[Potato Uno]

So a few custom mvm maps have some spawns that cause the robots to get stuck on the map. This makes the wave impossible to continue without using the server console since the stuck bot is ubered or hidden in their bot spawn and cannot be killed by any conventional means. The map makers made the map a couple years ago and are unable to be contacted to fix the issue.

There is a bot stuck detector plugin out there but that's not a completely satisfactory solution (it is an ok fix for the time being) because, while it kills bots that are stuck, it will drop the money inside their bot spawn where nobody (not even the scout) can pick it up. Plus, this can be exploited (although difficult to do) by purposely making bots (like, say, a boss robot) be stuck in one spot (player/sentry blocking to name a few) so that the plugin will auto-kill it. In addition, on maps that spawn bots on the mostly-stuck areas, this can auto-kill a significant portion of the wave and make it very trivial to win.

So my question is, with those info_player_teamspawn entities for team BLU (the robots in MvM), is it possible to edit the location of those entities so that I can make the bots spawn in a place that will not make them stuck? (Via some hard-coded plugin or something, that is.) Anyone have any ideas on how to solve the problem, either directly or via some workarounds? Ideally none of them should involve editing the bsp file for that will make the server reject clients with the older [broken] version of the map.

One idea I can think of is making sourcemod spawn a bot spawn with a custom name (spawnbot_sm) and then rewriting the pop files to spawn robots only on those places... but that sounds like a crappy fix (nor do I have a clue how to do that).

Thanks!

[Chdata]

stripper source

[MasterOfTheXP]

Originally Posted by Potato Uno There is a bot stuck detector plugin out there but that's not a completely satisfactory solution (it is an ok fix for the time being) because, while it kills bots that are stuck, it will drop the money inside their bot spawn where nobody (not even the scout) can pick it up. Plus, this can be exploited (although difficult to do) by purposely making bots (like, say, a boss robot) be stuck in one spot (player/sentry blocking to name a few) so that the plugin will auto-kill it. In addition, on maps that spawn bots on the mostly-stuck areas, this can auto-kill a significant portion of the wave and make it very trivial to win.

...gg.

You could possibly use Stripper:Source to change where the info_player_teamspawn entities are, or a plugin could be made which checks if players are actually stuck in the world, and then teleports them up a little bit if there's room.

[Chdata]

I might add that stripper:source will let you do /whatever you want/ with entities in a map, without clients needing to redownload the map or anything.

Just use entspy in conjunction with it.

[lingzhidiyu]

use spawn tools 7

[Mitchell]

make the map right the first time before distribution..

[Potato Uno]

Originally Posted by lingzhidiyu use spawn tools 7

That is for CS:S. This is TF2.

Originally Posted by Mitchell make the map right the first time before distribution..

You're complaining to the wrong person. That is what I should be doing to the mappers in the first place. However, they made the map in like 2012 or 2013 and disappeared, so that's not an option.

Originally Posted by Chdata I might add that stripper:source will let you do /whatever you want/ with entities in a map, without clients needing to redownload the map or anything. Just use entspy in conjunction with it.

This is probably what I will have to do. Perhaps even trash the bot spawns and redo them from square one all over again.

You can also use hammer and vmex to decompile the map and see where the teamspawn entities are located, which is more useful for visualization purposes.

Thanks for all the responses! I'll probably try it next week and report back if it worked or not.

[Powerlord]

Originally Posted by Potato Uno You're complaining to the wrong person. That is what I should be doing to the mappers in the first place. However, they made the map in like 2012 or 2013 and disappeared, so that's not an option.

I don't suppose you (or someone else) has the vmf file that the BSP was compiled from?

[Chdata]

If you can't decompile it or something, there's always the origin keyvalue in entspy + going around ingame to see.

[Potato Uno]

Originally Posted by Powerlord I don't suppose you (or someone else) has the vmf file that the BSP was compiled from?

Nope. They aren't required to provide the vmf file... there's no GPL for map making. The only case I get a vmf file is during a tf2maps contest entry where they must post the vmf, or if they accidentally inserted the vmf inside the zip file download.

Originally Posted by Chdata If you can't decompile it or something, there's always the origin keyvalue in entspy + going around ingame to see.

I can decompile it, but only to visually see where the teamspawns are (get their x,y,z coordinates) and to see their properties. Recompiling it is not a good idea.

Either I can make stripper delete the offending spawns and move them elsewhere, or just outright delete them and redirect the pop file spawns elsewhere (manually editing the pop file).