Server Help

[Doggeti]

Is it possible to move a ball without touching it ( warping the ball carrier to the new position and spec / shipchange him ) ?
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Expect the worst but hope for the best.

[wEaViL]

http://www.subspacedownloads.com/index.php?act=list&cat=22 theres 2 ball mover plugins in there. I'm not sure if this is what your looking for but they where made to move the balls if they spawn or are placed in a area outside of the map or in inclosed sections of the map.. from the description of one of them you just input the coords into the ini for the sections of the map that the bot will move the ball out of if the ball is in there.

[Doggeti]

I am not looking for already made plugins but I want to know what you have to code into MervBot to move it.
I am currently writing a plugin and it would help me a lot if I knew how to do that.

[Mr Ekted]

Bot needs to send packet to pickup ball. This only has a chance of working if the ball is loose. Then the bot has to wait until the ball is caught by someone. If it is not itself, then it must wait until the ball is passed to try to pick it up again (another pickup packet), or spec the carrier. Even that does not guarantee a loose ball as another nearby ship may quickly pick it up.
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4,691 irradiated haggis!

[Doggeti]

I don't understand this process so please forgive me if my question sounds stupid in your ears. How do I control to where the ball will be moved?

[Mr Ekted]

Once the bot has the ball (I assume whatever core you use has some "ball has been picked up by player" event), you just need to issue a ball-pass packet. To place it unmoving at a location, use zero for dx and dy (movement vector). Sorry for the vagueess; I don't know the API's for other bot cores.

[50% Packetloss]

tell(makeShip(SHIP_Warbird));//sc to ship 1
tell(makeGrabBall(0));//the 0 is the ball's ident

me->move(512*16,512*16);//tells the bot the coords you want
tell(makeSendPosition(true));//makes the bot actually go there

You might even want to turn off some stuff when the bot goes in,

tell(makeFollowing(false));//makes the bot stop following people
tell(makeFlying(true));//makes the bot stop sending it's own position BS

if you do the avove, add in event_positionhook:
tell(makeSendPosition(false));


then at end,
tell(makeShip(SHIP_Spectator));//the ball is dropped at bot's final location

[Doggeti]

Thank you very very much !

[Mr Ekted]

That will not work if the bot fails to grab the ball. A bot (client) cannot forcibly take a ball from a player without putting them into spec.

[D1st0rt]

unless you know how to forge a packet from someone else
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[Mr Ekted]

[50% Packetloss]

yah, you cant take the ball from someone else

so if(ball->carrier != 0xFFFF)
then you wont be able to get the ball. You can force a player to drop the ball by shipchanging them

[Mr Ekted]

Even if ball->carrier == 0xFFFF, there's no guarantee that issuing tell(makeGrabBall(0)); will get you the ball. Someone else may grab it first.

[Guest]

you CAN take the ball when another player is holding it... It's a subgame bug and won't work in ASSS (unless you tell ASSS to let it work), but does work in subgame.

all the code you really need is:

int ident = ball->ident;

tell(makeShip(SHIP_Warbird));
tell(makeGrabBall(ident));
tell(makeFireBall(ident, ball->x, ball->y, ball->xvel, ball->yvel));tell(makeShip(SHIP_Spectator));

the bot might "flicker" for a second over a player but it shouldn't affect the game. You also might want to prevent disable the default mervbot turret behavior... as he might kill the player he "flickers" over if this option isn't disabled.

[VampZ]

opps... forgot to press enter

int ident = ball->ident;

tell(makeShip(SHIP_Warbird));
tell(makeGrabBall(ident));
tell(makeFireBall(ident, ball->x, ball->y, ball->xvel, ball->yvel));
tell(makeShip(SHIP_Spectator));

[VampZ]

or instead of using ball->x and ball->y you can use your position in pixels and ball->xvel and ball->yvel is in pixels / 10 seconds

Sry about the triple post

[Mr Ekted]

[50% Packetloss]

It seemed to have worked, the tell(makeGrabBall(ident)); was enough to do it. Here is the code that is executed

Code: Show/Hide h->postRR(generatePowerballRequest(pb->hosttime, id));//this is what //happens after the tell(makegrabball(int)); Below are the functions clientMessage *generatePowerballRequest   (Uint32 timestamp, BYTE ball) {   clientMessage *ret = new clientMessage(6);    if (ret == NULL) return NULL;    char *msg = ret->msg;    /*   Field   Length   Description       0      1      Type byte       1      1      Ball ident       2      4      Timestamp    */    msg[0] = 0x20;    msg[1] = ball;    *(Uint32*)&msg[2] = timestamp;    return ret; } void Host::postRR(clientMessage *cm) {    if (cm)    {       post(cm->msg, cm->len, true);       delete cm;       cm = NULL;    } } void Host::post(char *msg, Uint32 len, bool reliable) {    char buffer[PACKET_MAX_LENGTH];    if (len > CHUNK_SIZE + 12)    {   // Chunk it       if (len > 1000)       {          for (Uint32 i = 0; i < len; i += CHUNK_SIZE)          {             buffer[0] = 0x00;             buffer[1] = 0x0A;             *(Uint32*)&buffer[2] = len;             Uint32 remaining = len - i;             if (remaining > CHUNK_SIZE)             {   // Chunk body                memcpy(buffer + 6, msg + i, CHUNK_SIZE);                post(buffer, CHUNK_SIZE + 6, true);             }             else             {   // Chunk tail                memcpy(buffer + 6, msg + i, remaining);                post(buffer, remaining + 6, true);             }          }       }       else       {          buffer[0] = 0x00;          buffer[1] = 0x08;          for (Uint32 i = 0; i < len; i += (CHUNK_SIZE + 4))          {             Uint32 remaining = (len - i);             if (remaining > (CHUNK_SIZE + 4))             {   // Chunk body                memcpy(buffer + 2, msg + i, CHUNK_SIZE + 4);                post(buffer, CHUNK_SIZE + 6, true);             }             else             {   // Chunk tail                buffer[1] = 0x09;                memcpy(buffer + 2, msg + i, remaining);                post(buffer, remaining + 2, true);                break;             }          }       }    }    else    {   // We're dealing with byte-sized messages now       if (reliable)       {   // Stamp reliable header          buffer[0] = 0x00;          buffer[1] = 0x03;          *(Uint32*)&buffer[2] = localStep;          memcpy(buffer + 6, msg, len);          msg = buffer;          len += 6;          if (queue(msg, len) == false) return;       }       if (clustering)       {   // Append to cluster list          clusterMessage *m = new clusterMessage(msg, len);          if (m)             clustered.append(m);          else             send(msg, len);       }       else       {   // Send right away          send(msg, len);       }    } }

[Mr Ekted]

I know how the packets work. I don't need to see the MERV garbage.

If any client can send grab-ball packet and have it work, then clients with higher ping would be stealing the ball from other ships all the time. I don't see how this makes sense at all.

[-Smong-]

Maybe because when another player gets near the ball it goes fazed so the lagged player won't even send a ball request?

[Mr Ekted]

Phasing is client-side.

[-Smong-]

Which is why the bot can get the ball as it doesn't implement phasing.

[Mr Ekted]

Yes, but that means that any client that doesn't think another player should be able to grab the ball could steal it from them. I've never seen this happen, only the opposite (both clients think the other player should grab it, so neither tries, ball phases and no one gets it).

[VampZ]

in botdll.cpp event_ballgrab:

h->postRR(generatePowerballRequest(pb->hosttime, id));

it looks like it uses the same timestamp from the last ball event... which is probably before any player could pick it up.

The server probably takes whichever one grabbed it earlier and uses that.

In either case, I've made a bot that can "steal" the ball from players... so it can be done.

[50% Packetloss]

catid says that subgame inadequately checks powerball requests. I forgot his exact words.