Flag Cap Scoring

[FjS]

I have noticed that sometimes when capping I receive 100 points. Other times, I receive no points. 

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to this, so I am inquiring on the forum for clarification.

[Master]

Next time you encounter this, tell me the map and time (and if you can link me to the demo of it)

[Bishop]

There events triggered by the game when you cap a flag and plugins can act on these events to give you points, refill your grenades, etc.  However, not all maps use the same event trigger for capturing the flag.  The stats plugin likely only recognizes the commonly used flag-cap-events and maps that don't use those won't register.

[FjS]

The issue is not map specific, I have seen it occur on regular maps like 2fort and well. Sometimes, on the same day I will receive points for capture on 2fort in the morning but none in the afternoon.

Next time it happens I will make a note of it and post it here. I don't think I know how to make a demo.

[Master]

There events triggered by the game when you cap a flag and plugins can act on these events to give you points, refill your grenades, etc.  However, not all maps use the same event trigger for capturing the flag.  The stats plugin likely only recognizes the commonly used flag-cap-events and maps that don't use those won't register.

You can safely ignore all of this, as this is not how the stats work (nor is that the problem) and there are no custom plugins that act upon flag caps (and nor is that how the 'stats' tracks flag caps)

The issue is not map specific, I have seen it occur on regular maps like 2fort and well. Sometimes, on the same day I will receive points for capture on 2fort in the morning but none in the afternoon.

Next time it happens I will make a note of it and post it here. I don't think I know how to make a demo.

sparky's has an option that messes with player scores (and its the only thing that messes with player scores) and theres a very good chance that its incompatible with our engine version, but I need more info on this to be sure. It could also be that our engine has bugs that we are only seeing under TFC (which we have already encountered to some degree)

[Bishop]

I know the plugin that gives grenades for flag caps uses events because I wrote that plugin.  The stats plugin could work differently I haven't examined the code but I'm not sure how else this would be implemented.

Your issue is probably the number of players.  Stats aren't tracked if there are too few real (bots don't count) players on the server.  I believe it is set to ~6-8.

[FjS]

I know the server doesn't keep track of points during matches with few players.

I think (though I cannot be positive) that this occasionally occurs even during matches with more over 8 people.

I'll let you guys know next time I notice it.

[TRAIN CONDUCTRO]

If you understood the tfc business module your question would be answered by itself.  It is not good to be asking trivial questions in this forum when you should have a much greater knowledge of the situation.   

[FjS]

I was playing well this morning and capped the flag at 9:15 am (eastern time) and did not receive 100 points for capping the flag. There was 14 players on the server (no bots).

I hope this information is helpful and glad to see Train Conductro is using his bantime productively.

[Master]

If you understood the tfc business module your question would be answered by itself.  It is not good to be asking trivial questions in this forum when you should have a much greater knowledge of the situation.   

This only reminds of how great it is that we removed the tfc idiot module.

I was playing well this morning and capped the flag at 9:15 am (eastern time) and did not receive 100 points for capping the flag. There was 14 players on the server (no bots).

I hope this information is helpful and glad to see Train Conductro is using his bantime productively.

ill take a look at the demo and logs after work tonight.

[pizzahut]

I suppose that the stats don't check the bot count in-game, but through a script that uses a server query in this format:

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Server_queries#A2S_INFO

This kind of query is also used by TFC's built-in server browser and by HLSW.

When Bz got switched to the new HLDS with third-party fixes (v1.1.2.7), I noticed that occasionally the bot count is reported wrong by the HLDS.

I suspect that the bot count doesn't update during a game, only when the map changes. If true, the problem would happen if there are few human players at map start (less than needed for the stats to give points for events). So when the server fills up during a game, there may be enough players, but the stats still receive the bot count info that was valid at map start, and thus thinks there are less human players.

[Nuggs]

pizza hut thanks for the explanation. I always enjoy reading your break downs here and on github.

While you're here, can you link me to the old server .dll aka the one that doesn't break spy disguise or allow the player to fire two shots at once.

[Master]

pizza hut thanks for the explanation. I always enjoy reading your break downs here and on github.

While you're here, can you link me to the old server .dll aka the one that doesn't break spy disguise or allow the player to fire two shots at once.

http://www.roystonvasey.org.uk/dlds/dlls.rar

the stats are logged/monitored by some perl scripts in conjunction with the remote log system that is part of HLDS, I am unsure what the bot count info is about though, the 'plugin' on the server is simply a means to provide the 'rank' and 'top10' commands to players

[pizzahut]

I am unsure what the bot count info is about though

I'm basing my assumptions on what Bishop wrote and my distant memory of setting up HL Stats a decade ago. To calculate the number of real (human) players, HL Stats probably does a HL server query as described on the Valve wiki, which returns e.g. total player count and bot count, but not human count. So for human count, it needs to rely on the bot count being correct. If the bot count is not updated during the game by the HLDS, hlstats might assume a wrong number of human players and then possibly not give points for capping as it thinks there are too few human players on the server to (fairly) give points for actions. I guess this is to prevent e.g. someone capping flag after flag on an otherwise empty server and boosting the stats points doing this or getting a daily reward for it.

Your issue is probably the number of players.  Stats aren't tracked if there are too few real (bots don't count) players on the server.  I believe it is set to ~6-8.

However I'm not sure where this setting is located, it may even be hard coded.

Also, I saw a similar issue when using the original SteamCMD HLDS (so not the patched 3rd party one). On RV we have a plugin running which updates the game name ("Team Fortress Classic"), replacing it with the time left so in the Steam server browser you see that instead. This only works with the old 2012 HLDS from the HLDS Update Tool, as the SteamCMD HLDS doesn't update the game name any more.

[Master]

I think we are discussing two different things here.. can I get some clarification on what is happening FjS, does your score increase by 100 instead of 10 (or none) when you cap the flag? or does the stats page (stats.esclan.net) report you getting 100 points for a flag cap?

As far as I know, the join/leave info is handled via the standard HL logs, all players are reported as 'joining the server' as the beginning of a map, and they disconnect when that log even is sent to the log as well, as far as 'player counts' if it is not calculating it from this, it also does an 'rcon stats' every 2-3 minutes as well, it can get the true count from this as well, I have not gone into it too much but I am sure this is what it is getting its info from, as it is 100% directly linked through the logs and rcon, I do not think it would issue additional query packets, however I have not looked into how HLStatsX Community Edition obtains information, but I do know it does NOT count BOTS (Steamid = BOT) when calculating how many active players there are (I will have to check to see if it counts HLTV at some point)

I am using neither the 2012 engine nor the 2013 engine, however I will look into whether the gamename can be changed in this manner (also this makes me curious what happens with 3rd party mods like NeoTF/AdminOP/AutoOP etc.)