Questions/Issues/Feedback/Enhancements

[ngx3]

Possible refresh rate enhancement?

I once saw this bot had a refresh rate of that it stayed on every gamelist refresh. I use to use Ent host bots to host games, I found the refresh rate was decent, but after using the bot for 3 days I find that after I pub a game it draws in a good amount for the game I'm hosting, TD, but then dies down and seems as if though people can't find my game anymore, until I repub it.

EDIT I can confirm now that the gamelist seems to update my game to the front of the line when I repub.

Ban issues / enhancements:

1. Can you unban with a partial name such as you do with !ban?
2. They don't get IP banned. Can this be implemented? They can join with a new name.
3. Is it possible to addbans from another bot etc..? Import file etc.? Can this also be implemented?
4. Where are the bans listed? cfg, text? To be edited and or imported like mentioned above?

I banned someone as a test subject to see if they show up banned in !checkban , and they don't show up. Until they try to rejoin the game, which confirms they were banned.

MOTD (Message of the day)?/Announce per interval in game/lobby? To be edited in a config?

Implement a MOTD (lobby) and like the old ghost bot (announcements), my game requires specific rules/guidelines/tips to newcomers and all that needs to be said on a consistent basis especially in game/lobby where it can grab their attention. Can this be added into a cfg possibly for easy editing?

[BasedOnPixels]

Regarding downloads, what is your total download speed set at and what is the download speed per person? For some reason GHost bots only allow up to total 1024kb/s and if a person is occupying that already the next dl won't start. Should you not reach those numbers though, check if client dl isn't higher than total download.

[ngx3]

The maxdownloadspeed is set to 600 (going to raise it). Average user download speed is around 300 KB/s.

Edit
Removed the !dl issue, as it could have been due to the above, even though no output was given when sending the !dl command.

[Josko]

Hey, I've answered underneath. Sorry for the delay!

Possible refresh rate enhancement?

I once saw this bot had a refresh rate of that it stayed on every gamelist refresh. I use to use Ent host bots to host games, I found the refresh rate was decent, but after using the bot for 3 days I find that after I pub a game it draws in a good amount for the game I'm hosting, TD, but then dies down and seems as if though people can't find my game anymore, until I repub it.

EDIT I can confirm now that the gamelist seems to update my game to the front of the line when I repub.

The ideal values for refreshing remain a mystery to me. It was way back when the refresh values were experimented with. Perhaps big hosting players probably know them from the sheer data they can accumulate, but I wouldn't know. The default values in the cfg are mostly EU centric (GER locale as default, etc.) so depending on your location you could experiment.

Repub is the canonical solution to your problem, as it always worked and requires no fine-tuning.

Can you unban with a partial name such as you do with !ban?

No. Unban is done in the BNET layer so it doesn't know the players in the game (and the most often use case is that the person left the game already). It would be possible to do with with a SQL query to do a LIKE query but if you have a ~2k ban database then you're probably going to have to write the full username anyway (to get that single match) or carpet unban everything that matches.

They don't get IP banned. Can this be implemented? They can join with a new name.

It can, but it's currently not due to it being inefficient and/or false positives. FMPOV most of the players I know share an IP (university, dorm, ...) or have a dynamic IP, just like me, so creating a new account is a bigger hassle than flicking a button on the router. And keep in mind the IP is only visible once a person joined the lobby/game - so banning in BNET via nickname will still have to do without.

Is it possible to addbans from another bot etc..? Import file etc.? Can this also be implemented?

Yes, the data is in the SQLite DB named aura.dbs (usually). There are multitude ways about it - sqlite command line tool, firefox sqlite extension, etc. then either manual SQL or dump/import. The data should be more or less GHost++ compatible IIRC.

Where are the bans listed? cfg, text? To be edited and or imported like mentioned above?

Please see above. Definition of the table is in auradb.h.

MOTD (Message of the day)?/Announce per interval in game/lobby? To be edited in a config?

Implement a MOTD (lobby) and like the old ghost bot (announcements), my game requires specific rules/guidelines/tips to newcomers and all that needs to be said on a consistent basis especially in game/lobby where it can grab their attention. Can this be added into a cfg possibly for easy editing?

I'm not a big fan of filesystem access so this was removed. Do you change it that often anyway? A simple const char* Text = "Lorem Ipsum"; hardcoded in game.cpp could do it.