Re: development screenies
 

PM, just out of interest, what is your aim for RACC? do you want it to be incredibly intelligent and tactical like a well-trained soldier, or do you just want it to be human-like?

Re: development screenies
 

I'd like to achieve the first.. however "tactical aim" isn't something I quite master yet... I'd enjoy demos of that :)

Re: development screenies
 

i guess tactic is the weakest part of all bots, cause aim skill is easy to code thats why bots run like dumb but give instatn hs - whcich is , franky, not normal behaviour for some players :D

Re: development screenies
 

In my experience most players do not really behave 'tactical' (ie as a team). Only clans do that where humans have specific roles in the map. Its like humans playing according to a script:

head to spot A
guard bombspot B at location x,y,z
etc.

On the public/clan server i play on (see website) i found most players just react 'logical'. They try to vary their paths (mostly on trial & error) and then concentrate on sounds. My recent changes on the bots already showed that bots that care about sounds (and who will hunt them down, with noise or without) already gave the feeling that you have to be carefull and not a dumb Quake like player to shoot everybody. COmbined with the GOdLike skill you better be quiete if you EVER want to make a chance ;)

Re: development screenies
 

with full respect you should not compare cs and quake - they totally differ as we know
and playing in quaken is not so dumb

Re: development screenies
 

He was actually stating the difference;)

MusicMan

Re: development screenies
 

well i wanted more state that playing quake is not dumb cause once on cs begins i treated players playing cs as dumb :D

Re: development screenies
 

oh I see:D

Re: development screenies
 

My point is, there are still players who play CS as if they are playing Quake. THey shouldnt ;)

Re: development screenies
 

true :D end of discussion :D

Re: development screenies
 

people who play CS like quake generally get screwed very quickly.. cause.. THERES NO ROCKET LAUNCHER IN CS (there should be.. but there isnt :p)

although its frustrating. Having the bots playing tactically may encourage normal people too

well, probably not, but its worth a shot :p

Re: development screenies
 

Heyyo,

Actually, CZ supposed to add a rocket launcher. :P

I know what ya mean, but on some maps with tight corridors, and lots of corners, you don't really have a choice but to do it quake style IMO.

On CS 1.6, you really can't play CS quake style, cause the aim's just horrible when moving, nearly impossible to hit stuff while moving (well, at least for me. On halo, I can hs easy all the time, but then again, cause the pistol has great accuracy..).

Re: development screenies
 

I think the rocket launcher you're talking about is included in condition zero:deleted scenes, which is MAD buggy. Even the ending movie has a bug in it so you dont see what happens in the end... cumon ritual!!! update!!!

Re: development screenies
 

Heyyo,

Oh, so they diddn't include it afterall? odd..

Re: development screenies
 

i've not played CZ yet, but from what i've heard, i'm not missing out on a lot. The only 'cool' thing about it is the bots, but from what i've heard and seen, once RACC is complete, its gonna be better :)

*tries to push this thread back 'on topic' :p

Re: development screenies
 

Heyyo,

Lol, true. The bot seems nice with autowaypointing n' stuff, but RACCbot? don't need that. :D

Oh, and PMB, since you're hella busy all the time, if ya want a forum moderator for the E[POD]Bot forums, I'll be glad to do so since I pretty much post there each time some1 asks anything. :)

Re: development screenies
 

It's time for a little update I guess... :)

I'm working on the navmesh again. I thought I would not need to touch this code ever again, but it looks like it's still dropping areas of the map in some cases, and that would explain why sometimes my bots stop and behave like a 3-year old kid who just lost his momma inside Walmart.

I've not found the bug yet but I've improved the navmesh to make it discard more faces where a player couldn't stand upon. It saves me storage space in memory and on disk (especially in memory, since each bot has its own copy of the navmesh).

On some map it works perfectly well, like cs_assault (here below)
http://racc.bots-united.com/racc-navmesh-cs_assault.png

but in some others not
http://racc.bots-united.com/racc-navmesh-de_dust.png

and I'm yet to figure out why.
I'd enjoy help on this one. Fiber_Optic, I've got no news from you, I suppose you don't have time anymore ?

As a comparison with the official CS bots, here's how it looks like in game. It's not exactly the same thing. The official CS bot merges adjacent faces into larger axial areas and discards the small ones, whereas RACC doesn't. Another difference is that the passage points are continuously updated in RACC.
http://racc.bots-united.com/racc-navmesh-detail.png

Oh and about the bot AI in general, they know now how to defuse a bomb :)

They get cautious sometimes, however I'm not sure if it's a bug or not
http://racc.bots-united.com/de_vertigo0000.png

The usual bomb planting
http://racc.bots-united.com/de_vertigo0001.png

Here's one of my funniest moments on this map :D
http://racc.bots-united.com/de_vertigo0002.png

Bomb defused (ROFL!) - look at the terrorist, if " WTF? " exists in a bot's language, I bet that's what it is saying !!
http://racc.bots-united.com/de_vertigo0003.png

Re: development screenies
 

>:( looks like something out of Metal Gear Solid, without the strangling and hiding the body

http://racc.bots-united.com/de_vertigo0002.png

CT: *sniff* hey did you fart?

Re: development screenies
 

When it comes to the broken meshes, is it possible to get something to detect this, then get it too 'connect the dots'? :p

Re: development screenies
 

I'd rather figure out WHY some meshes are dropped than to re-create them later on, you understand...

Re: development screenies
 

Also, like on cs_assault nav areas are created in unreachable (in-game) areas, like the road behind the bridge. Also like the tops of walls in de_dust. If these areas are connected, the bots will try to reach these areas they can't reach. I have to go in and hand-tune the navs in CSBot as they do the same thing.

Re: development screenies
 

no, that's the difference. They will NOT and never try to go there if they've never seen anybody going there, or if they never went there themselves.

My navigation mesh is 2 layers high, that's the main difference with the official CS bot.

The first layer is the global mesh, that all bots share in common. It tells the bots what are the surfaces a player can stand on (but NOT can reach).

The second layer is the individual cognitive map, that each bot discovers for itself. It tells the bot where and of what quality are the passage points between two areas of the global mesh.

The first layer can be seen as the construction map of a house, with all the areas being the rooms in the house. But this map has no doors represented on it.

The second layer, of which each bot builds its own copy, can be seen as an addition to that map, with the doors between these rooms represented on it.

that's the KEY difference between my navmesh and Michael's one.

Re: development screenies
 

o man that ones funny......

reminds me of podbot2.6mm recently one of the ct threw a smoke genade ..a t ran into it (de_dust ramp) and then the ct went round back n jumped off the wall and camped in the corner looking at the t but nothing happened till the smoke had gone ......

edit: i wouldn't be surprised if they took pmb to help make bots for cs2.....

just hope pmb comes back....if they ever do...:(

Re: development screenies
 

Yay! I fixed the navmesh dropping faces bug tonight! :D

BEFORE:
http://racc.bots-united.com/racc-navmesh-de_dust.png
AFTER:
http://racc.bots-united.com/racc-navmesh-de_dust-2.png
w00h00t

Re: development screenies
 

w00t! J00 G0 G1RL! :p

Re: development screenies
 

Nice!!! Can we expect a release soon?
Definatly the most anticipated bot for me. Apart from Realbot WIP 10.

Re: development screenies
 

Last year, I ran RACC on my laptop to pass time during cars rides, etc...and I've been a big fan since. I can't wait for the next big release...

Re: development screenies
 

Heyyo,

Wow, each time you post PM, I get more excited... closer to the bots release date. :)

I'll definately have it installed on my CS v1.6 if it supports steam, if not, np, cause I still prefer v1.5 and I'll just see if it's compatible with botmixer and E[POD]bot... Cause some bots don't comingle properly.. hopefully these bots go hand in hand... as they shoot the crap outta eachother. :)

Re: development screenies
 

as we see on the pics the bots should look around whn camping

i had exackly the same event with Realbot WIP #9 - but there bots are stuck when they plant the bomb :D

Re: development screenies
 

n1 n1 n1
will you save the copyright for this navmesh-thing?
maybe you can make some money if other developerteams buy it ?!?

Re: development screenies
 

Here are 2 other pics
They show how the collision detection works
http://racc.bots-united.com/racc-collision-example.png
The lateral and front traces lengths are function of the bot's velocity. For example, if the bot is strafing left, it will care more about obstacles on its left and little for those on its right, hence the left traces will be fired further than the right traces which will be clamped to the minimum.
http://racc.bots-united.com/racc-collision-example2.png
here it's the same bot a few seconds later, but seen from the top. Perhaps it's more explicit.
You can notably notice here how the bounding boxes (the boxes used by the engine for collision checking) of any entity in Half-Life are always axial, i.e, parallel to the map axises, no matter the direction the entity is facing. The bot's bounding box is the big green parallelogram.
The three traces per side return different values which are interpreted as: wall (blocking), low wall (jump), low ceiling (duck), fall.
The bot fills then an integer bitmap describing the quality of its surroundings for each of these three sides.
On the second pic for example, you can see in the [body] section of the AI console that the bot senses a low wall on its left, and a low wall in front of it. It can then decide to jump over it.

Re: development screenies
 

Heyyo,

Man tha's cool how it can detect height, obstacles, and how to overcome them. :)

I have a small question aboot your bot. We've heard the new style that RACCbot navigates, but how's the combat? is it improved? or is it still running off the good ol' RACC style that was also implemented in the PODaim fix?

Re: development screenies
 

there is no combat code at all in this bot yet (hmm, it's not quite exact: there is still the old combat code from the old RACC but it's been all commented out). I have several ideas for that but I won't activate any combat code as long as the bots don't move at least as good as the CSbot and don't know how to do leapfrogging correctly.

Hence you can understand it's way too early to talk about a release...

Re: development screenies
 

very , very nice stuff there. It looks like cs bot to me ;) I really have to investigate this mesh stuff some time , and replace the entire rb nav with it :D

Re: development screenies
 

The biggest problem with csbots combat mode is that they seem to completely ignore their nav areas and head straight for the ememy player. This causes big problems on alot of custom maps where you can fall to your death. Also, csbot doesn't know what water is yet, or how to navigate it. They made walls behind the ladders in the new maps because they were having problems with free-standing ladders and the bots trying to climb up the wrong side. Also still waiting on button usage too. new cz maps were also updated "for the bots" ie de_prodigy's button door is now an automatic opening door. Hopefully you can create a better combat code for RACC!

Re: development screenies
 

IMHO Michael Booth's bot isn't very good... for example, it just used UTIL_TraceLine() to check if a place is in the same 'area'...and it will go pass the func_illusionary (such a st*p*d bug) :)

Re: development screenies
 

thats a pitty because i expected button usage at least for an official bot... now they (valve/gearbox/turtle rock) just move the problem. THey do not fix the bots to open doors, they fix the doors for bots... blegh!

Re: development screenies
 

hey just wondering have u fixed this....coz i was thinking that u could try this:

if u can get the bot to detect the darkenss or how light it's curennt pos is u could use it to change the colour of the console...so say the bot is in the tunnels ..it detects a darkness of 7 level looks up a table for colour console based on a 1-10 scale for 7 giving a value red for the colour the console should be displayed in...this way rather than havaing the spectator cycling through the colours it get done automatically. =)

Re: development screenies
 

it's probably not possible unless he put the quake engine into his bot and read the bsp to get all the lighting and everything and get where all the dark places are or something like that...

Re: development screenies
 

oh, but i guess a some stage he would have to implement such a thing to make his bot realistic