Flare Extinguisher (Pyro flare exploit fix) v1.2 (7/06)
 

Flare Extinguisher periodically removes all lingering Pyro flares from the game. This is useful on 24/7 map servers where flares can stick to certain surfaces, leading to a crash vulnerability (for really persistent players) and generally degrading framerates for all players.

An example:

http://www.2fort2furious.com/images/tf2_flares.jpg

Configuration

• sm_fe_rate (default "180")
  • Interval to wait, in seconds, between extinguishing flares

Commands

• !fe
  • Immediately extinguish all flares (requires root admin access)

Installation

1. Copy flareextinguisher.smx to your SourceMod plugins directory (addons/sourcemod/plugins)

Version History

• 2008-07-04 - v1.0
  • Initial release
• 2008-07-05 - v1.1
  • !fe is now a root admin command
• 2008-07-06 - v1.2
  • Updated flare extinguishing method to avoid removing active flares
  • Fixed bug in which multiple timers may be created on non-24/7 servers

Re: Flare Extinguisher (Pyro flare exploit fix) v1.0 (7/04)
 

great thx

Re: Flare Extinguisher (Pyro flare exploit fix) v1.1 (7/05)
 

Wouldn't this screw some people over when they're trying to hit somebody?

Re: Flare Extinguisher (Pyro flare exploit fix) v1.1 (7/05)
 

Its better than crashing the server!

Re: Flare Extinguisher (Pyro flare exploit fix) v1.1 (7/05)
 

You could probably do this a better a way by checking how many flares a player has active (using the m_hOwnerEntity datamap), and if they have over X active, remove all of them for that player. That way those people who are shooting them to actually play the game won't get denied their legit flare.

Re: Flare Extinguisher (Pyro flare exploit fix) v1.1 (7/05)
 

I belive this would only affect them if they happen to be firing at someone at the exact time the flares where flushed. I did have people trying to crash my hosts the last couple days with this exploit and it has definetly helped out since I added it lastnight. Any host that runs a 24/7 or very long last maps should consider running this to just purge out the stray flares and other malicious attempts.

-Teddy

Re: Flare Extinguisher (Pyro flare exploit fix) v1.1 (7/05)
 

This is a good idea, but the probability of a legitimate flare disappearing when sm_fe_rate is set to a reasonable interval is so low as to not justify the computational expense of doing so.

Ideally, there would be an entity creation hook for TF2...

Re: Flare Extinguisher (Pyro flare exploit fix) v1.1 (7/05)
 

You could check the velocity of the flares before removing them? Ones moving could be assumed to be in flight and can be ignored.

Re: Flare Extinguisher (Pyro flare exploit fix) v1.1 (7/05)
 

Incidentally, I considered that when initially writing the plugin but saw that the only property that looked relevant (for CTFProjectile_Flare) was "m_vInitialVelocity", which I assumed would never change and wouldn't be useful. In the interests of getting the plugin released quickly, I didn't look beyond that. Is there something I'm missing?

One hackish approach would be to record the m_vecOrigin, wait a bit, and then see if the m_vecOrigin remained static.

Re: Flare Extinguisher (Pyro flare exploit fix) v1.1 (7/05)
 

Been seeing this a lot lately. -.-
Thanks floor master.



btw, loving the DOD:S server. :P
I'm not sure how long that game will hook me for though. I still prefer TF2.