question about the bots.

[MykeGregory]

i have a few questions about the bots.

how would you go about improving the bots? is it through coding?
i think the aim for them is good (on best difficulty) but movment wise they could improve.

and why do they always steal my grenades when they dont use them?

[Xeoncross]

Actually, the bigger question is why noobs steal the grenades when all they do is blow themselves up.
At least for the bots it's a technical edge for them to deprive you.

[CyberKlown28]

xD
yes even on highest difficulty, a lot of them still jump around, usually grabbing pickups from you or jumping into a wall. Very bad bots, definitely could improve .-.

[Gibstick]

At least bots can edge-jump flawlessly every time, even backwards. Some players can't do it at all.

[jAcKRoCk*]

The bots won't be touched since AC it's intended to be a online game ;) besides this same thing it's been asked once twice and a lot of times :D

[Orynge]

Actually, Zarj WAS fixing the bots, but then he left.

Hopefully someone picks it up again.

[SnowOak]

What should be fixed with bots:
- Ability to use carbine >.>
- Their aim is miraculously good.
- Ability to use pickups
- Ability to knife lol
- Ability to use voicecom
- And ability to fly

[VenteX]

What should be fixed with bots:
- Ability to use carbine >.>
- Their aim is miraculously good.
- Ability to use pickups
- Ability to knife lol
- Ability to use voicecom
- And ability to fly

- Ability to use pistol
- Ability to play flag modes
- Ability to nade
- Ability to crouch
- Ability to STOP JUMPING FOR FIVE SECONDS
- Ability to stop trying to use their gun when it's empty, making that annoying clicking sound over and over and over
- ...

[jamz]

...Some players can't do it at all (jamz).

Why would you embarrass me in public Gibstick? Why?

[CharlyMurphie]

Zarj rocks, he is a friendly unlike some

[MykeGregory]

what is edge jumping?

anyway, i'm sad to hear Zarj has left.
we should ask the team who made Unreal what their secret is at making good bots. lol

[flowtron]

I've repeatedly heard from people they were wanting to work on the bots - of course, even more that they'd want someone to work on them - but it never happens. They're the same basic cubebots Rick gave us a port of back in the day. They're simplistic and are just meant to give you a chance to get to know the game before making a fool of yourself in public. Their AI isn't anywhere near "tactical", but they do know about pickups and stuff and go for them .. which is a sort of tactic, at least you won't have the nade even if they don't use it. Regarding the gun-usage - I recently fixed their guns up - check out the current beta-test.
In a nutshell - if someone that has some knowledge about A* and has some ideas on how to make an AI that could pass a turing-test in an fps-world .. just give us your code and your name will be glorified by oh so many.

[Zarjio]

Thought I would jump in here for a second. Having read this thread and a fair bit of the bot code, I should mention that most of the bot's smart functions are already available in the code - they're simply not being used well. A function for A* is already written, as well, the bots know how to jump to grab a pickup, etc. Part of the reason I quit working on the AI (well, I never really started, to be honest) was frustration - everything needed is there, the code is simply not very well documented, and the functions are simply not being used well as it currently stands.

[MykeGregory]

*snip*
Everything needed is there, the code is simply not very well documented, and the functions are simply not being used well as it currently stands.

i presume then, there is not some random lines of code you can add to improve them.
its more of an acctual AI problem. IE, it knows how to pick up grenades but dousnt know what they are for?

[Zarjio]

Not at all. The bot *should* know how to do a lot of things, the code is simply not put together properly. Almost all useful functions are there, they are simply either not being used or else used poorly.

[jAcKRoCk*]

I tell You this, i need one bot to show me how to use the smg, hehe

[Alien]

I agree with Zarj, the code is a bit in mess, but it is the same for all AC code. Everytime i see it, i cannot believe it can work without problems. (probably obfuscated against cheaters :)) You need perfect objects for abstraction, without them it is pain.

For interesting reading and motivation
http://dev.johnstevenson.co.uk/bots/2058...na-Bot.pdf

[flowtron]

Heh, indeed - I often marvel at this mess working in any reliable way myself, but then again - it often doesn't. Part of the problem is that it's been through so many hands, with as near to no overlap as makes no difference. One of these days we might just find it's worth starting from scratch, taking what we've learned and building a proper villa from the ground up, rather than tacking on balconies and turrets to a shack :-P

[Xeoncross]

My worry is that the people that do understand what is going on might leave before teaching someone else. If there was at least a reasonable number of comments then we would have some idea of where to start and what to expect.

I can't remember much of my C++ days - but that's one of my plans for 2011.

While I can't imagine playing this game offline against bots - I would LOVE to see the bots fixed, and be able to enable bots to "auto-fill" online matches to make sure there were always enough people when desired.

[flowtron]

AFAIK the BloodFrontier/RedEclipse games have bots that can do this; they're coded for the Cube2-Engine though - so backporting will be quite tricky.

[Ronald_Reagan]

Ask quin to do the job for you. It seems like he has quite a Handel (haha..) on these things.

[flowtron]

I haven't spoken to him in quite a while, but I'm pretty sure he's still too busy and not really interested in getting into Cube1-source .. but I doubt he wouldn't lend a helping ear (hehe) to a (at least semi-competent) coder who comes across issues with the backport.

[Frogulis]

able to enable bots to "auto-fill" online matches to make sure there were always enough people when desired.

One of the best things of Assaultcube is the complete lack of empty servers that appear to be running, and then when you enter a server, it just has bots in it.
Alien Arena 2008 for example, has the ability to set a number of bots on your server. This is annoying when 90% of the occupied servers just have bots in them! Nothing against Alien Arena of course. =]
If something like this ever was implemented, please please please don't let it run bots when it's not in use. That would be annoying.
-Frogulis
p.s. For some added realism, can we have at least one bot per match named 'unarmed' ;D

[flowtron]

Frogulis, your first sentence seems to go another way as you probably intended - judging from the rest of your post. Because you're actually saying AC doesn't have empty servers - and upon joining you find them filled with bots. This is (of course) untrue - for those readers not yet having years of AC experience under their belt. AssaultCube only has bots in offline-mode and the discussion here was originally about how one could go about improving them.
If it's not been made clear: there's currently nobody available to take time to make them any better and it's never gotten to a place where we thought they could be made into teammates. It's a seriously difficult job, but there is code out there (BF/RE) that might be used as reference - but I wouldn't really know, never seriously tried any of the two mentioned games beyond the first beta-stage of BF .. but I know quin and that he's one of the best coders available inside the cubeengine universe; then again I have to emphasize that all that code will be oriented towards octree and not heightfields - if you don't even know what those words mean, then you're not up to the job of backporting the code - sorry.

[V-Man]

The lack of otherwise empty servers with nothing but bots in them.

[Frogulis]

The lack of otherwise empty servers with nothing but bots in them.

Yeah, that. Go English!
I am semi-serious about the unarmed thing. Would be a nice touch I reckon.
* Frogulis does semi-serious face