It would be useful for debugging purposes if clients connecting to a server could somehow get entity, function, etc. definition names.

As far as I know bitfiles don't include definition names and clients prefer the bitfile sent by the server over local source code.

I'm wondering if it's possible to edit a bitfile to include names or connect to a server using local source code.

Hi GDavid,

The whole purpose of a bitfile is so that custom games can be shared without being readily modifiable. Someone can reverse engineer them but it was intended to serve as a representation of the game that isn't in readable text form like the scripts.

Connecting to a server using a local bitfile would cause all kinds of issues because the client/server are assumed to be running the same game bitfile. That would be akin to joining a Counter-Strike server while running the Team Fortress client-side code in the Half-Life game engine(s), if that makes sense.

 - Charlie

I don't want to connect using a different bitfile, I was just wondering if it's possible to change a bitfile to include identifiers for things like entity types, functions, etc. or somehow let other clients know about them to make debugging easier. Of course this would be opt-in only as including debug information in a bitfile intended to be released would be a bad idea.