Important - The route files and respawn.rsp files from releases older than V0.8 are not compatible with this release. If you are using a version older than V0.8, delete these files from any previous installation before installing V0.9. Failure to do this will make the bots act stupid, and probably crash your system !

If you want to get the bots up and running with the mimimum of fuss, here's what to do:

Download the latest version and unzip into your main heretic2 folder. Make sure you unzip using directory names.

Run Heretic2 using the command line +set game grinbots +set deathmatch 1

If you don't know how to do this, I have included a batch file which will run H2 and set it up for the bots. Open up windows explorer, go to your H2 folder, double click on Grinbots.bat, and you are ready for action.

Bring down the console, and type map dmlight then press enter. When the map has loaded, bring down the console again, type sv bot spawn, and a bot should enter the game. Type this again to spawn another bot.

Using Custom Skins and models
To spawn a bot with a custom skin or model, type sv bot spawn name skin into the console.
For example, to spawn a bot called mildred, wearing the FSD skin, type sv bot spawn Mildred female/fsd.
You can also use custom models this way, eg sv bot spawn Nutter ogle/ogle will spawn a bot called nutter, using the ogle model and wearing the ogle skin (assuming you have downloaded that model). If you enter any of this information incorrectly, one of the default bots will be spawned insted.

User Definable Weapons Preferences
You can specify 3 parameters for the bots that control the bots use of weapons. These are FAVOURITE WEAPON, BANNED WEAPONS and ACCURACY. These are specified at the end of the spawn command, after the skin definition:
sv bot spawn name model/skin fav-weapon banned-weapons accuracy

The FAVOURITE WEAPON is a number from 0-9, 0 indicates no favourite weapon, 1 indicates blade is their favourite weapon and so on. A bot will always use its favourite weapon if it has it.

The BANNED WEAPONS are specified in a manner identical to the deathmatch flags. Each weapon has a unique number. Adding together the numbers for each weapon banned gives a value for the banned weapon field. Bots will never use a weapon specified as banned. The numbers are:

1 -Blade
2 -Fball
4 -HellStaff
8 -Array
16 -Rain
32 -Fwall
64 -Pbow
128-Sphere
256-Doom

So, to stop a bot from using the Iron Doom, the Firewall and the blade, the banned-weapons value is 256+32+1 = 289. A value of 0 for the banned weapons indicates that no weapons are banned.

ACCURACY - The accuracy of the bots aim is a number 0 - 5, with 0 being the best accuracy, and 5 is the worst accuracy.

I have include a config file bots1.cfg that shows how to use these values. View the config file with notepad. To use the config file, run H2, load a map and type exec bots1.cfg into the console/

Bot Chat
Bot chat is enabled by default. If you are fed up with their slander, type:
set botchat 0
into the console.
The bots phrases are stored in the smacktalk.txt file in the grinbots directory, and can be customised to your liking.

Bot Challenge Teamplay
This introduces a bots vs humans gameplay mode. Enable this by typing: set botchallenge 1 into the console.

Kicking A bot
Type sv bot kick into the console to remove all bots from a game. Type sv bot kick name to remove an individual bot (the name is case sensitive).

Blade Bots
If you want the bots for blade matches, specify a value of 1 for their favourite weapon, and they will always choose the blade. They do not know 1on1 rules yet, but you can have some good ffa and team games this way.
If you want the bots to submit when they lose their blade arm, type set botblade 1 into the console. To return to normal, type set botblade 0
For blading with the bots, they like it best if there are 'real' shrines on the map. If there is no shrine model, they do not know the shrine exists.