The Proving Ground is now on the Workshop, with its own page, previews and a one-click install. This update also adds NPC bots that fight, hold points and carry the flag, ride in your vehicles' seats, and fill out empty servers. Here's everything since the last update.
Your friends on a bus. NPC bots (partial support) Bots are still a work in progress, but they can already play a proper round:
- Smarter positioning. After a capture, part of the team holds the point from cover around it and the rest pushes on, instead of everyone crowding onto the point.
- Capture the Flag. Bots pick up the enemy flag and run it home. With Combat AI installed, they shoot on the way instead of stopping to fight.
- Riding in your vehicles. Vehicle owners can mark seats for bots through the E2/Starfall functions. Bots prefer the most heavily armored vehicle and board through the exit point you set, so even seats buried deep inside a hull work. They get out at the same point when they arrive, the round ends, or the seat is unmarked. A player can take a bot's seat after a short grace period ( tpg_bots_seat_grace ). A seated bot shows as a seated model and takes damage when the seat is hit, just like a player.
- ACE-aware. Bots run from live ACE grenades and only throw ACE grenades, not HL2 frags. ACE shots and explosions now trigger Combat AI's suppression and hearing, and ACE weapons use their own NPC firing ranges.
- Target choice. Bots pick sensible anti-tank targets, and friendly bots show on your HUD.
- Fair play. Bots no longer shoot at players inside their own safezone, where they can't hurt them anyway. Bot flag carriers now show their names in the CTF HUD.
- Admin control. New settings let admins tune bots, including tpg_bots_friendly_fire to let players hurt teammate bots. Bots never hurt their own team.
- Cleanup. Corpses fade after 5 seconds, both server- and client-side, so long rounds don't fill up with ragdolls.
Admin tools
- Admin settings in the Q menu. No more digging through console commands.
- In-game map editor. Place spawns and control points from inside the game with the point tool, then fine-tune them in the editor. It warns you about layout problems, like a hill floating in the air, and lets you preview every game mode before you export.
- Official map collection. If the server has too few supported maps installed, the console points you to the TPG map collection on the Workshop.
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start up console Map editor Fixes from a clean-server playthrough We ran TPG on a fresh server, the way a new subscriber would, and fixed what broke:
- The map vote only offers maps the server actually has installed. Before, a missing map could leave the server with no round running. If no other maps are available, the server stays on the current map and starts the next round. Map votes also no longer stack.
- The per-map wins-before-vote setting works now. It was documented but ignored.
- No more medals for a category nobody scored in, like "Most Kills (0)".
- On gm_flatgrass, spawns and control points now sit on the ground. Before, they were floating 12,000 units up.
- No more "team already in use by another addon" warning on every boot.
- Players without TF2 now see a proper control point disc instead of a big ERROR model.
On the Workshop
- Workshop pages with animated game mode and loadout previews, captioned gallery stills and full descriptions.
- Nadmod Prop Protection is now listed as a requirement.
- E2/Starfall support lives in its own add-on, tpg_e2sf, which includes the bot seat functions above.
Behind the scenes
- Tests and glualint run automatically on every change.
- New contributor docs (CONTRIBUTING and AGENTS) for anyone who wants to help.
- The README has an animated header and a gameplay slideshow.
What's next Bots are still partial. Expect more work on how they drive and fight from vehicles, plus fixes from your reports. Found a bug or have an idea? Let us know on GitHub or Discord.