CTF / StyBall / Shooting Patch

the pig · Post by **the pig** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 3:08 am

Hehe, that config will be buggy. The blink time is the period between when blinks start. The time that the flag is visible is determined by the speed, start, and end sizes. By setting start and end to the same value with a speed, the server will turn the flag on and then off very very quickly, and then repeat that 0.01 seconds later.

While that will work, it will probably cause some issues such as people sometimes not seeing the flag, etc... It is also quite a bit of network traffic, because you're sending 2 updates every 10 ms, or 200 flag updates every second.

I'm going to change the flag blinking around a bit and give you a better way to do what you wanted. Hopefully with less network usage.

the pig · Post by **the pig** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:26 am

Ed, I updated the patch in the first post of this thread.

You can also get the new code by just adding the two source files to the armagetronad/src/tron dir and recompiling. You'll also need to add the new player_flag_timeout message to the language file, get rid of FLAG_BLINK_SPEED in the config, and add FLAG_BLINK_ON_TIME and FLAG_BLINK_TRACK_TIME to your configs.

I changed the flag blinking so that instead of specifying a speed, you specify how long you want the flag to be on for that blink.

I also added the FLAG_BLINK_TRACK_TIME config to allow you to have regular updates to track the cycle position. I wouldn't set this below 0.2 as it will probably get laggy.

I also added FLAG_HOLD_TIME which is disabled by default (-1). If you set this to a value in seconds, the flag will go back home after that amount of time. I don't plan on using it, so let me know how it works out.

ed · Post by ed » Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:06 am

Thanks Pig, that's great.
I've not had a chance to test it with a full server, but the flag is now very smooth. A little behind on turns but that's understandable.
The time limit seems to work a treat too.

couple of things.
That problem I had before with double patching. I think it's the patch that's at fault. I'm no expert, but looking at the patch in a text viewer, it seems to double patch some of the new files.

I'm a little confused by something. If I have the following settings, I'm trying to get that dimishing flag I was talking about:

FLAG_BLINK_TIME 60
FLAG_BLINK_START 1
FLAG_BLINK_END 0.00001
FLAG_BLINK_ON_TIME 60
FLAG_HOLD_TIME 60

The flag hold is 60 seconds. The flag blink on time is 60 seconds, not sure what flag_blink_time does, but if I don't have it, I can't see the flag when I pick it up.
The flag size ought to be at 100% when it's picked up and (next to) 0% at the end of the blink 60 seconds later. I'd have thought.
Only it doesn't get smaller.
Any idea's?

edit: if I set FLAG_BLINK_START 0.1 and FLAG_BLINK_END 1 it grows quite happily over 60 seconds, but won't shrink.

Also, not sure I'd use it anyhow, but is there a way to disable the "flag must be on it's spot to return your flag" scenario? Just take it home and you're done?

the pig · Post by **the pig** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 12:36 am

ed wrote:That problem I had before with double patching. I think it's the patch that's at fault. I'm no expert, but looking at the patch in a text viewer, it seems to double patch some of the new files.

Bummer, seems TortoiseSVN doesn't like making patches for files that don't have original versions. I'll have to separate those new files out of the patch and provide as is.

ed wrote:Only it doesn't get smaller. Any idea's?

Refer to my previous post. With current client limitations, I can't support a diminishing flag blink without causing issues. The code does not accept an end that is smaller than the start because of this.

ed wrote:Also, not sure I'd use it anyhow, but is there a way to disable the "flag must be on it's spot to return your flag" scenario? Just take it home and you're done?

Sure, I'll add a config for it in the next patch.

the pig · Post by **the pig** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:03 am

Posted a new patch at the top level post.

New configs:

Code: Select all

FLAG_REQUIRED_HOME 1       # (0,1) if set to 1, all your team's flags are required to be at home position before you can score
FLAG_DROP_HOME 0           # (0,1) if set to 1, when a player drops a flag it gets sent home instead of staying where dropped

Also, I made a couple of changes. Every admin KILL / KICK / BAN command outputs a message to the server console to track what mods are doing.

The resource / config files are now in the zip instead of in the patch for easier patchiness.

ed · Post by ed » Mon Sep 18, 2006 11:20 am

Crazy Tronners Wild Fortress is now using the modified version of 0.2.8.2.1.
I've not enabled any of the new features (yet).
Just seeing if any strange things happen there.

ed · Post by ed » Wed Sep 20, 2006 3:30 pm

Well it seemed to work without problems with the modified code.
There's all kind of strange things going on at CT Wild now.
Shooting, Zombies, CTF.
Though, I'm not sure CTF and fortress mix very well. Unfortunately over at CTHQ we're unable to cope with the amount of traffic 2 busy servers generates. We can't run both anymore.
I've turned off respawning as it doesn't work so well with so many people playing. Rounds can go on too long and the fps gets lower and lower for some people.
I would like to have options like (just something to think about):
PLAYER_DEAD_TIME: mininum time a player must be dead before he/she's respawned.
RESPAWN_MIN_TIME: mininum time between respawns.
MAX_RESPAWNS: maximum number of respawns per team (or player?)/round, use them wizely.

Then the respawning could be controlled, not just free for all.
How about a respawn zone? instead of just respawning via a fortress zone? Could set the respawn zone off somewhere.

Other than that, great mod. I love the shooting and zombie features especially. Thanks Pig.

kyle · Post by **kyle** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:21 am

Another think i noticed while playing a nano level that zombies go to fast with low speeds; Other levels it goes way too slow.
Anyway to make a setting ZOMBIE_SPEED

the pig · Post by **the pig** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:43 am

Kyle - there is a ZOMBIE_SPEED setting already.

Ed - Ok, I can add the player dead time and minimum respawn time. The others will take a bit more work. The respawn zone in particular I'm not crazy about as the zones are already fairly confusing.

Probably won't get much time to add those in though for a bit.

EDIT: The way I solved the respawn issues on my server was a rapidly expanding death zone after 5 minutes. Not a great fix I know, but it works :B)

kyle · Post by **kyle** » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:26 pm

I only saw that death zone 1 time that i played

ed · Post by ed » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:41 pm

I used the dz solution on the CTF server when it was up.
Before I sped up the dz's growth rate you were able to respawn your enemies into certain death and amass many points. It was very funny.

Kyle, I know how to get shooting working properly on nano, all the settings are there, just needs tweaking.
Just seeing if shooting works on CT Wild. I love it, but I'm not too popular with a few regular players.

Thanks Pig, I look forward to the changes.
One more setting that someone asked for that might be useful:
RESPAWN_NUM_PLAYERS so you can only respawn a set number of players per spawn.
This alongside RESPAWN_MIN_TIME would make it very configurable. For possible inclusion on some regular (wild) fortress maps.
Make things very interesting.

the pig · Post by **the pig** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 7:26 pm

I haven't gotten around to making the respawn changes yet, but I posted my latest patch on the top level post.

It has support for respawn reminders, dropping the flag via "/drop", and the "/help" command to spout out the server HELP_MESSAGE.

Luke-Jr · Post by **Luke-Jr** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 11:54 pm

why not spawn death zones within the bases? that'd solve your problem

I fixed up the patch to work as just a regular patch file (not a ZIP full of stuff), and that's attached and running on levopede (my Europe host)... within 15 minutes, bugs ran loose! =p

<wrtlprnft> and look at the log shortly after free kill joined
<wrtlprnft> and right before that i was in my zone with nemo's flag, and i got three points, the flag spawned on me, and i picked it up again

... and he got 500-some points this way ;p

the pig · Post by **the pig** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 1:31 am

Luke-Jr wrote:<wrtlprnft> and look at the log shortly after free kill joined
<wrtlprnft> and right before that i was in my zone with nemo's flag, and i got three points, the flag spawned on me, and i picked it up again

... and he got 500-some points this way ;p

Any clarification on that? From what I read, the flag spawned inside the enemy base? I've never seen that before...

Also, it is strange that the patch didn't apply cleanly. Where were the conflicts?

EDIT: Seems to play fine. Looks good to me.

Luke-Jr · Post by **Luke-Jr** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 4:37 am

here's a patch to latest 0.2.8 code including automake fixes.