbe_Beta_Update3.zip (7.4 KB, 296 views)


The way is made clear when viewed from above.
  
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Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints
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Maleficus
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Default Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints - 16-03-2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Valiant
You see, in my mind I thought that you were essentially highlighting a particular path as one preferred path to a given goal. Meaning, if you have four paths, and I place a route with an Alt-roam on path #2 and #4, the bots will recognize those two paths and give them priority over other possible paths.

I also loosely assumed that the bots habit of taking the shortest possible route is a reflex action when no routes (marked paths) are available. Apparently this is ALL wrong.
2 more bits of info and caveats that may help to clear things up more.

1. Using the route system - its all or nothing. i.e. if you have 4
paths available to reach a goal, you HAVE to define alt roams for all 4 paths, IF you want the bot to possibly use those 4 available paths. Else, if the bot finds a route for its goal, it uses only the routes defined. So, if you only have path 2 and 4 defined, and not 1 and 3, they should only use 2 and 4. If they are not using the routes you defined- then there is some problem that I need to know about and fix ASAP.

If you feel you've found a problem, the best thing to do is clearly define what the problem is: let us know exactly where its having the problem, and how to trigger it so we can see it. As Bindle can prolly atest, I have no problem going into bug squashing mode if you can give me a clearly defined problem and how to reproduce it.


2. Only certain actions in Fritz Wolf are able to be routed to, and only certain classes will use them. Obviously, if you try to route an dynamite action, only engs will use that info, other classes will go and do their own goals.


The bot's pathfinder takes the shortest path to EVERYTHING, whether it is its own goal, or the route you provided, so your assumption is correct.


I know we've all been kind of unreachable lately with all of our work on Fritz ET, but I will try to help as much as I can if you can tell me where the specific problems are.

Cheers!


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Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints
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the bindlestiff
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Default Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints - 17-03-2006

I've been focused on completing my new computer for the past two weeks, so it's taken some time to get back to waypointing. The new FX-60/Geforce 7800GT is now online!

Here's some hard data about the route difficulties that I've observed. I've seen it in all the maps where I've used routes, but the easiest one to test is my original effort, mp_zion. There is a route #0 at the Allied spawn point that directs the engineers to take either of two paths to the dynamite objective. One is outside the chapel door (alt_roam #9) and the other is inside the door (alt_roam #8. The inside route is the most dangerous, so I'd llike the bots to mostly use the outside route that goes over the boxes and down to the outdoor patio. I have the pathactions set to "8 9 9 9" which should result in the engineer bots going inside 25% of the time and to the outside 75%.

I test this by kicking all the bots, then loading a special engineering squad of 10 Allied engineers. Restart the map and watch where they go. Repeat 10 times, which gives 100 bot trips through the route random-number generator, which should be enough to get a reasonable statistical count.

1. Results for the "8 9 9 9" scenario:
bots going outside - #9 = 32
bots going inside - #8 = 68

Not even close to 75/25 is it?

2. Changed the pathactions to "9 9 9 9 9 9" which should result in 100% of the bots going via #9.
Results:
bots going outside - #9 = 23
bots going inside - #8 = 77

This should have been 100/0.

3. Changed to "8 8 8 8 8 8"
Results:
bots going outsideto - #9 = 38
bots going inside - #8 = 62

This should have been close to 0/100.

4. Changed to "8 9"
Results:
bots going outside - #9 = 47
bots going inside - #8 = 53

This is the only case that looks right. The others make no sense at all. Either I'm doing something wrong (not at all unusual) or there is a bug in the code.

I hope someone else could repeat these measurements to verifiy my findings or not. I've attached my engineering squad to save you a little time (just remove the .txt extension)

edit: noticed that I had the wrong bot file attached -- fixed!
Attached Files
File Type: txt USengSquad.cfg.TXT (173 Bytes, 301 views)

Last edited by the bindlestiff; 17-03-2006 at 07:52..
  
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Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints
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CrapShoot
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Default Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints - 17-03-2006

Typically if I want to add 'weight' to a path, I add additional alt_roams along that path. I'm not sure if adding the same alt_roam as a pathaction multiple times is even valid tbh.

So say you have 2 paths that you want them to take, and one which you want them to take 75% of the time. For this, I would have 4 total alt_roams; 3 along the preferred path and 1 along the less desireable one.

Last edited by CrapShoot; 17-03-2006 at 06:45..
  
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Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints
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Maleficus
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Default Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints - 17-03-2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by CrapShoot
I'm not sure if adding the same alt_roam as a pathaction multiple times is even valid tbh.
Actually you prolly could, because I only check that you define a valid alt_roam action, not what number that alt_roam action is.

That prolly could be used to "stack" the bot's preference of one path over another, without wasting precious actions.


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Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints
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the bindlestiff
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Default Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints - 17-03-2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maleficus
That prolly could be used to "stack" the bot's preference of one path over another, without wasting precious actions.
That was what I was trying to do, but as you can see from the data, it doesn't work.
  
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Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints
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Maleficus
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Default Re: mp_schwalbe (BETA) Waypoints - 17-03-2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by the bindlestiff
There is a route #0 at the Allied spawn point that directs the engineers to take either of two paths to the dynamite objective. One is outside the chapel door (alt_roam #9) and the other is inside the door (alt_roam #8. The inside route is the most dangerous, so I'd llike the bots to mostly use the outside route that goes over the boxes and down to the outdoor patio.

I checked your map to see if there was a problem with the route code.

You have 2 dynamite actions, 0 and 1. You only provide a route for dynamite action 0, NOT action 1. The other route in the allied spawn was for the document goal. No route was provided for action 1.

Remember - routes will only be used by the bot IF it points to the action the bot wants to accomplish. In this case, sometimes the bots decide they want to plant on action 1 instead of action 0, and since you have no route info for action 1, they just take the shortest path to it. Action 1 is a valid dynamite goal at map start, so it can and will be chosen by the bots at times.

When they went to plant on action 0, then they always used the route info. I tested this 100+ times, by deactivating action 1, then setting timescale to 7 and adding/kicking/re-adding 20 engs bots, with the same, correct result everytime.

By adding some route info for action 1, you will get the results your looking for.


Cheers!


BTW: I extended the route system in ET so that one route could point to multiple actions, as well as multiple paths, which helped a lot to prevent the confusion with trying to route multiple actions like in this case, as well as saving precious actions for other things.

Unfortunately, adding this ability to Wolf would break most of the current nav files, so prolly won't ever be added.


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