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

[der.zoomer]

Hej there, I've been around here for a time as guest, and I really like RC Bot2 for TF2.
It works like a charm (most of the time tho...)

And to improve this bot, I have some suggestions here:


Arena Mode:
- Bot check time until capture point is available
else they would all rush to the capture point and stand there
- on my dedicated server (same binaries) they dont seem to capture points, even theyre doing it on a listen server with SAME waypoints and scripts

Snipers:
- make them sound sensitive to visible players again, they just stand on their sniper pathnodes and dont move/shoot even if there are enemy guys all over the place


Soldier:
- he shouldn't use his shot gun so often


Heavy:
- fix this god damn heavy aiming, the heavy has like 0 recoil and can hit a target with 100% accuracy (every bullet hits, even if the minigun has a large spread fire cone)
- heavy should check for distance to the nearest enemy (needs testing, because there are classes that you should take out in favour of others)


Spy:
- spies should try to melee attack enemies from behind with knife when possible
- when spies try to cap (CP, CTF, PL) they should remove their disguise


Medic:
- make medics heal more, than attacking, make them sensitive to "call for a medic" event and let them stick with this guys as soon as he is healed or even buffed
- let medics use their ubercharge when their current healing target is being attacked: event player_hurt


waypointing:
- let bots check for visibility between path nodes on calculating paths to the target
ie. when a door is closed, this path is blocked and they'll choose another path or another target
could be a problem with doors where you can see thru though... but that will eventually render setarea and givetype areaonly useless. (needs testing, because of defense points/sentry points/teleporter exit points)
this is implemented by using the "givetype openslater" waypoint type, but bots can see through EVERY door! (even though they are closed) so it doesn't work, an engine bug maybe
- a waypoint type for an alternate route would be nice, so the bots dont attack only by one path, maybe with priorities, so 1 is main path, 2 a good alternative and 3 an alternative, but less good than 2 or even 1 but possible....
I've implemented "route" waypoint types for next version, they are simple additions, so we'll see how they do after a lot of testing

Misc:
- gravity seem not to affect bots, they jump and fall like 4x faster than usual players
this is an engine bug
- when bots see a dispenser (and need supplies) they should use it
this is implemented but happens rarely


nice to have:
- bot and equipment support (use hats, other inventory you usually earn with achievements/find items)
- bot should learn how real players move around in that map

[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 !