[CrapShoot]

That's good information TomTom, but I think the first thing that needs to be understood is the roles that nodes, goals, and routes play.

Nodes are placed to plot paths and connecting the nodes complete the paths. That's it, that is all they do. You can set flags on the nodes for specific navigational reasons, but they have nothing to do with making a bot move. The bots need goals to move, connected nodes just provide the path to get there.

Again, goals are what make the bots move. Goals come in two types; short term and long term. Long term goals are defined by the actions the waypointer adds (i.e. plant dynamite). Short term goals are the bots reaction to certain things during gameplay (like a teammate that needs reviving). After a bot recieves a goal, it will calculate the best way (shortest) along the node grid to get there.

Routes are used to tell bots not to take the shortest path to get to long term goals. The link that TomTom gave explains it very well. Note that in rtcw, only plant and steal actions are routeable.

Once you have goals and paths to get to the goals set up, it's just a matter of making sure they are available at the right times.

And here's a couple tips learned from my own mistakes:

1) Actions should not be placed on top of nodes. If you have a camp action right on a node, the camping bot will most likely block teammates coming along the path. The bots will go to the closenode defined in the action first, then be able to find the action if it's in close proximity.

2) ONLY use one way paths when a bot cannot go the other way. It can cause numerous problems with the bots pathfinding. Even if you are pathing out of a teams spawn, use two way paths. Short term goals (reviving is one) rely on the pathing too, so even though you may think a bot shouldn't go one way, let them decide. Remember that we are already telling them where to go by placing actions. I'm pretty sure everyone has made this mistake.