Aquativc bots

[the bindlestiff]

I just spent several hours play-testing with the f0x his map "mp_platforms_beta." This CP map has large areas of water that must be swum to get to the various flags in the map. We found out that a human player is at a great disadvantage in those conditions. It seems that the bots can fire their weapons underwater and we humans cannot. Also, we have never been able to win a knife fight against them because they are able to swim closer to the bottom than we can and so can get underneath us.

Was this done on purpose and can it be changed? Especially the shooting underwater. They have used their machine guns and pistols on us and we can't retaliate.

[Maleficus]

Will clear up a few misconceptions:

1. Bots can't shoot underwater. What they often do in a situation where your not too close to them when in water, is bob up to the top and keep trying to "jump" to keep their head up above water as high as possible. Doing this allows them to shoot their weapon when they're at the hightest point of that bob. Thats just the way the game's code works: if your head isn't underwater - you can shoot. If it is, you can't. You can do this too (I do it all the time).

However, theres a glitch with the way the engine handles your model and your bounding box that can cause confusion: the bounding box inside the water is the same as if you were standing normally, there is no "swimming" bbox. So, your head can technically be out of the water, but the animation looks like your under. Switch to 3rd person mode and try this for yourself: you'll be firing like mad near the surface, even tho your model never breaks the water's surface. This is just the way the Q3 engine works. The bot's heads are above the water near the surface, even tho the animation makes it look like their heads are well underwater. As long as half your body is underwater, it does the swimming animation, even if your head is above water.

2. Bots can't move somewhere you can't: their bodies are the exact same size as yours, and follow the same rules and collision maps. They are just very devious in underwater combat - they will try to get behind you, under you, whatever, to make themselves harder to kill, and better able to kill you (this took HOURS of my time coding and testing to get them to that point!). In this case, they are using the duck cmd to get lower to the ground then you - I just tested and confirmed. They're SUPPOSED to do that, because obviously its hard to kill someone whos moved under you and is knifing you.

The bots work by sending the same user cmds a client sends, to the game, just like a client would. To the game, a bot is just a local client. Bots are clients to the game, in every way, and must obey the same rules. The bots can and do act stupidly, but they won't do it in a way a human can't!

Originally Posted by the bindlestiff

I just spent several hours play-testing with the f0x his map "mp_platforms_beta." This CP map has large areas of water that must be swum to get to the various flags in the map. We found out that a human player is at a great disadvantage in those conditions. It seems that the bots can fire their weapons underwater and we humans cannot. Also, we have never been able to win a knife fight against them because they are able to swim closer to the bottom than we can and so can get underneath us.

Was this done on purpose and can it be changed? Especially the shooting underwater. They have used their machine guns and pistols on us and we can't retaliate.

[the bindlestiff]

That is a very lucid explanation of the underwater scenario, Mal. Makes the bot "aquatic advantage" very understandable and explains why they weren't too accurate with their shooting if their heads were out of the water. I'll try to use your information against them next time I play the map. Know your enemy!!

The "duck" command is something I never thought of using in the heat of the moment (I assume you mean "crouch"). I haven't learned to handle myself well swimming and knife-fighting at the same time and I need all the advantages I can get!

Thanks for taking the time to educate me and those who read this posting. I know you're concentrating on ET at the moment.