ASE Filter editing

[DG]

Maybe existing ones can be fiddled with.

g_voteflags <- i think relic left from rtcw?
g_heavyweaponrestriction <- change to include an index including etpro restrictions
g_antilag - no longer relevant

3 i think could do it well enough
(1) bitmask for "key" vars like b_wolfrof, anticheat, realhead...
(2) some index for heavyweap restrictions;
(3) some invention to broadly indicate b_levels_whatever perhaps, but dont think this would be possible in a useful way, other than to indicate "default" vs "fiddled with"

[Ragnar_40k]

I would like to see some progress report (as hex word).
Maybe the remaining time for the map and some progress bits. E.g. for fueldump: 0=warmup, 1=grate blown, 2=tank over bridge, 3=tunnel door destroyed, 4=depot gate blown, 5=side wall breached, 6=map finished.
These progress bits are set via mapscript and could be parsed together with the time into a single number. And I think there will be some bits left for server cvars, like b_wolfrof, b_noskillupgrades b_realhead or the nr. of players to start a round.

[DG]

what do you need that for? Cant really see anyone filtering by wether the wall is blown, and matchbot type stuff can be done via serverside apps.

According to ETPro team there are basically NO spare severinfo vars, so unless they start pulling rabbits out of hats my best guess is only option is for fidding with the existing vars.

[ReyalP]

Note that shortening the names of some of the existing ones would gain a bit of space.

g_antilag is unused in etpro, but the etmain server browser may expect it. Other stuff that gets filtered on in the etmain UI might also cause problems if removed or put in a different cvar.

Charge times look like a good candidiate. Instead of g_medicChargeTime, g_engineerChargeTime etc. you could have g_chargetime "<medic charge time> <engineer chargetime> ..." Or to maintain some human readability
g_chargetimes"m=<medic charge time> e=<engineer charge time>" etc.

Weapon limits could be encoded in a similar way...

[bani]

cvars can be changed or omitted, but you have to be careful not to break old browsers eg etmain.

dont think any browsers care about chargetimes, so that could be consolidated.

[Noobie]

cvars can be changed or omitted, but you have to be careful not to break old browsers eg etmain.

dont think any browsers care about chargetimes, so that could be consolidated.

Chargetimes could be argued against in much the same way as b_wolfrof. I think we need to re-evaluate the problem. IMO the problem atm is that competition players want to know if a server is running according to a defined set of rules; competition rules. Why not make an optional cvar then that is set if a server follows a specific set of clan-rules?

One problem with this is how to identify these rules; what comes to my mind is the ETpro config validation checksum. If a server has an optional cvar set that matches the validation checksum of say ClanBase 6 on 6 rules, people will know that b_wolfrof is 0, chargetimes are normal etc. This basically is about pre-defined configs that are known and much used, like build in configs.

Problems I see with this is that the checksum might be too long. Maybe it can be truncated to say the first 10 chars only? Also this is a bit more difficult to make for the ETpro team. In my eyes tough this is a worthwhile adition, especially if TWL/CB/whatever is out there make a new config set that designates servers as a valid practice server.
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Penny stock

[DG]

Weapon limits could be encoded in a similar way...

Would it be effective to filter that way though?


iirc ET browser has a filter tied to g_heavyweaponrestriction, but maybe aggregating in team_max would make it work better (it's intended function is already half-broken by ETPro shifting most of the restrictions to other vars). The additional difficulty though is making an index figure where it's vaguely comparable to etmain's g_heavyweaponrestriction. Such a figure would be pretty abstruse, but nothing new there.


Noobie, I assume you're looking to be able to filter for public servers that run setups similar to some specified league? I assume that would be next to impossible, at least unless you want it to be exact, bar obvious settings required for pub

[Noobie]

Noobie, I assume you're looking to be able to filter for public servers that run setups similar to some specified league? I assume that would be next to impossible, at least unless you want it to be exact, bar obvious settings required for pub

I am suggesting a pre-defined set of configs availible for people to filter on (personally I don't care since I do not play competition). As ETpro is balancing more and more between a public mod and a competition mod and the complaints about additional cvars continue, I think of this as one possible solution.

For example clanbase rules are (amongst others):
-> no XP
-> 1 panzer/mortar max (per team of 6)
-> no wolfrof
-> no pronedelay

If a config is made following those rules (call it clanbase-training) and if ET servers return a unique handle to indicate this config is used, then there is no need to add a lot of extra cvars to the serveroutput; nor is there a need for a bitflag variable. It might be difficult because there needs to be an agreement on the settings in the config and stuff, but this is up to clanbase and other leagues. I dunno if this is viable or not, hence the discussion.
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Jailbroken

[DG]

basically you mean extending autoconfig?

easy enough I guess, chuck a load of .config's into the .pk3 and make 'config' a public var*. The hard (impossible?) part is deciding what to put in them, and what to leave out. It would mean people filtering with it would filter out servers that have very similar configs however, or even identical ones if server just didnt use the provided config in order to set it - in short, it'd need to be very widely supported by admins to make it worth doing at all IMHO.


* edit: or not? if it used .config then presumably server wouldnt then be able to use the .config system and have it all work out usefully?

[Lekdevil.NL]

Hmm... I don't think this is gonna work out. Combine the ever-increasing number of ET Pro cvars, with an ever-increasing number of possible server configurations, with a limited amount of space in the server infostring, and you end up with a fairly daunting task to produce anything that's both usable and easy to maintain.

DG's idea of advertising the .config file in use might work in principle, but is obviously only useful to the player when a well-known (league) config is being used. When every server admin starts creating his own .config file, being able to see that "BigFragFestServer10MapCampaignConfig" is loaded won't be of much help.

Personally, I think a good system that enables the player to read the server settings should be developed, akin to the Quake3 OSP \settings command. Granted, this does not help with filtering servers without actually connecting to them, but it does offer a comprehensive overview of all the server settings in an easy-to-read format. Especially when non-default settings are clearly marked (as they are in Q3), a player could very quickly determine whether a server is configured to his liking.

Example:

[Lagger]

lekdevil, that is a very good solution

combine this with the config info and some sample config files posted on the forum..

and lastly an encouragement to use informative server names, such as 'oldskool rtcw style \o/' or 'mind-numbingly long campaigns!' perhaps even 'i'm just plain old vanilla' or 'party-panzer <3' and the list goes on