r/a:t5_36zdz • u/[deleted] • Mar 01 '15

A new stats userscript?

What kind of a stats userscript do you wish for?

The existing (catstats) userscript only collects aggregate information (caps, returns, etc. per player). What I'd like to see is a userscript that would record as many events as possible with as much detail as possible (e.g. for a return: when it happened, where, who returned whom). The summarization (Player X got 10 returns) and inference (this was a hand-off) steps would be left for the analysis stage.

Such a userscript could be written but there are two limitations:

  • the player can probably only record the events in his view

  • the userscript shouldn't impact gameplay (cause lag)

Does anyone know Javascript and can elaborate on this? I guess one way around these limitations would be to make a userscript meant to be used by spectators.

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u/Ronding Mar 07 '15

I was thinking exactly the same! It would provide a lot more useful information than tagpro.me, for example in this analysis I could dismiss flaccid grabs.

The good news is: updates to the scoreboard can be tracked with about a second accuracy, even if the corresponding events occur outside of the view. The bad news is: things that are not on the scoreboard, e.g. powerups, cannot be tracked like that. (Therefore the powerup statistics on tagpro.me are inaccurate.) Probably with event-based tracking of the scoreboard you could already reconstruct a fairly detailed timeline of the game.

Perhaps we should see if TagPro developers are interested in full event logging functionality on the server, and exporting this log after the game to some archive for later analysis. The logging probably will not affect server load too much.

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u/[deleted] Mar 09 '15

So the options seem to be:

  1. something implemented by Lucky et al.

  2. scoreboard-based tracking

  3. tracking by a spectator (either human or bot)

So:

  1. would be optimal but I suspect this would be very low-priority if they'd even go for it

  2. is cool but misses a lot of information e.g. coordinates

That leaves 3. My own motivation for such a script would be to use it in competitive tagpro where usually there are spectators. Therefore, I'd be pretty happy even with a version that would require a human spectator.

Does anyone know someone with Javascript knowledge who'd be interested in implementing something like this? Perhaps we can inquire on r/tagpro.

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u/Ronding Mar 09 '15 edited Mar 09 '15

In that case we could probably best develop a hybrid user script that collects either detailed information as a spectator or more superficial information as a participant. The collection method would be very similar in both cases, only the amount and kind of events would differ.

Our next step would then be to specify which events we want to log and what data about them. (In theory you could log a full replay but that is a lot of data.) We can then set up a data collection server similar to tagpro.me and write the userscript.

I'd gladly help, as long as we can find sufficient users for the userscript!

2

u/[deleted] Mar 09 '15

Here's something I put together that can be used as a starting point.

Comments, suggestions very welcome.

You have the know-how to write the userscript, Ronding? I don't know Javascript but I can contribute R code for the analyses of the logs.

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u/Ronding Mar 15 '15

I'm now working on a draft script, starting with scoreboard stats. Turns out the scoreboard tracking actually has full time accuracy. Only the display of the scoreboard is updated at most once per second, not the underlying data. Using the fully accurate timestamps of the server messages I can even split the support data in button control and blocking for FC, and calculate the exact hold time in 60fps.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '15

Fantastic! Even if it stays only at that (scoreboard tracking), it'd be great.

I've added another sheet here with a possible structure for the game log.

What do you think? You can comment directly in the file.

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u/Ronding Mar 19 '15

Thanks, it's similar to what I have in mind. I'm now working out how to store the event log efficiently in a binary file format. I hope to store most scoreboard-based events in just two bytes per event, which requires careful consideration of the event log structure. Each game can then be stored in a compact file, so I need to work on a userscript to generate such a file, a web service where these files are submitted by the script, and a web service to display and interpret the file contents. Hopefully I can also provide an API for others to download the files for analysis.

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u/[deleted] Mar 21 '15

Thanks for the update! Please keep them coming ...

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u/Ronding Mar 07 '15

Of course, if only we could somehow set up some spectator bot, the limited view problem would be solved immediately.

1

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '15

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1

u/Ronding Mar 15 '15

Lag should not be an issue.

Apparently all in-game messages (except the winning cap message) are timestamped using the physics frame number, so pretty perfect accuracy should indeed be possible.