2.6 Release Getting Close - Need Volunteers to Help Beta Test 2.6

[TheDog]

@cernel
I being a normal user also cannot edit posts in this thread, just tried edit on a previous post.

[LaFayette]

@cernel Thanks, I'll edit that post now and look to the settings to enable edit in this category for everyone.

[TheDog]

@lafayette
Edit is now working, thanks!

EDIT: Added this line.

[LaFayette]

Curious, has anyone been able to give the latest 2.6 lobby & bots a thorough vetting? Any issues?

[ubernaut]

@lafayette lobby seems fine not had a chance to test bot yet tho

[Cernel]

@lafayette There are no bots in the 2.6 lobby?

[beelee]

@lafayette

yea i've been checking for a week or so or whenever my last post was here and there haven't been any bots.

[zlefin]

I haven't seen the bots in there in like a week or so; and nobody is really on there ever so I haven't been able to test anything.

[LaFayette]

Updates:

2.6 Bots had crashed - out of disk. Fixed.

Though, seeing new behavior:
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/12732

Bot games are not ending when all players leave - so no way to end a bot game. I have a tentative fix in progress: https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/pull/12733

[beelee]

@lafayette

Says "no availble games" when i try and join a empty bot now and select a game

[Cernel]

@beelee This weird bot appeared after I shut down "Bot1001_seattle", which had been broken (stuck in progress) for about 1 day.

[LaFayette]

Thanks! In short, lobby + bots are looking good again, ready for more.

For the people hosting TripleA bots - a config update will be needed one way or another until something is fixed and/or changes.

Specifically: "Bots do not reset to launch screen on exit" #12732 will remain a problem. There appears to be a regression where bot games do not stop when players leave.

The TripleA hosted bots now have a workaround for this which others would have to replicate. For context, the TripleA hosted bots are configured to run as a 'service' and are set to be running all the time. If not running, they are started. The online bots have a workaround for #12732, they use a new "shutdown on game end" flag to shut down when a game ends. In turn, the service configuration sees this and starts them back up.

This capability is useful. Any installed maps are read on startup, therefore if maps have been updated they will be picked up now automatically after any game ends. The fact we have a workaround for the latest bot problem is good, that it is not a complete solution is also not ideal since the bots do still have a problem .

[LaFayette]

More 2.6 Updates:

• added bot instances, now at 15 total
• maps on bots are now updated daily
• bots now restart when a game ends (enabled via flag; otherwise there is a bug..)
• autosave game file is loaded automatically on bot startup
• players can now select any of the autosave files on the bot server

To select the autosaves:

Then scroll down to the bottom of the game list.

[Cernel]

@lafayette If "LA" means "Los Angeles", I would write "LosAngeles" instead of "LA". I think it would match better with the rest, and I guess that what "LA" means is not clearly understandable from most persons outside the USA.

[Cernel]

@lafayette Upon clicking on "Select Game" I get
(6:03:31 AM) Bot203_Frankfurt: [WARN] Unable to list auto-save game files

This makes no sense to me because I'm not clicking to get any auto-saves.

[Cernel]

@lafayette There are games like "270BC Tertiered" the map of which is not available in download list.

I believe that such games should be removed from every automated host, assuring that only games of maps which are available in download list are available in automated hosts via the "Select Game" button.

[beelee]

I just joined and quit in the lobby. Made a save and reloaded it as well. It all worked.

I'll test some more in the near future

[LaFayette]

Re: map availability

The design of 2.6 was to do away with triplea_maps.yaml completely. Bringing that back in was an expedient way to resolve various problems and get 2.6 launched. So, we see a conflict here with that design change where the problem would have been solved. Though, this is an issue with the 2.5 bots as well, the download maps script is the same for the two different bot versions.

I think the best solutions are going to either be to delete the map repository or add the map to triplea_maps.yaml. Updating the download-all-maps script to account for the one-off exceptions is going to be time consuming and will become out of date.

re: warn message: Unable to list auto-save game files

When you click 'select game' - that is loading up the auto-saves from the bot and they will appear at the end of the selection list. Those are the auto-saves on the bot server, not your computer. Before if a bot crashed and each save player could not save - those games were sometimes entirely lost.

Overall, the warning is benign - it does not know the difference of reading 'zero' files vs not being able to read the autosave folder contents at all. As soon as any game is started after the bot is installed; the warning message will go away thereafter.

[Cernel]

@lafayette said in 2.6 Release Getting Close - Need Volunteers to Help Beta Test 2.6:

When you click 'select game' - that is loading up the auto-saves from the bot and they will appear at the end of the selection list. Those are the auto-saves on the bot server, not your computer.

What's the point of that in the moment those saves are listed clicking on "Open Saved Game", are they? I think that is just confusing and also inconsistent with what is done in the main program interface.

I suggest having only maps' games behind the "Select Game" button (as it is when you open TripleA).

[Cernel]

@lafayette said in 2.6 Release Getting Close - Need Volunteers to Help Beta Test 2.6:

Re: map availability

The design of 2.6 was to do away with triplea_maps.yaml completely. Bringing that back in was an expedient way to resolve various problems and get 2.6 launched. So, we see a conflict here with that design change where the problem would have been solved. Though, this is an issue with the 2.5 bots as well, the download maps script is the same for the two different bot versions.

How about showing only the games which are both in the bot's list and the the user's list. Meaning that, if I have only "270BC Wars" in my "Select Game" list, I will also have only that option when clicking on "Select Game" in a bot.

If that is not feasible, how about giving the exact same list which you get when you click "Select Game" on local also when you click the same button in a bot, and returning a message about the game being not available in the bot if selecting a game which you have on local but the bot does not have (which will never happen for normal users since the bots fully cover at least everything which is on download list)?