[chinagreenelvis]

Less Than 4 Dead allows less than four players to start an online game with no survivor bots. New players who join once the current players have moved out of the starting area are respawned and then teleported to the location of a random living survivor. They are given a random weapon. Survivors whose players leave the server are removed from the game until another player joins.

Cvars
lessthan4dead1, 0: Disable plugin, 1: Enable plugin
lessthan4dead_maxplayers1, Maximum number of players to allow on the server. This should always be higher than lessthan4dead_survivors. Additional plugins are required to enable more than four players.
lessthan4dead_survivors4, This is the number of survivors the game will start with.

Recommended additional plugins

• AutoHelp: Survivors help themselves from special infected attacks and incapacitation
• Common Infected Regulator: Decrease or increase common infected numbers depending on the number of living survivors
• Special Spawn Regulator: Regulates and randomizes the spawning of special infecteds
• No Death Check Until Dead: Prevents mission loss until all survivors are completely dead

[do0g]

Hi chinagreenelvis, thanks for this.

I don't mean to rain on your parade but it occurred to me that perhaps a neater approach would be to kick the survivor bots from the server, and add a new bot when a new client connection event occurs?

[chinagreenelvis]

No raining done - that was also something I had considered, but I don't know how to do it.

I guess you'd have to

1. remove all survivor team bots before any clients connect (not sure if you could do this if running from a local server) Edit: actually, director_no_survivor_bots would probably take care of this and the rest would be the workaround for the crash)
2. add a survivor bot when a client connects
3. remove the bot if the client disconnects before joining
4. remove the bot that is left behind when a client leaves the game

I'm trying to think of any consequences this might have. There might be some issues with bot_player_replace and someone who goes idle.

If someone could figure out how to do it this way and make it work, I'd be all for it.

[chinagreenelvis]

I need to figure out how to

a. quietly add a survivor bot when someone connects to the server
b. quietly kick the last created survivor bot when a client disconnects

[do0g]

How about using "sb_add" on client connect?

[chinagreenelvis]

I'm close to discovering a way to prevent bots from being rescuable:

PHP Code:

public OnPluginStart() 
{ 
    HookEvent("survivor_call_for_help", Event_SurvivorHelp);
}

public Action: Event_SurvivorHelp(Handle:event, const String:name[], bool:dontBroadcast) 
{ 
    new SurvivorHelpClient = GetClientOfUserId(GetEventInt(event, "userid"));
    if (IsFakeClient(SurvivorHelpClient))  
    {
        new SurvivorHelpEntity = GetEventInt(event, "subject");
        RemoveEdict(SurvivorHelpEntity);
    }
} 


This works without the IsFakeClient check, but it doesn't work with it. I'm not sure why.

Also, I don't know how to put the SurvivorHelpEntity back into the game once it's removed. I'll need to be able to do that if a new player joins in.

[chinagreenelvis]

Huh. Apparently the entity resolves itself when a human takes over and a player controlled survivor becomes rescuable again. I don't have to add a thing.

I am, however, having issues with bot_player_replace. It seems when a player goes idle, he or she is killed, which is annoying. On top of that, I had a client leave the game and the bot he left behind stayed alive.

[Edit: It turns out I had it backwards and should have used player_bot_replace for when a bot takes over a player.]

[chinagreenelvis]

Also, regarding the bot kicking method, I've come to find that a newly joined player will spawn in addition to a bot instead of taking it over, which still results in a crash. On top of that, there are numerous timing problems when it comes to player connects and disconnects. In the end, this way will work out much better.

[chinagreenelvis]

Having issues with bots not getting killed on map restart and idle players are still being slayed.

[chinagreenelvis]

I scrapped the instakill idea at round start in favor of a more dramatic approach. (Also, I just couldn't get it to work properly and it looked stupid.)

The better solution: survivor bots are now extremely vulnerable to enemy damage, so much so that they are almost guaranteed to die instantly, leaving only the human players to continue the map.

Have fun!