Pause Plugin

xDragon

I have a somewhat mostly complete plugin that can be used to pause the game - However in order to attempt to make sure its as fair/correct as possible, i figure its best to see what people think about it and how it works currently, and/or what else should be paused/ if something shouldnt be.

Currently the plugin pauses (or will once complete)
Player Movement
Alien AutoHealing
Alien energy regeneration
All Weapon Events - Note about this, animations will still complete and then should stop - so if you are mid-reload you would need to reload again on unpause.
Resource income
Crag Healing
Shade Cloaking
Shift Energy Regen
Shift Echo
Egg spawning
Structure Maturity
Structure Construction (and auto alien contruction)
Research progress.
Alien and Marine player respawns
Commander input (you can still pan around, looking to block this also)
Commander logout
Team Switching (a readyroom player can join teams 1 or 2 only, you cannot go to the ready room or join spectate)
Commander abilities are paused (should resume with correct time remaining on unpause)
AI unit movement
AI Attacks
Grenades wont explode until the correct time - but they still move if they are midflight
Any dropped items should be adjusted to not disappear until the correct time.
Lerk poison bite duration, bilebomb and flamethrower should be adjusted outwards correctly (and not deal damage during pause)

Bicsum

Sounds awesome!

Should be supported.

wiry

Once again you deliver. Nice!

Gliss

excellent, thanks

rantology

Awesome, A++!



2 things I don't see on there that I imagine you might want (unless they are covered in one of the blanket categories already):

-jetpack energy regen
-minigun overheat thing

also is weapon switching covered as well when you say 'All Weapon Events'?

xDragon

Yea im working on those too now, i had missed them, along with a slew of others - whip attacks and phase gates and macs welding and armories and vortex and stomp and blarg so many things to account for - getting there tho.

Locklear

Wow, this is awesome.

Scrajm

Is that you GORGEous inside that dino suit?

This plugin is super awesome Dragon. Solves alot of problems.

Now, will your next project be a medspam arena for coms to practise on maybe?

swalk

This is freaking awesome Dragon!
Hopefully you can fix up the last few things, and maybe we can use this for the second season of NSL!
It would help immensely with adressing player crashes, and make the games more fair in those cases.

blind

<3

Chlamydia

Super cool. Crashes will always happen so this will be great for competitive play.

Some other things I thought mayneed pausing are:

Mine activation delay timer?
Infestation growth/retreat?
Spore cloud retreat

Volcano

Possible Offtopic but dragon is it possible to implement a feature that gives back alien lifeform after they have crashed, an example of this is when i was playing in a match I crashed playing as a lerk and had to play as a skulk for sometime later until I could afford another lerk. I think I explained that well enough

T00by

<!--quoteo(post=2063218:date=Jan 19 2013, 09:22 AM:name=swalk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (swalk @ Jan 19 2013, 09:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063218"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is freaking awesome Dragon!
Hopefully you can fix up the last few things, and maybe we can use this for the second season of NSL!
It would help immensely with adressing player crashes, and make the games more fair in those cases.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

"Sorry guys, just have to pause so we can watch the stream. It's a bit delayed and we want to know if the hive is dropped! sozzz"

Volcano

People still cast ns2 matches these days?

{GGs} Chicken

EDIT - Nuked useless part since the post was removed.

<!--quoteo(post=2063651:date=Jan 20 2013, 04:39 AM:name=T00by)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (T00by @ Jan 20 2013, 04:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063651"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->"Sorry guys, just have to pause so we can watch the stream. It's a bit delayed and we want to know if the hive is dropped! sozzz"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I don't think Hugh will be casting those games



Anyways, this sounds rly nice.

swalk

<!--quoteo(post=2063653:date=Jan 20 2013, 01:46 PM:name=Volcano)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Volcano @ Jan 20 2013, 01:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063653"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->People still cast ns2 matches these days?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, check ENSL.org - semifinals are being played atm.
Finals and 3rd decider games are starting on sunday.

xDragon

Ok this is getting somewhat close - This is the list of things currently paused/slept

Resource Income
Research Progression
Commander Inputs
Alien Spawn Waves
Hive Egg Spawning
Construction & AutoConstruction
Shift Energize
Shift Echo
Shade Cloaking
Commander Abilities Paused
Fire Damage & Stacks
DOTs - BileBomb
Pickupable Timers paused
Maturity Gain Paused
Pathing Move Orders
Commander Logout
Alien Regeneration
Weapon Reloads
Arc Shooting
Armory Healing
Mac Welding/Building
Minigun Heat Levels
IP Spawn time - effect will still indicate spawn soon (blue marine fills up, effect totally client side)
Crag Healing
Grenades wont explode
Nanoshield Duration
Vortex
Stomp
Lerk poison
Phasing Blocked
Beacon paused
Alien Energy

These are the things left to fix/finish
//Sentries keep making firing sound/anim, do no damage.
//Exo heat warning sound still plays - annoying.
//Whips still attack.
//Jetpack fuel still recovers.
//Shades uncloak
//Comm can scroll using Minimap

Beyond that, as far as logistics and activation go, should anyone be able to pause the game like HL1 days?
Or only an admin? Currently there is a 5 second countdown till the pause/resuming of the game.

GORGEous

I like Starcraft's style of pausing -- anyone can pause, but the team only gets a limited number of pauses per round. I'd change it so both teams type something to unpause... that way everyone is ready.

Locklear

Agreed.

bLink`

This is great! I can't wait until this is finished.

I'd like to have the pause ability to be available to anyone. like starcraft or other games that anyone can pause.

Ghosthree3

Pause is not a good idea for competitive games, it gives the teams time to think about their strategies a lot more mid game, not good.

Locklear

Considering your post about how you think the game is perfectly balanced.. I'm not sure what to think about this one

{GGs} Chicken

Ghosthree3 wrote: »

Pause is not a good idea for competitive games, it gives the teams time to think about their strategies a lot more mid game, not good.

Because playing in a buggy game where people crash often makes for very good play

swalk

Dragon, I have a question.
Is it possible to make it so the game pause automaticly for 60 seconds when a player from one of the teams drop? So people would have one minute to rejoin without the crash affecting the game much. And not have enough time to catch up with a stream?

xDragon

Forgot about this for a bit, i added an optional setting if you want to have a maximum pause time (game will automatically start the resume countdown after that time, players are warned that it will automatically restart every 10 seconds (also configurable).

I do think that the streaming of games will always lead to problems even without a pause system, but currently NS2 is pretty predicable in terms of strategy so I dont think thats something to be very concerned about yet.

xDragon

Alright I think this is finally ready, just gotta get some final testing in to see if anyone can break it.

Mige

Awesome job!

Locklear

Let's make this ENSL official!

dTox

Locklear wrote: »

Let's make this ENSL official!

Hear hear!

xDragon

As an update, there were some recent changes that made this require a client side portion to pull off correctly, otherwise the client would display the countdown phase (just a visual bug)... I fixed that and it all works correctly and is included with DAK on workshop.

After adding the pause plugin to the plugin list in the config, it will be loaded and enabled when tournament mode is enabled (via NS2Stats or DAK). The pause plugin also has these config options.
kPausedMaxDuration: 0 - Max amount of time the game can be paused for in seconds (0 for inf).
kPauseChangeDelay: 5 - Delay in seconds for pause to take effect, and also for game to resume.
kPauseMaxPauses: 3 - Max pauses per team per round.
kPausedReadyNotificationDelay: 30 - How often there is notices when the game is paused.

As another note, friendly fire can be enabled via DAK, and interp can be changed.

Bitey

I will see that this is brought up to ENSL HQ!