PB: "Block with hostage" ignored by Bots?

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Hello Pierre-Marie!

First of all, I'd like to THANK YOU for your cool MM plugins - I'm currently using some of them and they all rule!
However, in your PODBot plugin I noticed one problem that already existed in other adaptations of the latest PODBot source codes such as POXBot (R.I.P.?): On cs-type maps, CT bots tend to ignore those "Block with hostage" flags, jumping into vents after activating the hostages and stuff like that.
Now if I were a total newbie to the whole waypointing business I'd suspect myself of having f***ed up, but having waypointed more than 50 maps, I think I know what I'm doing. And I noticed this behaviour of ignoring "block with hostage" flags on maps I waypointed myself, and where I had explicitly blocked the waypoints that nonetheless were used by CT bots with hostages.
Could this be a bug in the PB source code both your plugin and POXBot are based upon? Or is it due to the fact that I have to stick to PB 2.5 to make waypoints? Maybe something gets lost when a later PODBot adaptation interprets those PB 2.5 waypoint sets?

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

I am aware that in POD-bot 2.6, Count Floyd broke the "block with hostage" feature of his waypoints. Hence subsequently all the bots that were derived from POD-bot's source code WILL have this bug if they have not fixed it explicitly yet. This is not a problem with the plugins, it's a problem with the bot source code, because the plugins do not modify the bot's intents, only its behaviour. What a bot intends to do is defined by its AI and only it, no plugin can change that (well, actually, it *is* possible, but at the expense of so much complexity that it would be insane from a programmer's point of view, better rewrite a bot completely from scratch).

If you want bots that follow the "block with hostage" rules, use POD-bot 2.5. Michael Booth (TurtleRocker) from Turtle Rock Studios, the maker of the official CS 1.6 bots, has said he was aware that his bot code was causing trouble with pre-2.6 third party bots, and that he was about to fix that in a future Steam release, allowing people to get the old bots such as POD-bot, FreedomBot, WBot and others work again in CS 1.6. Maybe the corrective patch has already been dispatched through Steam, I don't know.

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Oh, okay. So it is as I feared. Yeah, I can understand that it would be too much trouble to change that - which explains why all bots based on the latest PODBot source code show this behaviour.
I won't go back to PB 2.5, however. All in all, later bots are still better than PB 2.5 because of their more authentic behaviour. Besides, it was boring to play as-maps with PB 2.5, since the VIP always took the same route (unless you made him follow you with radio commands).
Nah, I'll stick to your PB plugin for MM. Concerning the bots' movement and behaviour, it's at least as good as POXBot, and besides it's much more stable and reliable, and you don't have the console full of stuff that doesn't interest you if you just want to play with bots.
Btw, are you planning to include a waypoint-editing mode? I suppose not, since you are so busy answering stupid questions here and working on your RACC-AI project etc. - and it's easy to switch back and forth between PB 2.5 and your PB plugin... just asking...

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Would you mind trying this new podbot DLL ?

I have made a quick and dirty hack to enable the experimental A* pathfinder and also enable the bot to discard paths that hostages can't follow. It's a 5 minutes hack and I haven't even tested it, so don't be surprised if it doesn't work.

If it does, you should see the bots choose much more varied (and hopefully tactical) paths than before, due to the A* pathfinder, and they should now stop trying to get the hostages follow them through unpassable waypoints (well, I hope it will work, anyway).

[botmeister]

Originally Posted by Pierre-Marie Baty

Would you mind trying this new podbot DLL ?

I have made a quick and dirty hack to enable the experimental A* pathfinder and also enable the bot to discard paths that hostages can't follow. It's a 5 minutes hack and I haven't even tested it, so don't be surprised if it doesn't work.

If it does, you should see the bots choose much more varied (and hopefully tactical) paths than before, due to the A* pathfinder, and they should now stop trying to get the hostages follow them through unpassable waypoints (well, I hope it will work, anyway).

The old pb addbot cvar is gone. How do you get bots added into a dedicated server?

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

it's not an ugly CVAR anymore, it's now a real dedicated server command

The syntax is the same:

pb addbot

...but I suspect you're using the (mEAn) mod to manage the bots, and that the (mEAn) mod must want to set a CVAR using CVAR_SET_STRING ("pb", "addbot"), right ? well, don't. Type your commands by hand, or use pfnServerCommand ("pb addbot").

[botmeister]

Nope, it issues a server command. However I suspect the problem is that the old CVAR system (yes it was ugly) required the arguments be wrapped up in quotes. I'll remove the quotes and that should fix it.

Is this a fully functioning bot upgraded to work with cs 1.6?

*edit*

It now works once I took out the quotes.

[>BKA< T Wrecks]

Ooops... several hours at work, and the thread is already two miles long...

Well, what can I say? Muchas gracias, Pierre-Marie! I just downloaded that cute little dll thingy and... and... *runs to the game pc to install and test*
Guess I won't be able to tell you more before tomorrow, but I'll definitely try this "dirty hack"! Thanks again!

[botmeister]

Originally Posted by Pierre-Marie Baty

Would you mind trying this new podbot DLL ?

I have made a quick and dirty hack to enable the experimental A* pathfinder and also enable the bot to discard paths that hostages can't follow. It's a 5 minutes hack and I haven't even tested it, so don't be surprised if it doesn't work.

If it does, you should see the bots choose much more varied (and hopefully tactical) paths than before, due to the A* pathfinder, and they should now stop trying to get the hostages follow them through unpassable waypoints (well, I hope it will work, anyway).

Bots just jump up and down at spawn. I'm using the original POD waypoints so perhaps that is the problem ... or it could be due the latest Steam update.

I give up until Steam stabalizes once again.

I wonder if it's worth building bots for CS. It seems hardly anyone plays anymore and these Steam updates are getting on my nerves. What other games allow 3rd party bots anyway?

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

this bot DLL has not been tested with Steam yet... CS 1.5 works, though.

What other games ? Well, lads, look around, and when you're finished give me a few months and a few fellow coders to back me up and I'll show you one, a game that supports bots.

United Admins is moving towards incorporation... rhaaa... makes me jealous.