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1. Arena: Cyberdemon has posted 20 frags in his own map, Head Rush. In the crowded Quake 3:16 arena, Ugwad's buddy Fragman has posted 33 frags. Ugwad submitted a 37 frag demo, but it crashes on my machine. I'll include it anyway until I get a lot of gripes that it doesn't run on anyone else's machines...
2. "I can't step up!" N Bot be nimble, N Bot be quick... N Bot lays a lot of black candlesticks. Um, maybe it's not so nimble yet... Hey, in all fairness, this bot is half done. Thumbs up to Aurican for the effort of totally rewriting this bot from the ground up for MBF, at the cost of much sleep. I tried gothic98 first, of course... extremely slow framerate, of course. The bot ran back & forth a few times & then crashed with the "I can't step up" message. I assume that this happens when it crosses certain linedefs. Then, I tried Gothic2.wad. Whoops, there are bugs in that wad that Boom has never tolerated like Legacy & DosDoom have. Boom's cousin MBF is just as finicky with gothic2.wad, so nix that wad--too bad. Then I fired up Plague (an Execution beta level that reminds me a lot of the British11 maps), Surge, & bother01.wad. The bot gets stuck a lot (although, some of the corners it got stuck in are the same corners that Doombot 2.21 gets stuck in). I was reminded of the old Doombot 2.0, but this N Bot doesn't shoot yet. It bounces around like a pong blip, like Doombot 2.0 did, but it leaves black candles like a rat leaving droppings (sorry, Andy, but it's late, & the comparison struck me as funny just now). At this point, the bot is still an experiment. It's not anything you can dm against, unless you like blowing away lemmings. But we all need to give props to Aurican for his hard work, & encourage him to continue. He took a risk releasing something that is not fully working, & so I am not going to rip on his bot's flaws. I am looking forward to see him finish this thing, though as school resumes for him this may take longer.
3. I have a request of somebody. Will someone please make a DosDoom 0.65 bot? I have been nagging the team about adding bots, but to no avail. I am dying to see a bot that can use the DDF (Doom Definition Files) stuff. If you haven't tried out the new DDF weapon hacks for DosDoom, you are missing out big time. All the stuff that you used to need dehacked to change has been taken out of the exe file & put into these ddf files that you can edit with notepad. It is a quantum leap beyond dehacked. In a wad, you can add DDF stuff like new weapons, monsters, linedefs, etc. without a separate deh file. It is extremely cool, & I could see a very cool DM pack that has custom weapons for the bots. I know that MBF has support for deh in wads, which is kind of similar, but DDF is much easier to do & more powerful than dehacked, & a bots.ddf file would be very fun to mess around with indeed! Anyway, happy new year, & somebody make a resolution to do a bot for DosDoom.
4. If you haven't noticed from watching my demos in the arena, I am not the most adept dm'er. :-) Therefore, I found myself encouraged by Ugwad's demos of him getting 29 & 33 frags the hard way in gothic2.wad map 30. While he disparages his lack of finesse, I think he makes up for it with insight.
5. On another note, I happened upon celebrity Quaker Killcreek in Efnet #doom2 last night. For those of you who don't know, she is a fierce player who beat John Romero in Quake dm. Anyway, I invited her to try out Doombot & post some demos for the arena. Things are pretty busy for her at Ion Storm, as she has moved from testing to map editing (& we all know how much pressure they are under to get Diakatana finished) but we'll see if she gets a chance to join us in the arena.
6. Yoghurt's Bot is currently called the Ungood Gluteus Maximus Bot. ;-) He is still taking name suggestions. Seriously, though, the bots are using skins & chatting, but Yoghurt is still working on the roaming algorithms.
7. Aurican has some bugs to squash in his N bot. Read here.
8. With all the rants about religion (Ola/Duk/Justin et. al.), I figured I'd tell you a little story. Don't read it while you're tripping!
9. Fly has been tinkering around with his Doombot... & he finally gave me the go-ahead to spill the beans about his planned Team Fortress support. This was discussed back when I first started this bot page, but he wanted me to keep quiet about it. With the other  TF buzz going on over at Gokuma's, & the continuing development of Doombot's CTF abilities, it seemed like a good time to talk about it. Anyway, here's a few things about the bot's current condition:

A. Jumping has been implemented since 2.29, which also has the ctf support. This is the one I have been playing with.
B. Version 2.3 has the movement code fixed. The bot used to have to finish moving to a desired point before it would look around for targets. If it was running a long ways, this meant that the thing would run right past you. Map 13 in Surge vividly demonstrates this bug. According to Fly, the 2.3 bot is a lot tougher with the improved movement code.
C. He is working on keeping the bot from strafing into corners & getting stuck. One fix stopped it from getting stuck, but caused other problems with crossing certain linedefs.
10. Aurican is gearing up for the release of the N Bot for MBF. Bots in Gothic98--sweet. He has gone into great detail about it at his page.
11. I've added an area on hacking your own "helper bots".
12. Gokuma has a new TF patch that looks like it may be cool with bots.
13. 2 new Arenas: GothicDM2 has been great, but there are some new maps coming out that are a nice change of pace. These maps are from the newly released Surge. Map 23, "Top of the World", is hands down the best looking map in Surge. The wintery, outdoor look fits right into the winter season that we in the northern hemisphere are experiencing. Perhaps Yasher was inspired by the scenery of his area of Norway. Map 28, "Head Rush", has a great look & gameplay. (BTW, the screenshots are taken from DosDoom 0.65, because the texture smoothing makes for great screenshots.) I'll try to post a few demos of my own to get the ball rolling until the true pros join in.
14. Arena: Fly has beat down his own bots in gothic2.wad map30 again in 3 new demos--44, 45 & 48 frags. I've also changed the layout a bit in there, & adopted a pass/fail botworthiness rating for maps.
15. I was kindly referred to dgdm3.wad by its author, Dagger, as a good map for bots. This is a great example of a theme that has been overlooked lately--E1 DM. Simple design, but a great looking layout. The bots loved it, too--no doors. The only snag was in a side hall by a sg shelf, it seems. There definitely seems to be a backlash lately against some of the bloated, ornate maps that have come out in the gothic2.wad style. There is a trade-off when you add lots of aesthetic touches. Mappers need to strike a balance between framerate & aesthetics. Levelord is one who stresses the importance of framerate, & we would all do well to heed his advice. We aren't doing the Doom community any favors by making maps that don't run well on lower end machines. I believe that some of the counter-gothic sentiment that is surfacing may lead to a reemergence of the E1 Dm style, which is cool with me.
16. If you have looked around in Gothic98.wad, you will notice that function follows form--i.e. aesthetics prevail mightily over gameplay. DM in this map will be a slideshow, I'm afraid, unless you have a raging fast machine, or if you shrink the window size down to credit card dimensions. The closest I came to DM in this map was blowing away the MBF dogs, which are suprisingly tough, BTW.  :-) This map is the most extreme example I have seen so far of the sluggish, bloated, gothic-style maps, even exceeding Pixel's Simply Evil, which at least was playable under Boom. Maybe this map would be sweet if you have the horsepower to run it--it does look like the map flows very well, & it is a breathtaking map to behold, at any framerate (especially in MBF's hi-res mode).
17. Sir Robin's new ice castle dm map has a problem with bots--the moat. If you put pits in a map, the bots get stuck in them, which detracts from the gameplay. Also, I would have liked to be able to snipe from the towers & jump down on either side of the wall--it would have really opened up the level.
18. I just reviewed all 32 maps in Surge for Bot-worthiness. = bot-worthy  = bots choke. Please note that bots can choke on an otherwise excellent map, & a crummy map could be bot-worthy, so the botworthiness rating is not entirely contingent upon the quality of the map.
19. Gothic98 is Boom only! Ack--we'll have to wait until the MBF-based N Bot comes out to try this one. Let's go, Andy!
20. Looks like Aurican is gearing up for a release of the N Bot by New Year's. The release won't have shooting implemented yet, but will do all the f12 keypress spawning, nodeplacing, DM respawning, & movement from node to node, as well as some aesthetic touches like a title page.
21. I have just tried out the beta of Fly's CTFbot. Yes, it is pretty much functional, though the nodes are visible (for testing reasons) as those candles like Nexus bot has. Don't worry--the nodes will be invisible in the public release. Fly actually said that the bots aren't using the nodes yet, so what is working as of this writing is the flag capturing, the teamplay, & the scoring. This means that the bots aren't finding those flags just yet. It will need the nodes for that. But I swear, they will chase you when you get their flag! Maybe it's just my imagination. The ctf map is nice & big, & has a surprise that you will have to discover on your own. >:-)

Anyway, there is a new -ctf parameter in the doombot.exe. Ctfbot.bat takes care of the whole command line. When I started it up, I spawned into ctflevel.wad, which has a good layout for the most part. I was on the red team with another bot against the blue team, which had 2 bots. The red flag room had some armor, sg's, ssg's, & health/armor bonuses, which I of course gathered before going downstairs to a semcircular hallway which went to a big open lava area with ledges on all sides. This was a big problem for the bots, as they cannot activate the lifts/ledges to get out of the lava pit. Any bot map should have no doors or lifts, because the bot cannot use them--yet, anyway. Anyway, I ran past the open area to the other end. It's a big oval--the lava pit's in the middle, & the stairs to the team's flag room are at either end. It took a few tries to get past the blue team in the flag room, & my first capture of the blue flag (which triggers the sound made by Quake's ogre!) lasted only a moment as I was fragged by a blue bot. I was able to reenter the blue flag room, found the flag where I had dropped it, & took it back to the red base for a touchdown worth 10 frags for each team member, which triggered a fanfare sound & the "touchdown!" message. Very cool. It will be good when the bots begin using nodes, & can find the flag. They also need to be able to pick up & return their own flag. & the flag rooms need some kind of back door to them--having only the stairs as an entrance makes them too easy for a camper to defend. But all in all, a very fun new development for Fly's bot!

Deathmatch Bots: There are currently 3 "real" DM bots. There have been some fake bots that are simply hacks of monster ai to simulate a bot, but IMHO an ideal DM bot should have the following characteristics:

• the player should be able to spawn them at will by pressing a key
• the player should be able to record demos of bot matches
• ability to respawn using the deathmatch respawn points
• ability to pick up & use player weapons, ammo, & powerups
• ability to rack up frags in the frag score display
• a way to navigate the levels like a player can
• the ability to operate switches, lifts, doors, etc. like a player can

1. Nexus Bot, by Aurican (released May 24, 1998)
2. Doombot, by Fly (released October 31, 1998)
3. Doombot, by Yoghurt (released December 5, 1998)

• bots spawn at the beginning of the map, using the co-op starting points
• bots shoot monsters
• bots can be ordered to either roam or follow
• bots use powerups, health, ammo
• bots activate switches, lifts, doors

1. Marine's Best Friend, by Lee Killough (released December 17, 1998)
2. Thrust, by Darkfang (release pending)

These friendly imps are definitely not as smart as the dogs of Lee's MBF, but it is an
example of how easy it is to change things with ddf.

The enclosed creature.ddf file is just a simple ddf hack of the imp behavior to make it
friendly, if not very smart. You can just unzip it into your dosdoom dir & overwrite your
existing creature.ddf if you want. You can always restore the original setting by adding
& removing a few sets of {} brackets to comment out & un-comment the affected items.

In the [IMP] section, you will see the following commented-out section
(Everything enclosed within the {} brackets is commented out.):

{SPAWN_STATES=TROO:A:10:NORMAL:LOOKOUT,
             TROO:B:10:NORMAL:LOOKOUT; }

That is the original code. It has been replaced by:

SPAWN_STATES=TROO:A:10:NORMAL:SUPPORT_LOOKOUT,
             TROO:B:10:NORMAL:SUPPORT_LOOKOUT;

& the following was added:

MEANDER_STATES=TROO:A:3:NORMAL:SUPPORT_MEANDER,
               TROO:A:3:NORMAL:SUPPORT_MEANDER,
               TROO:B:3:NORMAL:SUPPORT_MEANDER,
               TROO:B:3:NORMAL:SUPPORT_MEANDER,
               TROO:C:3:NORMAL:SUPPORT_MEANDER,
               TROO:C:3:NORMAL:SUPPORT_MEANDER,
               TROO:D:3:NORMAL:SUPPORT_MEANDER,
               TROO:D:3:NORMAL:SUPPORT_MEANDER;

Which will make the imp behave quite differently. It will attack monsters, & unfortunately
barrels as well, resulting in suicide. It will also wander around aimlessly instead of
chasing you around.
As you can imagine, you can make any monster friendly using the same method. The only trouble is that they aren't really smart, they don't follow you around, & the change affects the entire species i.e. all imps will be friendly. I'm sure there will be better ways developed, as ddf is very new & very powerful.

MBF has an easier, better way of making friendly monsters, though. In an editor like Deth, just select the monster you want to be friendly & set its flag to include the "no co-op" setting, in addition to the easy-med-hard settings. These friendly monsters are smarter, they follow you around, & they will attack other monsters of the same species.

• In the next release, Fly plans to make the bots jump.
• In a future release (~1999), Fly plans to implement a new movement code that will be nodetable-based, but not player-generated like Yoghurt's bot or the Omicron. Fly compares it more to the Reaperbot.
•  

CTF! Yes, very cool. It will be designed around the nodetable movement code, but the immediate release will require maps that Fly has placed nodes into. He will be working on having the bots place their own nodes later, but they will need more smarts for that. Fly needs to place the nodes himself, because if just anybody slaps nodes into their maps without understanding the ai, the bots may get stuck. Maybe he'll share this pathnoding info later, as Randar has done with Unreal bots, so the rest of the community can help with the pathnoding chore.
• Team Fortress support! Well, Fly says that CTF is being ditched in favor of TF, but in my mind they are pretty much intertwined.

• making the bot fire on monsters
• isp (instinct of self preservation)
• team names (which of course implies team play support)
• further develop the roaming ai
• skins support

Thrust is an exciting new port which is being worked on by Darkfang. If you have tried the beta, then you know first-hand that it has very cool features like colored lighting, ambient sound, fog, rain, gibbable bodies, & a great railgun-like weapon that replaces the plasma gun which will knock a target back about 20-30 feet. A very satisfying weapon to use, trust me. But perhaps its most exciting feature is yet to be experienced--its bots.

Darkfang & Fly have collaborated to make these bots possible by sharing Fly's Doombot code & Darkfang's Thrust code to create the helper bots for Thrust. Darkfang describes his plans for these bots:

In the game, they are called Lost Troopers and they are the remaining survivors from the previous squad that attempted the mission before you that got slaughtered. But yet, some remain and they are eagr and willing to help you in your quests.  Some might posess keys, a new weapon, health, etc... in which they will give you when you rescue them.

Until they are rescued, they remain idle in hope that someone(like yourself will come along and rescue them).  But, while they are idle, they will fire apon any enemys they might see, they will just hold their position and not move while attempting to kill anyone that is not here to help is only part of the problem.

Once rescued, they will give you whatever it is to be given and also sometimes thank you (these bots talk alot somtimes) and offer to joinup. Once this has happened, they follow you around and almost duplicate your moves as you move about the map.  But, this quickly changed if any enemy(s) come into sight.  If this happens, they will quickly do their own moves and do the crazy strafing and will fire apon will on the enemy.  If you get in the way of the bots fire, you take the damage he dishes out.  But, if he gets in the way of yours, he'll be nice and won't get mad and start going postal on you  :)

Also, to sum it up, they are very interesting as they will yell during a battle "We got company!!". Or, after a battle "See? They ain't so tough". Thats only a few instances.  But, they are alot of other things.

Also, I do plan on adding hero bots kinda like starcraft, heros that have beefed up weapons and health and that you must keep alive until you take the hero to a certain point.

According to Darkfang, these bots are currently about 80% done. I am looking forward to Thrust--it really sounds like it will have a lot of depth with these npc-type companion bots. I am reminded of Romero's ideas for Daikatana!

 

Marine's Best Friend, by Lee Killough

Lee's parting gift to the Doom community is a truly remarkable port, which is based on Boom. It adds many features, including hi-res graphics, pre-beta Doom emulation (including a very cool BFG that spews a massive swarm of plasma balls), & some great SP helper dogs, the Marine's Best Friend referred to in the title. Yes, they are dogs, which use the german shepherd graphics ripped from Wolfenstein 3d. They will follow you around & attack enemies, much like the Cujo bot for Quake. So if you want co-op with dogs, this is for you!
* Friendly Monster AI
  + Friends attack enemies like players
  + Friendliness is a mobj property, like NOGRAVITY or SOLID
  + Friendly single-player helpers (dogs) can fill in coop starts
  + Friendliness is transferred by Arch-Vile, Pain Elemental, and Boss Spawner
  + Player autoaiming avoids friends if enemies are in range
  + Friends with missiles return one shot if shot by friends
  + Friends stay a "comfortable distance" away from players
  + Friends indicated by different color in automap
Usage:
In the options menu, go to setup, then enemies. There you can change the following features, as explained by Lee:
* Number of single-player helper dogs
  This option allows anywhere from 0 to 3 player starts to be filled with
  friendly dogs in single-player games. These might be considered co-op bots,
  although they cannot pick up items or operate keyed doors or the like.
* Distance friends stay away
  This option sets a "comfort distance", which is the distance friends of the
  player try to stay away from the player, to avoid getting in your feet. Under
  reasonable circumstances, such as on a crowded lift, or if the friend is
  attacking an enemy that's close by, this distance constraint will sometimes
  be violated.
* Allow dogs to jump down
  If this option is set to YES, dogs will jump down from taller ledges towards
  their owner. If this option is set to NO, dogs cannot jump down from ledges
  taller than 24 (unless deh-modified, perhaps).
The command line mbf -dogs # will start you with # of dogs. This will override the # of SP helper dogs setting found in the options-setup-enemies menu.

• rewrite the bot for Marine's Best Friend
• Says Aurican: The bot will spawn in spawn-spots, place his own nodes, pick up weapons, etc.

Doombot 2.21 is used for these 5 minute demos:
Quake 3:16    Shrouded Ground    Top of the World    Head Rush

Gothic DM2 Map 30: Quake 3:16 by Adelusion

Ugwad37 frags Unfy36 frags ^JJ^35 frags Zebul33 frags Ugwad33 frags Fragman33 frags Damo32 frags Unfy32 frags

Nemesis49 frags Fly48 frags Unfy47 frags Fly45 frags Nemesis44 frags Damo41 frags Nemesis34 frags

Gothic DM2 Map 11: Shrouded Ground by Dan Twomey

Unfy42 frags Adam Hegyi 41 frags Zebul34 frags

Fly36 frags

Surge Map 23: Top of the World by Yashar Garibzadeh

Captain Mellow21 frags

Surge Map 28: Head Rush by Cyberdemon

Cyberdemon20 frags Captain Mellow13 frags

 

Surge & Sergey's Bots

Surge is somewhat of a paradox. Extremely simple layouts (too simple sometimes, IMO) like you find in Horizon, but with that Gothic DM2 feel in the attention to detail. These maps are almost entirely based upon the tried-&-true square-with-crossovers layout, like what you see in GothicDM2 map01. In testimony to their small size & simple layouts, they were all cranked in a couple hours apiece. With a few exceptions, these maps are about total carnage for 2 players, not hide-& seek. BTW, do you like the face that Ricrob has on his rants page? Well, you'll be seeing a lot of it on just about every map in this wad. :-P Of course, I only care about how they handle bots, so here goes:

MAP01
The bot moves well, & doesn't get stuck.

MAP02
The bot gets stuck every time, like it was told to go stand in the corner--weird.

MAP03
The bot moves well, doesn't get stuck--& when it gets ahold of the bfg, look out. Lots of pillars by the alcoves get you hung up & cause rl suicides sometimes. Once you get the feel for it, I'm sure it's cake.

MAP04
The same corner sticking as in map02--too bad, because this is a nice looking level.

MAP05
The bot moves well, & uses plasma to good effect. Take him out with a shotgun.

MAP06
Hey, the bot jumps now! Oh, yeah, I have the beta w/ ctf support...sorry. The bot strafes against the walls in the narrow side passages & gets hung up. It stands a better chance fighting in the open area.

MAP07
The bot gets stuck every time at the foot of the stairs in the middle--forget this one.

MAP08
A good, point-blank, shotgun dance. The bot does well.

MAP09
Do you like to respawn facing a wall & get shot in the back before you can turn around? Then this map is for you. The bot does a great job of shooting you in the back again & again, & it does move well, I guess--I saw the wall mostly.

MAP10
Another good shotgun dance, with more elbow room. The bot does well.

MAP11
This map looks very cool, but it has doors over the respawns, which automatically makes this map a no-go for the non-door-opening Doombot.

MAP12
This one is a good chase, though the bot moves very predictably. A nice variety of weapons.

MAP13
The biggest map so far--lots of open space makes for some good chases, though this big map needs more than 2 players The bot is pretty predictable & easy to pick off in the open. The lack of crossover in the central tower seemed kind of frustrating, but overall well done.

MAP14
A big square room, the BFG is in the center. Other weapons in the corners. No cover. If it weren't for the lighting, which is very well done, I would guess that this level took about 2 minutes to make. The bot of course does well in a layout this simple.

MAP15
This is a good-looking level. The bot navigates it very well, jumping up onto ledges (oops--sorry) & such.

MAP16
This level looks good, but the bot quickly gets stuck on the pillars.

MAP17
This level looks good, but the bot quickly gets stuck at the foot of the stairs.

MAP18
This level looks good, but the bot occasionally gets stuck in the corners. But it can go a while without getting stuck, & this level has a good layout for more players.

MAP19
A square with a crossover, but replacing the interior walls with lava pits. The fiery lava is cool (heheh oxymoron), & the bot moves well, but the fighting gets routine pretty quickly.

MAP20
Pretty fast, & the bot loves to loop through those teleporters. I personally found the teleporters to be pretty disorienting until I went with the flow, ran through the loop, & keep firing. There's a rhythm to this one that is set to the beat of the teleporter metronome.

MAP21
This level was like shooting fish in a barrel. The bot will spawn, make a beeline to the waffle, & get stuck.

MAP22
Plasma o'plenty & fast action in this one. The bot moves well, & the locations of many of the respawns are pretty cool (quite hot actually).

MAP23
Beautiful, just beautiful. It's a fun level, with some realistic snow on the ground. The bot does just fine, & jumps over the fence quite ably (soon he will for you, too).

MAP24
Another shotgun dance, with a rl in the middle. The bot occasionally gets stuck against a pillar, but it does well otherwise. The layout looked good, but was a bit too simple for my tastes

MAP25
The bot moves well through this good-looking level, but it can't get at the BFG or the secrets, which detracts from this map for bot use.

MAP26
The classic square with a crossover--again. It works great, though.

MAP27
A bizarre combination of catwalks & ladders that will make you feel like a frog hopping over those walls. Not surprisingly, the bot gets stuck on the catwalks, but it hops over the ladders pretty well.

MAP28
Looks great, & the bot plays well. Unfortunately, the switch & lift guarantee that you will be the only one using the plasma gun.

MAP29
The classic square with a crossover, opened up a bit, with a few height changes. The bot does great.

MAP30
Another square with a crossover, but stretched out & made to look like sewer pipes. Looks quite good, & the bot does well.

MAP31
The best square with a crossover of this bunch IMO. The textures & lava are well done, & the bot plays it great.

MAP32
Looks great, but the pit & lifts really limit the bot to running around in the pit. Too bad.
 
 

Articles

1. Via Roaming AI: In this case, of which the Reaper bot for Quake is a good example, the bot places its own nodes as it explores a map using its own ai. This works well, but only as well as the ai can explore a map. Some powerups & weapons might be placed in an area that the bot's roaming ai cannot get to. A BFG may be located on a ledge that the bot will jump off of before it reaches the item, or behind a door, or on a lift, which it may not be able to operate. Map layout can make or break the success of this type of bot, unless the roaming ai is further developed, which unfortunately can lead to more CPU overhead.
2. Via Player RI: That stands for Real Intelligence, as opposed to Artificial Intelligence, & what better base for navigation than a real human player? The Omicron for Quake is the prime example of this approach. This type of bot will cause the player to place nodes as he plays the level, & the bot may be able to save this info for later use. This has some major advantages, because by using the player's movement to learn a map, it will learn of areas & items that an ai would not be able to find, & its movement will of course be much more like a human player. Once it has sufficiently learned a map, its node-placing mode can be turned off to free up CPU overhead.
3. Via Static Nodes: The Frogbot for Quake doesn't learn maps. It can only play on certain maps which its programmer has taught it by coding the nodes into the bot. This results in less CPU overhead than the previous two methods, because the bot is not learning anything new. It's not placing nodes, or causing the player to place nodes. & its roaming ai is much simpler. Also, this type of bot will already know everything it needs to know to play the level like a pro--location of powerups/secrets/weapons, prime sniping locations, etc. This results in a very lean & mean bot that is limited to a few maps, but plays them extremely well.