BF2AutoSpectator

An automated spectator for Battlefield 2 written in Python 🐍

Battefield 2 might be an old game that is known for sometimes having more dust than hit registration. But it's still around after 15 years and people still play it. So, why not support this game and community with an automated spectator that makes it easy to, for example, stream this game around the clock so people can (re-)discover it via a live stream.

Project state

The goal is to provide a fully automated, fire-and-forget spectator for the game. However, this project is currently in a beta-like state. Thus, some monitoring of the spectator and any live stream is strongly recommended.

Features

• automatic start of a BF2 game instance (can be disabled to attach to an existing instance)
• automatic account login
• automatic server join (only by server ip; custom ports and server passwords are supported)
• automatic spawning in game to enable "spectator mode" (see supported maps/sizes below)
• automatic rotation between players of spectator's team
• restart spectating after round restart
• purge server history before launching the game via bf2-conman
• in game error detection and handling
• game freeze detection and handling
• support for 720p (1280x720) and 900p (1600x900) game window size/resolution
• (optional) remote control using bf2-auto-spectator-controller
• (optional) control live stream via OBS WebSocket

Command line arguments

Argument	Description	Default	Required
--version	Output version information
--player-name	Name of bf2hub account	None	Yes
--player-password	Passwort for bf2hub account	None	Yes
--server-ip	IP of server to join	None	Yes
--server-port	Port of server to join	16567	No
--server-pass	Passwort for server to join	None	No
--server-mod	Mod of server to join	bf2	No
--game-path	Path to BF2 install folder	C:\Program Files (x86)\EA Games\Battlefield 2\	No
--game-res	Resolution to use for BF2 window	720p	No
--tesseract-path	Path to Tesseract install folder	C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR\	No
--use-controller	Use a bf2-auto-spectator-controller instance
--controller-base-uri	Base uri of controller instance (format: http[s]://[hostname])
--control-obs	Control OBS via WebSocket
--obs-url	OBS WebSocket URL (format: ws://:password@hostname:port)
--debug-log	Add debugging information to log output
--debug-screenshot	Write any screenshots to disk for debugging

You can always get these details locally by providing the --help argument.

Supported maps for auto-spawning

Vanilla maps

Map name	16 size	32 size	64 size
Dalian Plant	Yes	Yes	Yes
Daqing Oilfields	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dragon Valley	Yes	Yes	Yes
FuShe Pass	Yes	Yes	Yes
Great Wall	Yes	Yes	n/a
Gulf of Oman	Yes	Yes	Yes
Highway Tampa	Yes	Yes	Yes
Kubra Dam	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mashtuur City	Yes	Yes	Yes
Midnight Sun	Yes	Yes	Yes
Operation Blue Pearl	Yes	Yes	Yes
Operation Clean Sweep	Yes	Yes	Yes
Operation Harvest	Yes	Yes	Yes
Operation Road Rage	Yes	Yes	Yes
Operation Smoke Screen	Yes	Yes	n/a
Road to Jalalabad	Yes	Yes	Yes
Sharqi Peninsula	Yes	Yes	Yes
Songhua Stalemate	Yes	Yes	Yes
Strike at Karkand	Yes	Yes	Yes
Taraba Quarry	Yes	Yes	n/a
Wake Island 2007	n/a	n/a	Yes
Zatar Wetlands	Yes	Yes	Yes

Special Forces maps

Map name	16 size	32 size	64 size
Devil's Perch	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ghost Town	Yes	Yes	Yes
Leviathan	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mass Destruction	Yes	Yes	Yes
Night Flight	Yes	Yes	Yes
Surge	Yes	Yes	Yes
The Iron Gator	Yes	Yes	Yes
Warlord	Yes	Yes	Yes

Battlefield Pirates 2 mod maps

Map name	16 size	32 size	64 size
Black Beard's Atol	Yes	Yes	Yes
Black Beard's Atol - CTF	n/a	n/a	Yes
Blue Bayou	Yes	Yes	Yes
Blue Bayou - CTF	n/a	n/a	Yes
Blue Bayou - Zombie ¹	n/a	n/a	Yes
Crossbones Keep	Yes	Yes	Yes
Crossbones Keep - Zombie ¹	n/a	n/a	Yes
Dead Calm	Yes	Yes	Yes
Frylar	Yes	Yes	Yes
Frylar - CTF	n/a	n/a	Yes
Frylar - Zombie ¹	n/a	n/a	Yes
Lost At Sea	Yes	Yes	Yes
O'Me Hearty Beach	Yes	Yes	Yes
O'Me Hearty Beach - Zombie ¹	n/a	n/a	Yes
Pelican Point	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pelican Point - CTF	n/a	n/a	Yes
Pressgang Port	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pressgang Port - CTF	n/a	n/a	Yes
Sailors Warning	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shallow Draft	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shallow Draft - CTF	n/a	n/a	Yes
Shipwreck Shoals	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shipwreck Shoals - CTF	n/a	n/a	Yes
Shiver Me Timbers	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shiver Me Timbers - CTF	n/a	n/a	Yes
Storm the Bastion	Yes	Yes	Yes
Storm the Bastion - Zombie ¹	n/a	Yes	Yes
Stranded	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stranded - CTF	n/a	n/a	Yes
Wake Island 1707	Yes	Yes	Yes

¹ spawning on zombie versions of maps may fail if the spectator happens to be a zombie, since the zombie class is not always selected by default

Arctic Warfare mod maps

Map name	16 size	32 size	64 size
Rocky Mountains	Yes	Yes	Yes
Yukon Bridge	Yes	Yes	Yes

Custom maps

Map name	16 size	32 size	64 size
Dalian 2v2	Yes	Yes	Yes
Daqing 2v2	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dragon 2v2	Yes	n/a ¹	n/a ¹
Sharqi 2v2	Yes	Yes	Yes
Alpin Ressort	Yes	Yes	Yes
Blitzkrieg	Yes	n/a	n/a
Christmas Hill	n/a	Yes	n/a
Frostbite	Yes	Yes	n/a
Frostbite Night	Yes	n/a	n/a
Snowy Park	Yes	n/a	n/a
Snowy Park (Day)	Yes	n/a	n/a
Spring Thaw	n/a	Yes	n/a
Stalingrad Snow	Yes	Yes	Yes
Winter Wake Island	Yes	Yes	Yes

¹ the spawn menu is broken on these sizes of the map

Setup

Download and install software

1. Download and install Tesseract v5.0.1.20220118 from the Uni Mannheim server (be sure to use the 64 bit version, direct link)
2. Download and extract the latest release

In-game setup

Setting up an extra bf2hub account for the spectator is strongly recommended in order to not mess with your existing account's settings/stats.

Any settings not explicitly mentioned here can be changed however you like.

1. Under "game options"
   1. Enable "auto ready"
   2. Enable "opt out of voting"
   3. Set all transparency values to 0
2. Under "controls"
   1. Remove crouch binding and airplane/helicopter free look binding (and/or any other left ctrl bindings)
   2. Bind left ctrl to console

How to run

1. Open CMD or Powershell (recommended)
2. Enter the path to the controller.exe (can be done by dragging & dropping the .exe onto the CMD/Powershell window)
3. Enter required command line arguments (see above)
4. Enter any additional command line arguments (optional)
5. Hit enter to run the command

If you want to stop the spectator, hit CTRL + C in the CMD/Powershell window at any time.

Please note: You cannot (really) use the computer while the spectator is running. It relies on having control over mouse and keyboard and needs the game window to be focused and in the foreground. You do, however, have small time-windows between the spectator's actions in which you can start/stop the stream, stop the spectator etc.

Known limitations

• Windows display scaling must be set to 100%
• game locale/language must be set to English
• some elements of your English locale must be somewhat standard (team names, kick messages, menu items etc.)
• the camera and it's movement around the player are controlled by the game
• the spectator is taking up a slot on the server, since it is technically a regular player