Design
and content
© Grin 2000
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About The Bots For the entire time that I've been playing H2, people have been crying out for bots, but none were made. Why this was, I do not know. I started coding back at the end of May this year, and now I am totally hooked. After getting to grips with c++ and the ins-and-outs of the H2 source code, I made a few simple server-side mods. Then I was stuck for ideas on what to do next. I did not want to start a huge modification like Seige or THF, as I don't think the community is large enough to warrant another major mod of that type. Then, I thought Bots! I had read loads of posts on the forums from people wanting them, and I had also read loads of posts saying that it could not be done. But I didn't believe that, after all, the game uses the Quake2 engine, and there are plenty of bots for that. So I started looking into things, got very scared, and almost gave up straight away ! I'm not the sort of person to give up easily, and so I persevered. There are a few tutorials on the net covering the basic spawning process for a bot. Unfortunately, differences between the Q2 and H2 sources meant that I had to do it slightly differently. But in the end, I had the beginnings of a bot. It didn't do much other than walk in a straight line and die, but it was a start. The next stage was to get the bots roaming around levels. I visited loads of AI and bot sites looking for techniques I could use for this, and I eventually stumbled across the ACEBOT homepage and downloaded the source code to look at for inspiration. I started porting routines from this code to H2, and very soon the bots were learning their way around levels. I then decided I would use the ACEBOT as the basis for my bots, as the code was ideal for use as the framework of a new bot. From then on, the bots grew at a frightening rate. I had some real headaches caused by differences between the way H2 and Q2 do things. One of the biggest headaches was the increased mobility of Corvus compared to the Q2 guy. The other was shrines. The defensive spells were pretty easy to code in, and the main weapons handling was OK too. But the blade had me stumped for a long time, before I finally came up with a simple but effective AI just for melee combat. And the rest, as they say, is history. I think these bots are one of those projects that will never be truly
finished. There will always be things that can be improved and tweaked and added. I have plans for them. They are
going to learn InstaGib very soon. I am going to Include IT as an optional gameplay mode for them, and I also
want them playing skull hunters. I just wish I had more time.......... |
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