RCBot2: suggestions, As the topic sez... some suggestions for future RC Bot releases Options

[Fillmore]

Yo Fillmore can you show us your binds so I we'll have an idea how to do it like for
example wpts binds for snipers and ladders and flags etc?

Well, I've only got waypoint adding/removing and pathwaypoint creating/removing and team restrictions binded, for the other commands I just use the console. But what the hell.

bind f1 "rcbot waypoint add"
bind f2 "rcbot waypoint delete"
bind f5 "rcbot waypoint givetype noredteam"
bind f6 "rcbot waypoint givetype noblueteam"
bind f9 "rcbot pathwaypoint create1"
bind f10 "rcbot pathwaypoint create2"
bind f11 "rcbot pathwaypoint remove1"
bind f12 "rcbot pathwaypoint remove2"

[Cheeseh]

Yo Fillmore can you show us your binds so I we'll have an idea how to do it like for
example wpts binds for snipers and ladders and flags etc?

here's some more examples I would use something like...

for waypoint areas

bind kp_ins "rcbot waypoint setarea 0"
bind kp_end "rcbot waypoint setarea 1"
bind kp_downarrow "rcbot waypoint setarea 2"
bind kp_pgdn "rcbot waypoint setarea 3"
bind kp_left "rcbot waypoint setarea 4"
...
etc

// sniper waypoint for axis only (DOD:S)
bind kp_plus "rcbot waypoint add noallies sniper"
// TF2 sniper waypoint, red only
bind kp_plus "rcbot waypoint add noredteam sniper"

[genmac]

Tnx guys! Those are very helpful.

[madmax2]

Hey Guys,

Before I start my first full rcbot2 rcw, i'd like any suggestions that will make it easier/faster to complete. Here is my current exec key binds cfg. What most useful binds or cvars, should i add to it? I don't want to fill up the keyboard with to many binds, I like to keep them away from my playing keys, plus I probably won't remember them. I may need more radius options, and is there a recommended auto radius setting, mine is defaulted to zero?

Hey, genmac, i'd like to see your key binds, could you post them? thanks...

Here's mine:

CODE

//rcbot2binds.cfg

rcbot waypoint on
rcbot pathwaypoint on
rcbot waypoint drawtype 2
rcbot_notarget 1
mp_timelimit 0
rcbot pathwaypoint disable

bind "INS" "rcbot waypoint add"
bind "DEL" "rcbot waypoint delete"
bind "END" "rcbot waypoint save"
bind "HOME" "rcbot waypoint load"
bind "-" "rcbot waypoint menu"
bind "PGUP" "rcbot pathwaypoint create1"
bind "PGDN" "rcbot pathwaypoint create2"
bind "[" "rcbot pathwaypoint remove1"
bind "]" "rcbot pathwaypoint remove2"
bind "F2" "rcbot waypoint info"
bind kp_ins "rcbot waypoint setarea 0"
bind kp_end "rcbot waypoint setarea 1"
bind kp_downarrow "rcbot waypoint setarea 2"
bind kp_pgdn "rcbot waypoint setarea 3"
bind kp_leftarrow "rcbot waypoint setarea 4"
bind kp_plus "rcbot pathwaypoint deleteto"
bind kp_minus "rcbot pathwaypoint deletefrom"
bind KP_ENTER "rcbot waypoint drawtype 0"
bind kp_slash "rcbot waypoint drawtype 1"
bind kp_multiply "rcbot waypoint drawtype 2"
bind kp_del "rcbot waypoint updateyaw"
bind kp_5 "rcbot waypoint setradius 10"

I've been using the waypoint menu a lot, for givetype's. I got used to using the rcbot1 menu, which is simple, efficient and i got fast at using it, lots of repeated key presses tho.. I know, currently, cheeseh is bug hunting, and it has been allready suggested here, but i'm adding my vote for an improved menu in some future rcbot2 release. New waypointers tend to use the menus first, so i think it might make it easier for some people to get started at waypointing.

I know some of this has allready been said , but here are my waypoint menu suggestions:

1. If it can be done, eliminate the 2 key press to get into the menu.

2. Allow multiple selections, no more auto exit on first selection, add a back/previous button too... this is actually my most desired item on the list, just doing this would help a lot... maybe just this can be added for the short term???

3. Either group simular items together with sub menus, or put the most used items/givetypes first. If you did sub menus, you could add a page for a selection of different radi. Omnibot had that in its menus, i used it a lot...

4. Add a numeric option for each button, give us the option to use the mouse or keyboard.

5. If you have to, dump the fancy graphics/mouse/button thing, for simple text keyboard input like in rcbot1. At any rate, keyboard input is faster that mouse presses, unless a back or previous button is added to the menu, and multiple selections can be checked off.

Anyways, thats my 2 cents worth, heh heh... I have a couple wacky ideas, but now's probably not the time...

max

[genmac]

Ok here are my binds that I use a lot at the moment for wpting purposes...


bind "F5" "rcbot waypoint on"

bind "F6" "rcbot pathwaypoint on"

bind "F7" "rcbot waypoint off"


bind "t" "rcbot waypoint add"
bind "y" "rcbot waypoint delete"

bind c noclip .....very important too.

bind "i" "rcbot waypoint save"
bind "u" "rcbot waypoint menu"


These are very important so I can put paths where I want them etc...
bind "o" "rcbot pathwaypoint create2"

bind "p" "rcbot pathwaypoint create1"

bind "k" "rcbot pathwaypoint remove2"

bind "l" "rcbot pathwaypoint remove1"

bind "[" "rcbot_wpt_pathdist 0"
bind "]" "rcbot_wpt_pathdist 500"

g, h, j, are reserved for path distances like 50-200 then I would overwrite them
for radiuses when finalising the wpts.



Others are all set to numpad keys...

For wpts draws...very important for me.
bind "KP_INS" "rcbot waypoint drawtype 0"
bind "KP_ENTER" "rcbot waypoint drawtype 1"

bind "KP_DEL" "rcbot waypoint drawtype 2"

for multi givetypes...
bind "KP_LEFTARROW" "rcbot waypoint givetype noallies sniper machinegun defend"

bind "KP_5" "rcbot waypoint givetype noaxis sniper machinegun defend"


others...
bind "KP_RIGHTARROW" "rcbot waypoint givetype noallies"
bind "KP_PGUP" "rcbot waypoint givetype noaxis"

bind "KP_HOME" "rcbot waypoint setradius 0"
bind "KP_UPARROW" "rcbot waypoint updateyaw"

Sometimes I forgot which is which so I just bind new ones hehe.


For bot testing purposes...
bind "." "rcbot addbot" ....all my games that has bots that's the key I always use to spawn them one at a time.
This one needs some tweaking coz it sometimes add bots too much on the other team if pressed too fast.

bind "/" "rcbot kickbot" ...This one needs some tweaking as well coz it sometimes removes bots too much on the other team
if pressed too fast.

bind "F4" "exec kickall" ...I made some configs here to kick all bots in one key stroke.

bind "F9" "exec kickallallies"

bind "F10" "exec kickallaxis"


Ok that's about most of it.


Always hit SAVE key when making wpts coz you never know dods might suddenly crash and loose all
wpting work so I always hit it a lot while my fingers hovers the keyboard.
And back up the wpt asap as well coz you never know your pc might suddenly go berzerk hehe.

[Fillmore]

-readthepostaboveyourself-

The sudden crashing is a bitch, but having rcbot_runplayer_hookonce set to 0 fixed it for me.

[Cheeseh]

The sudden crashing is a bitch, but having rcbot_runplayer_hookonce set to 0 fixed it for me.

I've made a lot of fixes and changes for tf2 in the next update, including two crash issues, hope it will reduce the crashing

as for a waypoint menu, I am working on it now, it looks like this so far. I will add more options later.

The waypoint flags shows the same colour as the waypoint. and opens a new menu to add extra types, the menu doesn't close until you press exit. The waypoint flags menu has all the colours for the types too

[madmax2]

Thanks for working on the waypoint menu cheeseh, can't wait to try it... I see radius & wpt values on the menu, numeric selection, & submenus, very nice...

@genmac
Thanks man, for your key binds & tips..

@Fillmore

The sudden crashing is a bitch, but having rcbot_runplayer_hookonce set to 0 fixed it for me.

With dods, my crashes were mostly with debug usage before the .73 update, and I havent used debug much lately. But I may of had a couple crashes, so I may have to try this? It's been so few lately, I didn't even think to try this...

[genmac]

Mine normally never crashes except when I use sourcemod dods_dm but on one custom map only so far probably some corrupted dm spawn points.

One time it crashes when bot uses a wpt capture with prone tag so I just removed that and it was ok again.

Sometimes my kid would snick on me when I take a break and would quit dods since he knows where the "quit" command is binded on hehe. But lately he loves to play dods in god mode haha!

@Cheeseh...Nice to know you're improving the menu.

[Cheeseh]

Mine normally never crashes except when I use sourcemod dods_dm but on one custom map only so far probably some corrupted dm spawn points.

One time it crashes when bot uses a wpt capture with prone tag so I just removed that and it was ok again.

Sometimes my kid would snick on me when I take a break and would quit dods since he knows where the "quit" command is binded on hehe. But lately he loves to play dods in god mode haha!

@Cheeseh...Nice to know you're improving the menu.

Hey guys have you since tried the new waypoint menu? Let me know what you think

[genmac]

Yo Cheeseh....wpt menu looks better but I can't make it work I can't even exit it even though I re-bind 9 to slot9...yeah I'm using 6-0 keys for bots stuff so probably I have to rebind them all back first.

[Cheeseh]

Yo Cheeseh....wpt menu looks better but I can't make it work I can't even exit it even though I re-bind 9 to slot9...yeah I'm using 6-0 keys for bots stuff so probably I have to rebind them all back first.

the bot should automaically bind all your 1 - 9 and 0 keys as , menuselect 1, menuselect 2 etc when you open the menu

it will rebind them all back to slot1 slot2 etc... the bot cannot pick up slot1 etc commands for some reason. so if it isn't binding your keys, you can use the numeric keypad and bind all the keys 0 - 9 as menuselect

[genmac]

Ok it's working now. Needs some getting use to though.

[madmax2]

Hey Cheeseh,

I did look at the waypointing menu and will give some feedback shortly.. I just need to play with it a bit more to give some useful feedback... I can say it's colorful, heh heh...

max

[edit]
First, thanks again for working on this. I really want to give good feedback on this, so this likely won't be the end of it... but i'll start with this... here goes...

Likes, dislikes, questions, and suggestions (DOD:s):

I like the numeric options and the fact that you show the values for wpts, such as radius right on the menus. Color is good too, but i'm not sure about the rainbow effect, maybe organize the color a bit, one or two colors per menu? Also, the dark blue is kinda hard to read on my crappy monitor. Larger text would help this...

Question .. why does the menu float/jitter on my screen when I move? It also often cuts the numbers in half on the left side of the screen. If I look up at the sky or down at my feet, the menu moves to the center of the screen. Is it just me & my low res of 1024x768? I would like to see the menu solidly fixed in one place on the screen..

Off topic but related: Same with debug bot hud. please fix it to one place on the screen, like rcbot1, and use a seperate visual indicator for thier location, such as bot name in bright red, white is fine though. When the bot dies, i have to keep relocating it on the screen, and sometimes it's just hard to read when they are moving.

I think the area & radius menus +/- control is ok, and I could get comfortable with it. maybe a lower option on the radius menu, around 10. I use this radius a lot for sticky places in the map, or just to give them a little more freedom of movement.. I've got 10 bound, so it's not that important to me... The yaw works ok too...

Now the really important ones... navigation & order in this menu is very important...

About the givetypes menu, the order seems awkward to me. I'd like to see things such as noallies/noaxis/defend/sniper/mg grouped together and be first. I think prone/crouch should be on same page as that group too, and jump if possible? I'll think about this one more, the first page of givetype's is very important. (oh and what is health doing there? is that tf2? I don't have tf2, so i was wondering if the order was linked to that, I hope it's seperate?...)

Also very important, more & back should allways be the same keys. 0 & 9 are good, but I'd like them reversed, it feel more intuitive. So make 0=more and 9=back. the 9=back falling back to 9=exit will work nicely together...

I'll have to play around with the other options (cut, copy, paste), but they are probably ok? #8, confused me and I got lost for a while, losing all the normal wpts visibility. Until i retoggled all the settings I changed... What do you see this option useful for? The reason escapes me right now??

All in all a good start.. I'll give more feedback on this later ... thanks...

max

[Cheeseh]

Hey Cheeseh,

I did look at the waypointing menu and will give some feedback shortly.. I just need to play with it a bit more to give some useful feedback... I can say it's colorful, heh heh...

max

[edit]
First, thanks again for working on this. I really want to give good feedback on this, so this likely won't be the end of it... but i'll start with this... here goes...

Likes, dislikes, questions, and suggestions (DOD:s):

I like the numeric options and the fact that you show the values for wpts, such as radius right on the menus. Color is good too, but i'm not sure about the rainbow effect, maybe organize the color a bit, one or two colors per menu? Also, the dark blue is kinda hard to read on my crappy monitor. Larger text would help this...

Question .. why does the menu float/jitter on my screen when I move? It also often cuts the numbers in half on the left side of the screen. If I look up at the sky or down at my feet, the menu moves to the center of the screen. Is it just me & my low res of 1024x768? I would like to see the menu solidly fixed in one place on the screen..

Off topic but related: Same with debug bot hud. please fix it to one place on the screen, like rcbot1, and use a seperate visual indicator for thier location, such as bot name in bright red, white is fine though. When the bot dies, i have to keep relocating it on the screen, and sometimes it's just hard to read when they are moving.

I think the area & radius menus +/- control is ok, and I could get comfortable with it. maybe a lower option on the radius menu, around 10. I use this radius a lot for sticky places in the map, or just to give them a little more freedom of movement.. I've got 10 bound, so it's not that important to me... The yaw works ok too...

Now the really important ones... navigation & order in this menu is very important...

About the givetypes menu, the order seems awkward to me. I'd like to see things such as noallies/noaxis/defend/sniper/mg grouped together and be first. I think prone/crouch should be on same page as that group too, and jump if possible? I'll think about this one more, the first page of givetype's is very important. (oh and what is health doing there? is that tf2? I don't have tf2, so i was wondering if the order was linked to that, I hope it's seperate?...)

Also very important, more & back should allways be the same keys. 0 & 9 are good, but I'd like them reversed, it feel more intuitive. So make 0=more and 9=back. the 9=back falling back to 9=exit will work nicely together...

I'll have to play around with the other options (cut, copy, paste), but they are probably ok? #8, confused me and I got lost for a while, losing all the normal wpts visibility. Until i retoggled all the settings I changed... What do you see this option useful for? The reason escapes me right now??

All in all a good start.. I'll give more feedback on this later ... thanks...

max

I don't know about a rainbow but I use the colours as they are the same as the waypoints (waypoint types) and you know what colours they are. I was going to increase the brightness of the colours so that dark blue is easier to read.

For the text size I can't increase it, I am using the only useful debug overlay engine available with the plugin and it doesn't allow any input on text size. see more about the limitations below (also... menu float/jitter).

for the order of givetypes, that's the order of the flags actually are in the code, so it;s easy to code it that way rather than hard coding everything for every mod. Health givetype is still available in every mod, I can remove it from dod:s if you like. I can order the waypoint types by importance next release if you'd like to do that, let me know which waypoint types you think are most important in order and I can use your ranking.

for the menu float/jitter, I can't help that, that is a debug overlay engine issue, and this is the only way I can display a menu like this in the plugin. I added some correction cvars to suit your framerate, you'd need to find these values yourself. Look at these two cvars and tweak their values a little to make it look better on your system

rcbot_menu_update_time1
rcbot_menu_update_time2

the debug hud command doesn't use the same method as the waypoint menu, it just refreshes every second, cos if I refreshed it any quicker you'd just get a messy trail of words.

the debug overlay engine does allow text to be displayed on the screen rather than point in the game, however they are very limited and don't allow colours or even multiple lines. so you'd be left with a menu entirely on one line.

Showing where the bot is in red would be good.

The reason for making some waypoints invisible or only showing others is so that you can only focus on one waypoint type, e.g. in TF2 you might have many defends, snipers, sentry points , tele exists etc at the same area with big radii so it would be difficult to see them all altogether and change their properties. Maybe its not so useful in dod:s because there aren't so many waypoint types for it like that.

for the back/menu button, originally I had it the way you said however I preferred it the other way (the way it is now) so I guess it's a preference thing and I could add a cvar to reverse it.


Bear in mind I have to code all this with the limitations in the SDK for plugins, to be honest the SDK is piss poor for plugins.
seems more like a rant I'm afraid due to the source SDK , I don't want to blame my tools but with even poor bot support having to hack my way in to getting bots to work, I feel like ranting about it !

[madmax2]

Thanks for the detailed response/info...

Bear in mind I have to code all this with the limitations in the SDK for plugins, to be honest the SDK is piss poor for plugins.
seems more like a rant I'm afraid due to the source SDK , I don't want to blame my tools but with even poor bot support having to hack my way in to getting bots to work, I feel like ranting about it !

Heh heh, rant away, I can only imagine some of the frustrations you encounter. Heck, steam alone frustrates me...

Oh, I forgot about the waypoint type colors (rainbow), I think you did mention that before...

I'll try the cvars, to tweak the jitter, good tip...

the debug overlay engine does allow text to be displayed on the screen rather than point in the game, however they are very limited and don't allow colours or even multiple lines. so you'd be left with a menu entirely on one line.

Is this feasable, getting all the debug info on one line at the top or bottom of the screen? I think I would be okay with that...? If possible?

for the back/menu button, originally I had it the way you said however I preferred it the other way (the way it is now) so I guess it's a preference thing and I could add a cvar to reverse it.

Heh heh, well I'm not sure if its worth the effort for one person, but I think I would like it better reversed from your preference. Maybe because I'm right handed???

Health givetype is still available in every mod, I can remove it from dod:s if you like. I can order the waypoint types by importance next release if you'd like to do that, let me know which waypoint types you think are most important in order and I can use your ranking.

Ok, I'll try to come up with something for the order.... Then others can pick it appart if they want to (give thier ideas).... And if health is not needed in dods (i'm new to dods, so i'm not sure about this), may as well remove it, or put it at the end of the list, if it's not hard to do...

I think some of the other waypointers should give some input too, especially on things like changing the debug bot hud to a single line, fixed to the screen, if its doable??

Thanks Cheeseh,

max

[genmac]

Bear in mind I have to code all this with the limitations in the SDK for plugins, to be honest the SDK is piss poor for plugins.
seems more like a rant I'm afraid due to the source SDK , I don't want to blame my tools but with even poor bot support having to hack my way in to getting bots to work, I feel like ranting about it !

Oh man, I'm no programmer but I can definitely feel your pain here and it's awesome you managed to give bot support especially to hl2dm and dods. I get the feeling that valve is starting to loose interest on the modding community where in fact without this mods people won't buy their games that has good mods/plugins in them. God help us once they start releasing DLC's LoL!

Anyway I'm not using the menus too much lately and my mannerism opening the menu has been change or stopped and just type out what I needed so can't really say much about the new menu well wasn't using it that much even before but it will surely help beginners.

[madmax2]

Hey genmac,

What do you think about changing the debug bot hud to single line, fixed to the screen? If it's doable? Does it bother you having it move around the screen like it is now???

[Cheeseh]

Hey genmac,

What do you think about changing the debug bot hud to single line, fixed to the screen? If it's doable? Does it bother you having it move around the screen like it is now???

hmm thanks for your suggestions anyway! Just a bit of code about this. This is the api which can be used for the screen

CODE

    virtual void AddScreenTextOverlay(float flXPos, float flYPos,float flDuration, int r, int g, int b, int a, const char *text) = 0;

the positions are 0.0 to 1.0 (0% - 100% of the screen size)
the rest are self explanatory.
but take a look at the one I use

CODE

    virtual void AddTextOverlayRGB(const Vector& origin, int line_offset, float duration, int r, int g, int b, int a, const char *format, ...) = 0;

I can specify which line, and the colour of each line, which is useful for waypoint types, I can also format the text, whereas the previous one I have to format it myself

[genmac]

Hey genmac,

What do you think about changing the debug bot hud to single line, fixed to the screen? If it's doable? Does it bother you having it move around the screen like it is now???

Hehe I don't really use that...I just go for the obvious.
I can't even seem to recall the exact command for that so plz do tell me
so I can check it out.


@Cheeseh...
wpt menu is definitely way way way better now that I figured it out how to use it.
Probably need some detailed explanation for first time users who might forget to stand or touch a wpt
first to make the menu work.