Hi All,

Here's a thread to toss around ideas for bots....

I started looking into adding bots into SOF2 a couple weeks ago, or at least whether it was possible to do.

I think it is definitely possible to do, given the right people on hand. I downloaded the Jedi Knight 2 source code which was done by Raven and compared it to the SOF2 code - in terms of bots they have a great deal of the same code. Of course SOF2 was never 100% coded for bots, but what is missing can possibly be taken from the Jedi Knight 2 code.

Of course I have noticed a few differences in the way bot files and personalities are handled in the code, and you would need a way to add way points and a menu to select the bots - but it is certainly possibly from what I see.

What are others thoughts on it?

Ark
:withstupid:

Multiplayer wise, I think their biggest mistake was NOT adding bots. I'm eagerly awaiting any sort of mod to get bots to work...even if they are crappy.

I second to N's comment. Raven made a poor choice with exluding bots, as with many other features.

I'd like to have bot support in my maps :)

cairaith basically has all the npcs working like bots except they have no ai yet. doesnt know if he will finish it though but they would be great to have in any capacity imo.

Yeah I think Raven's only real mistake was not allowing access to the features that EVERY other q3 game has.. Network performace issues aside, If I make a crappy map that clogs network traffic, that's my fault, not Raven's. Sometimes it's almost like they didn't trust us with functionality...

ok, I don't want to get off on a rant here :razz: .. I would love to see the bots working as well! :2guns:

Basic ones done. If someone wants to improve them grab the current Man Down source code and go for it :)

I've rigged up a new way of generating navigation points, I just haven't got around to making bots use it :(

Man Down

Damn I have spent a good deal of hours doing waypoint files for all the maps you didn't include with mandown and also have added about 20 or so different bots and personality files.

I was going to email it to you or upload it as a small addon... been having a lot of fun with the bots.

Great work and thanks for making the source code available for modders.

Ark

arkanis50 : Don't feel bad - I haven't got the new nav stuff in properly yet. In the old code, they simply went from one way point to the next in a big line, occaisionally jumping across to other nearby points as they went. In the version I've rigged up, points don't join together in one nice continuous line - I've got to make them keep track of their calc'd path and follow it instead.

Originally I wanted 'just points', but I couldn't figure out a nice way to calc paths without a big performance hit each time a bot checked. Next thing I tried was pre-calc neighours for each point (faster path calc'n), but that meant it took years to generate the information on some maps (like 5+ minutes). Eventually I made it so it could save the information... but even that has it's problems, especially with RMG maps. So now I'm down to a compromise - RMG maps auto-generate points at pretty large intervals (256 units apart) and use these to calc pathes around the map. For non-RMG levels, you can auto-gen as well (at 128 units) or rig up a more accurate one by hand.

With any luck it'll work out 'ok' :)

arkanis50 : *ugh* Was taking too long to get the bots to use the new code properly, so I've scrapped it for now and gone back to doing more important things. I'd love all those extra .wnt files and bot personalities if you're still up for emailing them :)
kris@dude.com.au

Ok, I'll just tidy up a couple things before emailing.

I have done about 5 waypoint files for various deathmatch maps that I am fairly happy with, I have done about 3 or 4 others that I won't send as I couldn't get the bots working the way I wanted them and I might redo them later.

There's about 20 extra bots, and about 5 or 6 new personality groups, i.e. BadGuys, EMS (Doctor's/Nurses), Civilians, Marines etc.

Ark