Designated builders: Feature design

[next_ghost]

I'm still waiting for some response about !reservebp behaviour.

[Paradox]

First, could you add a !listdesignated function, then reservebps?

[next_ghost]

New SVN829 patch is in Bugzilla, designated builders now have 'D' (designated or incognito permanently designated) or 'P' (permanently designated) flag in !listplayers. Designated builders are also notified when somebody tries to decon a protected structure.

[Vector_Matt]

New SVN829 patch is in Bugzilla, designated builders now have 'D' (designated or incognito permanently designated) or 'P' (permanently designated) flag in !listplayers. Designated builders are also notified when somebody tries to decon a protected structure.

Sweet! GJ whoever did that.

[Paradox]

Can you email me a compiled patch like you did for the earlier version. Now you have updated this, it is EXACTLY what sst needed in the first place.

[Jaradcel]

next: That alert doesn't seem to be working for me. Unless I've been REAAAALLLLYYY fortunate (ya think? ) to not see someone deconning the base.....

Could be broke, but I wouldn't have a clue why.

[stalefries]

This is awesome!

[next_ghost]

next: That alert doesn't seem to be working for me. Unless I've been REAAAALLLLYYY fortunate (ya think? ) to not see someone deconning the base.....

Could be broke, but I wouldn't have a clue why.

Be more specific, please. What server, what version of designated builder patch, and most important of all, were you a designated builder when somebody tried to decon something?

[next_ghost]

Continuation from here.

Let's see, when someone reserves 20BP, it means that until the reservation is lifted, non designated builders cannot build anything, unless there is at least 28BP available ( for turrets, medi, DC ) or 30BP available ( for the rest ). This lasts throughout the whole game, no matter what happens until the number of BP reserved is changed. Ie, until you detect a problem ( no designated builder left in the game ) or until a designated builder selects a new value for the "reserved BP" variable.

I'd prefer one-time reservations that get modified by building/deconning and when all reserved points are spent, they get cleared. Map-long reservations should be a special case which has to be explicitly requested when you reserve build points. Map-long reservations should also be absolute, not relative to the total amount of free build points.

The rest of the DB stuff refers to the buildings locked by a designated builder. I suppose that when you decide it is time to unlock all buildings, then you should also reset the "reserved BP" variable to 0, nothing more, nothing less.

Stof, you don't understand the problem. Let's have a few designated builders in a team who either have a gun and can't switch to ckit or they're dead and can't spawn. The only guy with ckit is not a designated builder and there's an active reservation. What should happen now? If nothing happens, this situation creates a denybuild-like construction deadlock which is BAD. Resetting the reservation manually is not an option because it simply takes too long, just like /allowbuild.

And again, what should happen when all designated builders leave or lose designation is obvious.

I (and many others I know) tend to avoid servers with designated builders and protected buildings.  Although it takes care of some problems, it creates way too many other issues.

Too often the builder, after base building is complete, takes off to fight, doesn't maintain the base and no one can do anything about it.  I've also been on servers where the builder gets a phone call and parks himself in a corner for the rest of the game and no one can do anything about what was already built.  This is especially a problem when it comes time to convert some turrets to Teslas or if a move is made at S2.

It's not a big problem now as we just don't go to those servers, but if too many servers adopt this SSM, then I see it becoming more of an issue.

You can /teamvote designate another builder anytime you want. Just don't be lazy and type the damn command in the console. Problem solved.

[Stof]

Ah ok, I understand better what is the problem

Well, in my mind, no designated builder should reserve all BPs anyway. It is more for a small reservation like 8,10 or maybe 20 at max. Thus, it is very probable that in the advent of a desperate situation as you desribe that the reservation wouldn't kick in and thus let anybody build the missing telenodes.

Maybe that's all it takes : limit the max number of buildpoints reserved to 20.

Or put a limit to the reservation effect in duration. Say, no more than 2-3 minutes and then you have to refresh it.

[next_ghost]

Well, in my mind, no designated builder should reserve all BPs anyway. It is more for a small reservation like 8,10 or maybe 20 at max. Thus, it is very probable that in the advent of a desperate situation as you desribe that the reservation wouldn't kick in and thus let anybody build the missing telenodes.

Maybe that's all it takes : limit the max number of buildpoints reserved to 20.

Or put a limit to the reservation effect in duration. Say, no more than 2-3 minutes and then you have to refresh it.

That would make the reservations pointless. The purpose of reservation is to keep noobs from building crap while you're busy building something else and there's a lot of free build points (eg. after the other team destroyed half of your base). Any crap. If you limit the reservation to some magic number, the builder will have to find the crap built from build points he couldn't reserve and decon it again.

And the reservation timeout is not a solution. Even 10 seconds of construction deadlock could mean the difference between survival and loss.

[next_ghost]

Designated builder binary and patch (TJW and credit share included) is finally hosted on http://kocour.veprov.cz/download. There're 6 links at the bottom of the page:
- complete game.qvm binary which runs on KOCOUR-CZ
- 3 links to tremded (one for each platform), you don't need that if you have installed TJW already
- SVN871 sources, the last SVN server release compatible with 1.1.0-based clients
- complete patch for SVN835 from which the binary game.qvm was made

English version of that page and modification details will follow later. For installation instructions, see TJW's installation instructions.

Edit: Updated links to SVN871 release.

[vcxzet]

I hate that patch
admins tend to abuse it

[treminator]

next_ghost, great post.  I agree with everything you said, but I have a different philosophy to your approach: I've long since believed the initial design weakness of tremulous was allowing more than one builder anyways.  Just one commander in other mixed RTS/FPS games like "Savage: The Battle for Newerth" worked quite well, for all the problems you already outlined.

If I may, I say:

i. Only allow 1 designated builder each game (or x% amount of builders based on build points).  Really, no more than say 2 for even those servers pushing the BP boundaries with 150 or more.

ii.  At map start, in this priority make that designate assignment:

(a) Designate from the previous game is assigned that role again for this game.

(b) Query master or host server for regular player names (or GUID) against kick votes (or whatever other determinant) for that player.

(c) Randomly select from a pool of players on each team.

(d) or others.

iii. Immediately after a game starts, team vote can call a server side !allowbuild vote for any one player or the designate himself (even from spec) can !transfer designation to any other player (overriding the prior automatically assigned one).

iv. Most importantly, push spawning players off nodes/eggs automatically so others may spawn (or redesign the spawn interface entirely).

I already know what you're thinking too: what happens when those builders die.  Who repairs?  Who builds?  Well, just reallow the ckit at the armory for all other players until the designate(s) respawn, or even newly spawned humans can grab a ckit if the designate(s) is dead, and a build expiration timer starts for all those other non designates.  The same timer starts for non designate aliens who spawn as grangers too. Well, now you understand the importance of a builder (as it should be now with tremulous but isn't).  You need to protect him.  You need to help him.  Shoot, if need be, beef up the blue ckit pringles can to a stasis gun, temporarily imobilizing aliens in base.  Likewise, even give s1 grangers a trapper like spit as well.  For either stasis addition (on aliens or hums), that defense weapon would only be effective in or around some buildable, like a turret or repeater or egg or whatever.  

Otherwise, (like you say) you just have a bunch of players fighting eachother over build points or griefing servers into oblivion.  And how many times have we asked in game, "Who's building? Who's repairing?" or "Why isn't anyone building? Why isn't anyone repairing?" Is multiple builders really what makes for fun game play anyways?

[treminator]

And by the way, !denybuild really isn't too effective, imho.  Nor can server operators or admins be on all the time.  I say let the players decide who they want as their sole builder.  Elect your own king! Power to the people!

[n00b pl0x]

And by the way, !denybuild really isn't too effective, imho.  Nor can server operators or admins be on all the time.  I say let the players decide who they want as their sole builder.  Elect your own king! Power to the people!

that would work, but this is tremulous. most players are stupid.

[treminator]

Stupid is as stupid does, sir.   Tremulous is like a box of chocolates.  Sometimes you try them all 'til you find the cherry.

[Paradox]

Bleah, artificial cherry.

[next_ghost]

Time for some necromancy exercise.

I've updated designated builder for SVN1006 and mark deconstruct. The patch is here. No precompiled QVMs are available at the moment.

New features:
- two new functions for test for decon/mark/unmark permissions and for permissions to free a marked buildable and use those buildpoints
- UI scripts for use in vote menus (somebody will have to change the menus though)
- mark deconstruct is now abused to prevent buildpoint stealing

When somebody builds useless crap on the other side of map, a designated builder can simply protect it and mark it. Only a designated builder will be able to free those buildables and use the buildpoints then as long as the marked buildable stays protected.

[Lakitu7]

Oh, damn, I should have uploaded my update of your patch back to bugzilla so you'd find it. It might have saved you some work in the updating-for-svn department. Sorry about that. Glad to see you're still maintaining it.