Workflow for Debugging Bots - Nostrademous/Dota2-FullOverwrite GitHub Wiki

Up Front Setup (Enable console and console logging):

This will allow a hotkey (default \) to activate the console and will log all console output to a special file in the dota 2 directory

  • Go to Steam Library
  • Right click Dota 2
  • Select properties
  • On the General Tab, select Set Launch Options.
  • Add the text inside the quotes to the options: -console -condebug

Checking out your own Fork of the Repo

  • From This Link Click the "Fork" Icon in the upper right.
    • This will create a clone of the repo in your own github instance (the one you are logged in as)
  • Install Git for Windows (or other OS as you use)
    • Git for Windows - pick appropriate architecture
    • Make sure you install the bash package/module as well
  • Open the bash git application and change directory to the following location (note: this assume default install location for Dota 2): C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\dota 2 beta\game\dota\scripts\vscripts
  • Checkout from your forked repo directly into bots directory inside the vscripts directory you are in.
    • command: git clone [email protected]:<YOUR GIT USERNAME>/Dota2-FullOverwrite.git bots
    • this should create a bots directory inside vscripts\ with all the files
    • at this point you are able to edit any of the *.lua files there to make changes to the bot and when you play them in the game it will have your changes

Committing Changes & Doing Pull Requests

  • If you followed the Checking out your own Fork of the Repo step above ...
  • All your git add, git commit, git push commands will be against your own Fork of the repo
  • Once you have a working and tested improvement/enhancement please contribute by doing a Pull Request
    • Go to This Link
    • Change the compare:master dropdown to your repo
    • If no conflicts exist, click the Create pull request button and write a comment describing it

Staying Synced With Our Code

  • If you followed all the steps thus far, you will know you have your own fork, but how do you get latest changes from our repo as we make improvements without having to create a new fork?

Setting up a bot game to test your bots

  • Start a lobby
  • Set server location to Local Host
  • Make it private (give it a name and a password and set lobby visibility to unlisted)
  • Allow cheats by clicking the box
  • Under Advanced Lobby Settings
    • Change Radiant and Dire Difficulty to Unfair
    • Select Fill Empty Slots with Bots
    • Select your bots "Local dev script" under Radiant or Dire bots and Select whatever the other bots are that you want to use.
  • Unassign yourself from a team
  • Start the game

In Game Testing Quality of Life Adjustments

  • With Console Open (\)
    • enable cheats by typing sv_cheats 1
    • use host_timescale x.y to speed up or slow down gameplay so you don't have to watch it all at normal speed
    • use restart to remake a game without having to create a new lobby
    • for other cheats in console see: Console Cheat Commands

Code modules for debugging

  • The "debugging.lua" module simplifies the usage of the API's DebugDraw* functions, by saving the debug data and calling the needed API functions every frame.
    • SetBotState(name, line, text): writes text in line (1<=line<=2) of the bot's status field. name should be the bot's hero name.
    • SetTeamState(category, line, text): writes text in line (1<=line<=6) of the category's status field. category can be any string.
    • SetCircle(name, center, r, g, b, radius): draws a filled circle at the center vector and size radius. Color will be rgb(r,g,b). The name is used for updating/deleting.
    • DeleteCircle(name): deletes the circle with the given name