Bot Force Powers?

*Kurgan* · 02-24-2006, 09:25 PM

Razor, I realize you're busy now, but Spring Break is coming up (at least for some of us, hint, hint!), anyway I know there is a secret "to do list" which I haven't seen in a long time (if ever), and there's a lot of stuff to do, but here is something we sorely need:

Bot's ability to use all Force Powers.

I know I talked to you some time ago about putting in Bot ability to do Team Heal and Team Energize as an automatic power in Team/Siege games.

Currently, what all force powers are bots capable of doing right now?

I'm assuming they can do Jump, and sometimes they randomly do saber throw, and they do the normal Kata move, and once in a great while they use Speed, and of course the auto Push/Pull block move. That's all I can recall seeing them do. Has this changed?

I would think at minimum certain powers should be added until they can do it all, since even the (lousy) basejka bots could spam lightning.

I remember having a great time choosing force power templates for my bots before OJP supported them in Siege. I think in another thread you said all bots have the same powers, so I imagine those are only neutrals? We should have at minimum a dark side and light side template for bots, since in Siege that's what you're going to get, and bots that don't use their side specific powers aren't very useful in that mode. This applies to CTF as well. You could have it divy up the type of Jedi bots at random, but Siege would need specific types per team (ie: Siege Korriban: Blue Defenders Darkside/Red attackers Lightside; Hoth: Blue Defenders Lightside/Red Attackers Darkside or Neutral; Desert: Blue Defenders Darkside/Red Attackers Lightside). Now to fine tune it later of course, there is one character (the Dark Jedi Scout) on the blue team on Korriban who has a mixture of powers.

Or you could make it so that a bot "knows" what powers his character can actually do, and then just use them in the right situations (or per the old bot AI how it would do it). But if the template idea would work better... anyway I just want to see bots do something useful with the Force for once.

If I had to choose one thing to update in basic right now, this would be it...

ensiform · 02-25-2006, 12:22 AM

i'd personally like to see a seperate bitflag cvar like bot_forcePowerDisable so that you can disable say, bots from using pull/push or maybe disabling mindtrick cause its kinda newbie especially for bots in mp anyway.

razorace · 02-25-2006, 08:43 AM

The bots automatically know what force powers they have. To check for a force power is VERY easy for the bots since they're run in with the server code. Also, the force powers in Siege are automatically set by the Siege playerclasses, so force templetes for them aren't needed.

Anyway, the force powers issue has mainly been one of not knowing how to make the bots intellegently use them. I've probably got a good idea on how to do some of the powers now so I suppose I could work on it sometime.

Quote:

i'd personally like to see a seperate bitflag cvar like bot_forcePowerDisable so that you can disable say, bots from using pull/push or maybe disabling mindtrick cause its kinda newbie especially for bots in mp anyway.

Uh, why? I think there's already a cvar for toggling force use for the bots.

*Kurgan* · 02-25-2006, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensiform

i'd personally like to see a seperate bitflag cvar like bot_forcePowerDisable so that you can disable say, bots from using pull/push or maybe disabling mindtrick cause its kinda newbie especially for bots in mp anyway.

Are you saying only 'Newbies' are allowed to use those powers? Surely not!

As I see it, bots need all the help they can get in MP...

ensiform · 02-26-2006, 02:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by razorace

The bots automatically know what force powers they have. To check for a force power is VERY easy for the bots since they're run in with the server code. Also, the force powers in Siege are automatically set by the Siege playerclasses, so force templetes for them aren't needed.

Anyway, the force powers issue has mainly been one of not knowing how to make the bots intellegently use them. I've probably got a good idea on how to do some of the powers now so I suppose I could work on it sometime.

Uh, why? I think there's already a cvar for toggling force use for the bots.

its a global cvar meaning allow all force or none ( bot_forcepowers ) unlike g_forcePowerDisable.

razorace · 02-26-2006, 04:34 AM

My question is why you'd want a cvar that would disable individual force power useage by the bots?

ensiform · 02-26-2006, 02:15 PM

actually i guess its not needed but it would be nice to make the bots stop spamming absorb/protect when low on force like if they have just enough they keep spamming it and its annoying.

*Kurgan* · 02-26-2006, 02:36 PM

Are the bots too hard for you to defeat? I think they should be made harder, not easier, but making it so they use ALL FORCE, and not just neutrals. That's my point!

Spamming is what helps them, but I agree, I'd rather see intelligence than spammage. But I'd rather see spammage than non-use...

As for spamming absorb/protection that's a new one for me. I don't think I've seen them use those powers in a long time, so maybe that's changed lately? I should hop onto the basic server tonight or tomorrow and check it out! As I recall they only used neutrals and did kata spam...

ensiform · 02-26-2006, 04:27 PM

i dont know if its really ojp specific its in base i know for sure.

razorace · 02-26-2006, 04:46 PM

I think he's referring to bots having hair triggers when it comes to using absorb/protect. Since their thinking is all math based, they can react faster to spam certain kinds of moves to their advantage. The TABBots in Basic already do that for katas (where they move just inside range and BAM!)

ensiform · 02-26-2006, 04:49 PM

yeah.

razorace · 02-26-2006, 05:08 PM

Well, I'll try to make them not spam like ham, but I don't know how it will turn out until I actually do it.

*Kurgan* · 02-26-2006, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ensiform

i dont know if its really ojp specific its in base i know for sure.

My point was they use Force a LOT more in basejka than in OJP basic. I'd LOVE it if they used force as much now as they did then. Using botmaker I made basejka bots that favored lightning and they spammed it all the time. That was great (except against people who smartly used absorb of course!). I can't do the same in OJP though.

My custom settings get overwritten by the TABbot standard.

One thing I'm curious about... do TAB bots have adjustable difficulty now? Or are they always at the same level?

Because if you wanted to, you could make it so they are bastards who spam and have perfect aim at one level, and go down from there to a more manageable level.

Some of us enjoyed pilling on the godlike bots in UT for practice.
I long for the day when I can turn off the forced team balance and get a bunch of us vs. a team of bots in TFFA and actually have it be a challenge.

I don't mind Kata spam, I just wish they knew how to do some other moves...

razorace · 02-26-2006, 06:14 PM

TABBots aim speed is determined by their difficulty like the basejka bots are.

*Kurgan* · 02-27-2006, 11:26 AM

Okay that's cool. So they're at top performance right now... (since we always run them at difficulty 5 iirc). The only bots that really seem to annoy people with perfect aim are the occasional Disruptor bots... but I guess without instant hitscan weapons for the most part (only secondary Concussion and Disruptor) you wouldn't really see it in JA.

razorace · 02-27-2006, 04:28 PM

Well, the function I used for the target leading was just the basejka, which is pretty simple in terms of prediction. I could try to improve it but I don't currently know what the math would be like.

*Kurgan* · 03-26-2006, 02:55 PM

Just as a reminder that we need better bot force power usage.