BETA: Race to 7

[RPG]

Author: RPG

Description: Here's a beta version of the Race to 7 plugin used by the mofo league. I made it. It's configurable to a point, but to configure it, you'd have to change vaiables in the source and re-copmile. In the future, it will be able to take configs. Please test this out as throughly as you can.

When the plugin is loaded, type /match help to see it's only documentation.

I'll write more documentation on it as soon as I get more time. Ask A-D about what it can do.

Files:

[JeffM]

moved to dev, because the plugin isn't ready for release.

[optic delusion]

It's a flag capture league scoring plugin.

Among other things, it;
Keeps track of team flag captures, and when seven is reached, it reports directly to the league website, time, score, and which players were involved.
Restricts new player joins to observer, while a match is in progress.
Allows admins to reset a match in progress, {otherwise if a match is started, and all players leave, the server locks out all players, forever.}
Gives appropriate warnings, to those attempting to do the wrong thing.
Does not score TK-flag captures.
Has limited help. use /match help

It is restricted to windows servers, with a very current CVS, as the appropriate API's are only available there. (I want to use it on my mac so, very, bad)
It has no concept of team names, It knows red and blue only. no green or purple.


It should be mentioned that the code started as a patch, and was converted to a plugin, so it's definitely very messy. It doesn't conform to any conventions.

I'll be doing a second beta test ASAP.

[Tropican8]

Testing will be done at 1badplayer.no-ip.org:4201. Hopefully it will be set up for a 9:50 match tonight. Feel free to go into observer mode and watch it in action.

[Tropican8]

Few problems RPG:

1. You compiled the dll against the debug versions of the VC runtime dlls, I had to go find them all.

2. (EDIT:Ignore this one, I need to read directions more)

3. That version of BZFS seems to not allow people to be on the server. Wes and Meteorite were testing with me and kept getting kicked. The plugin wasn't even loaded yet. I've checked my groups and everything else. Is this a bug or compile error? Pretty Weird.

[[dmp]]

Few problems RPG:
2. The plugin doesn't work. Trying to run /match gives the "this is not a command" message bzflag gives you. I don't think /loadplugin racetoseven is actually loading it for some reason

I replaced all the libraries and bzfs exactly like you said. Dunno what's wrong.

Try "/match help".. (no kidding). "/match" alone does not work, you need to give it an argument.

[optic delusion]

Wrong answer, deleted.

[RPG]

I forgot to change the compile mode from "Debug" to "Release". Oops. Next release will have:

1. Support for the /match command. It will no longer say "No such command".
2. Admins will be able to join the server as a player during a match.
3. It will be compiled in "Release" mode.... lol.

If you have any things you would like to see in the plugin, leave them here, I'm itching to add stuff to it.

Tropican8, your "plyaer's can't join the server" is an all too common Windows bug.

[Tropican8]

Tropican8, your "plyaer's can't join the server" is an all too common Windows bug.

Wonderful, right after I had DTR fix the global reg bug for me What's the ETA on Mac plugin support?

[JeffM]

linux has had plug-in support since the day it was added to the code.,

[optic delusion]

Testing on Darth Vader's Planet Mofo server now. {linux, and yesterday's cvs}
Seems to work ok, the beta sends all match reports to me!
It seems to know if a green or purple flag is captured, it prints the score, but only keeps score for the red and blue teams.

[I_Died_Once]

Well the game me and someone had with the purple flag wasn't completed (I'm not sure how it reports) but there was a couple of flag caps.

You guys need to make super sure you put in the docs that this plugin may very well crash a non-CTF game, be it FFA or rabbit hunt. It did mine.

/match end

does NOT work. We need to have the flexibility to, should you need to, suddenly end a match and resume normal game play.

Don't be sloppy, guys, and "realease" this until you fix all this, and make it completely work right

If there are three teams wanting to have a match on a 4 team CTF game, then they should be able to do it. It should also -autoTeam others who join in to observer.

Another idea for this would be to have info submitted when a match is completed sent to some sort of "official" scoreboard on the main site, or make it configureable. Or at LEAST do custom releases to people as requested. RPG can edit a .txt file and change out an email or a server & port it submits info to, and he can run "make" and create them an .so or post how to edit out such information for yourself.

Maybe even make it configureable so you can make it a "race to 3" or "race to 137"

This has potential, guys. I'll host and do all the beta testing I can, yo.

[optic delusion]

Except for the "/match end" part it already works damn well for my purposes, The Planet MoFo League. It was designed especially for me.
Keep in mind that it started as a patch, and was converted to a plugin, it's gonna be dirty. Also, don't look four a four team version anytime soon, but it's perfectly feasable to do.
The seven, in race to seven, was a number pulled out of a hat by me. It already is a variable, inside the plugin, but the plugin does not accept configuration, at this time. You could put your number in and re-compile, or wait for RPG to make it configurable.
Race to Seven matches (with manual scoring and the "passion" map) have come in between 16 and 29 minutes. There has been some discussion about making it "Race to Seven- OR 22 minutes".

Vader, have you seen Meacon's "ticket" plugin?

[RPG]

Well the game me and someone had with the purple flag wasn't completed (I'm not sure how it reports) but there was a couple of flag caps.
I'm building in support for 4 teams to play on it.

You guys need to make super sure you put in the docs that this plugin may very well crash a non-CTF game, be it FFA or rabbit hunt. It did mine.
Only when I can verify that's 100% true

/match end

does NOT work. We need to have the flexibility to, should you need to, suddenly end a match and resume normal game play.

You have to be logged into the server with /password in order to be able to use it. The API doesn't have a good permissions system yet. When it does, the perm MATCH_END will be used for groups you want to be able to end matches.


Don't be sloppy, guys, and "realease" this until you fix all this, and make it completely work right
We'll test it throughly before it's let out. That's why I made a beta

If there are three teams wanting to have a match on a 4 team CTF game, then they should be able to do it. It should also -autoTeam others who join in to observer.
The plugin can't move people from team to team. That includes moving people to a certain team when they join the server. Once a match starts, everyone is locked out from playing. In the future, admins will be able to specify weather players will be able to join.

Another idea for this would be to have info submitted when a match is completed sent to some sort of "official" scoreboard on the main site, or make it configureable. Or at LEAST do custom releases to people as requested. RPG can edit a .txt file and change out an email or a server & port it submits info to, and he can run "make" and create them an .so or post how to edit out such information for yourself.
When a match is ended, it is sent via HTTP POST to a PHP script I wrote, that BZMails the match info. to both me and A-D on the league site. Cool, isn't it? Whenever you finish a match, we get the report.

Maybe even make it configureable so you can make it a "race to 3" or "race to 137"
There's a variable that you can change so it changes the cap numbers. In the future, there will be a conf file where you will be able to set that.

This has potential, guys. I'll host and do all the beta testing I can, yo.
I like feature requests. Feed them to me.

[I_Died_Once]

I ran this with today's CVS. It gave me this yesterday also, I just didnt notice

Plugin:/home/death/bzflag/plugins/racetoseven.so found but expects an older APIversion (9), upgrade it
WARNING: unable to load the plugin; /home/death/bzflag/plugins/racetoseven.so


So RPG - could ya make it work? I install CVS verions on top of each other, so all i got is todays (which is incompatible) and the last stable, which does not support plugins.

[optic delusion]

I'm guessing, as usual.
Plugin needs recompiled for the new API, or
You can choose cvs version by specifying the date, when you cvs.
Someone told me you can cvs BZFlag 1.1, if you have the date right.

Once you get a CVS version that works, stick with it, cvs changes daily, that's not a guess.

[RPG]

The API changes almost daily. When the API changes, I have to change the source of the pluign to make it inline with the change. My betas my last a few days at most.

Right now there is an issue where I can't compile BZFS. Without compiling BZFS, I can't get the library file I need compile the pluign. No library, no plugin.

This isn't really a good time for this to happen, either, as I just added a few major things, such as adding a /set variable for the plugin, and giving it 4 team support.

Beta 2 should be a big step up from beta 1, when it can get compiled

[I_Died_Once]

RPG, if you can, send me the source and I can run "make" for ya

...if'n thats what you need...

[optic delusion]

Here's My Thoughts on how four team operation should be handled.

It counts in reverse. You start with -n and go to zero.
First team to LOSE -n flags, they are not allowed to spawn. etcetera.
This would make defense a valuable skill, one player would have to stay home at all times.
With the current setup, one team could simply pick on the weakest team.
If you had the base farthest from the weakest team, you'd have virtually no chance of winning.
It should be that one team dominates ALL of the other teams. Not just the weakest one.

I know you can specify more than one team flag, but I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to have all -n in operation simultaneously. That would be insane. My server wouldn't run with three team flags.
Play might just work out really well with just two flags per team. Players shut out first wouldn't leave the server, but wait for the next match.

We should test the plugin with more than one team flags specified. From what I know about how the plugin operates, I think the event handlers will have no problem with it.
And someday prepare a version without the league BZmail notification.