How to add bot support to a map

In game
In editor
Map Scripting
Building the aas

The information on this page is specific to Enemy Territory: Quake Wars .

The Quake Wars bots work mainly on groups of bot_action entities specified in WorldEdit and managed via the map script.

The bot actions are basically hints on what types of goals are where, the bot AI pretty much decides what to do and when from the actions that are active. The designer basically helps keep things manageable by switching groups of action off and on as the objectives progress.

Note: While it has it’s roots in the Fritzbot system, since navigation is handled by the AAS system part of the grunt work for the designer in setting up navigation has been removed (well, shifted).

In game

For a quick look at at bot actions in the retail maps use the cvars

net_allowCheats 1

bot_drawActions 1

and start a game against bots.

In editor

bot_action - looking through ‘Available Keys’ in the property editor for one of these entities is also informative. Or on the splash damage wiki (with some description of values missing).

The main key/values:

groupID - number of the group. More about this later. humanGoal and stroggGoal - the number for the goal type, which is as follows.

From BotAI_Actions.h:

#   Name
-1  ACTION_NULL
0   ACTION_ROAM
1   ACTION_CAMP,
2   ACTION_DENY_SPAWNPOINT,     // deny the enemy from having a FDA here.
3   ACTION_MAJOR_OBJ_BUILD,
4   ACTION_MINOR_OBJ_BUILD,
5   ACTION_PREVENT_BUILD,       // the opposite of ACTION_MAJOR_OBJ_BUILD/ACTION_MINOR_OBJ_BUILD
6   ACTION_HE_CHARGE,
7   ACTION_DEFUSE,          // the opposite of ACTION_DEFUSE
8   ACTION_HACK,
9   ACTION_PREVENT_HACK,        // the opposite of ACTION_HACK
10  ACTION_STEAL,
11  ACTION_PREVENT_STEAL,       // the opposite of ACTION_STEAL
12  ACTION_SNIPE,
13  ACTION_DELIVER,
14  ACTION_LANDMINE,
15  ACTION_FIRESUPPORT,     // a place for FOps to unleash firesupport
16  ACTION_AIRCAN_HINT,
17  ACTION_SMOKE_HINT,      // have coverts throw smoke at the obj, so their teammates can do it in peace.
18  ACTION_NADE_HINT,
19  ACTION_VEHICLE_CAMP,        // vehicle specific camp
20  ACTION_VEHICLE_ROAM,        // vehicle specific roam
21  ACTION_SUPPLY_HINT,
22  ACTION_MCP_OUTPOST,
23  ACTION_SHIELD_HINT,     // a good place to drop a shield.
24  ACTION_TELEPORTER_HINT, 
25  ACTION_FORWARD_SPAWN,       // forward deployment area
26  ACTION_PREVENT_DELIVER,
27  ACTION_DROP_DEPLOYABLE,     // team can drop a deployable here.
28  ACTION_MCP_START,       // this is where the MCP begins its path.
29  ACTION_DEFENSE_CAMP,        // HIGH priority camp location.
30  ACTION_DEFENSE_MINE,
31  ACTION_VEHICLE_GRAB,
32  ACTION_THIRDEYE_HINT,
33  ACTION_MG_NEST,
34  ACTION_MG_NEST_BUILD,
35  ACTION_FLYER_HIVE_LAUNCH,
36  ACTION_FLYER_HIVE_TARGET,
37  ACTION_FLYER_HIVE_HINT,
38  ACTION_DROP_PRIORITY_DEPLOYABLE,
39  ACTION_MCP_ROUTE_MARKER

A suggestion would be saving this list to a file, or keeping this page open because we’ll be looking it up a lot.

Armed with this list and the information from property editor, looking at bot_drawactions makes more sense.

bot_action entities are supported by:

bot_action_bbox - which are used to give a more specific area for the action to be done, for example mine laying area, airstrikes.

These are set up in seeming backward manner with the bbox targeting the bot_action entity.

bot_dynamic_obstacle - used for dynamic objective like bridge building and barrier destruction.

and more.

It would be best to work through adding bot support for a map objective by objective, team by team. Plan out all the action groups first. Example from valley map script:

// Objective One - Build Bridge
#define VAL_OBJ_CONSTRUCT_BRIDGE            2
#define VAL_GDF_ATTACK_BRIDGE               3
#define VAL_GDF_DEPLOY_BRIDGE               4
#define VAL_STROGG_DEFEND_BRIDGE            5
#define VAL_STROGG_DEPLOY_BRIDGE            6

A name for the action group is used in the map script, but a number is used for the groupID set on the bot_action entities in worldedit.

The actions in the retail maps follow a basic grouping plan for each objective.

Group for the actual objective

Group for attacking teams actions

Group for attacking teams deploys

Group for defending teams actions

Group for defending teams deploys

So on to adding the actions:

Again using valley as example (which can be adapted to sdks example map ).

VAL_OBJ_CONSTRUCT_BRIDGE ie groupID 2

This is actual objective can be focussed on one bot_action near the construction point and a bot_action_bbox around the actual build materials.

so we want ACTION_MAJOR_OBJ_BUILD ie 3

humanGoal 3

and ACTION_PREVENT_BUILD ie 5

stroggGoal 5

For the others, attacking/defending team action groups are the variety of actions you think would help, looking at the list of action types to see the kind of goals available, camping, sniping, supply crates, mines, airstrikes.

Wandering through the retail maps with bot_drawactions, and filtering with the other bot_ cvars will help getting a handle on things.

Map Scripting

The retail map scripts are essential study.

Bot setup for each objective is done along with the other objective scripting.

The main operations are switching off previous action groups and switching on the next.

objManager.activateBotActionGroup( VAL_OBJ_CONSTRUCT_BRIDGE );

Since a name has been defined to correspond to a groupID (or was it the other way round ) you can reference it this way.

Most of the other functions seem pretty self explanatory.

Building the aas

Before the bots can even move around it needs a valid navigation map ( AAS ).

This is done in worldedit via the Compile->Custom Tool menu.

Expand + AAS

All types.