Robots "sort of" on the server

[StainlessSteelRat]

I was playing on Pythonian last night (fun stuff) and there were 3 bots on each team (red & green) that were fun as cannon fodder. I would like to do something like this on my server.

Now, I know there are no server side bots, but does anyone have a workaround for running bots from a headless, graphics-challenged linux machine. I built my BZ server in about an hour using an old 500MHz AMD machine laying around with Knoppix and a poor graphics card, and only log in using SSH to administer. The lack of graphics isn't a problem for a server.

I'm thinking something like: start the server, then start a client and bots with grahics turned WAAYYY down in such a way that I can log back out with the client still running. Anyone tried something like this, or am I charting new territory here?

StainlessSteelRat
MadCity - All Rogue, All the time.
jkroll.no-ip.org:5154

[TD-Linux]

I know there are no server side bots

Then what you know is wrong.
Look up the -solo option. I think usage is like this:
-solo 5
That would give you 5 bots. You may be able to use it like this:
-solo 5,5,5,5,5
so that there are 5 bots on each team. Don't trust me, though. Look it up.

[Harlin]

I was not aware this could be done. Is there also a way to run auto players from the server side?

[Guest]

-solo is a client side command.
You have to open bzflag from the command line with -solo # on the end...
Also, -solo 5,5,5,5 wouldn't work.
You just have one number and they will all join the teams as fairly as possible.

To run an auto player (roger) on the server, just run bzflag as normal, join, then press the auto button. There is no way to do this on the server side.

[Teppic]

SSR, my bots have to run in a real X environment or bzflag moans about lack of GL extensions. However, the box is setup more or less headless and is administered over vnc with an autologin on boot to get the x session. The server and other scripts are setup as a services that get started after the network is up, meaning they can be admin'd easily over ssh. I'm not sure if you can get GL in a virtual Xvnc session if you are using Mesa GL but it may be worth a try, if the machine is powerful enough to run the ai the framerate doesn't really matter.


EDIT, it doesn't work, you do need a proper (ie not virtual) X session.

[A Meteorite]

I'm not sure if you can get GL in a virtual Xvnc session if you are using Mesa GL but it may be worth a try, if the machine is powerful enough to run the ai the framerate doesn't really matter.

I was using your botwatch script, but every time someone requested a bot a new BZFlag window opened killing my FPS. (I play on the same computer that's the server) Is there a way to make the script kill the window after it's done?