a possible replacement for ZCajun bots?

[nazakomu]

so recently, a friend of mine pondered upon AutoDoom and I happened to check it out for myself, and remembered that ZCajun bots have been unsupported for several years now.

is there going to be any development of a more sophisticated and efficient bot, similar to AutoDoom's, in the future for GZDoom?

[Major Cooke]

Doubt it, IMO. And if anything I thought I heard rumors of having the bots being potentially developed via ZScript instead.

[Rachael]

If someone wanted to do that, it's possible to export the player's bot boolean already, rip/disable the zcajun code out completely, and do precisely that. The bot player can then be coded using purely event handlers and input states.

[nazakomu]

yeah, I've heard about a few people making ZScript ones, too. it's just that it'd probably be far more favorable if there was something universal (and more importantly, official) that didn't conflict with mods and all of that other good stuff

[Dark-Assassin]

I honestly would love to see bots with at least some sort of pathfinding, even if they just follow players.

[Zenon]

I've seen AutoDoom's bots in action, and I can safely say they're nothing to scoff at

[Nash]

I like the idea of externalizing the bot code out to ZScript completely.

if there was something universal (and more importantly, official)

If bots were ZScriptified, it'd be as "official" as it could get. It would be no more "unofficial" as the DoomImp ZScript definition, for example.

[nazakomu]

If bots were ZScriptified, it'd be as "official" as it could get. It would be no more "unofficial" as the DoomImp ZScript definition, for example.

ah, so you mean official, as in officially within the gzdoom.pk3? if so, that would certainly be official enough

though, I have one last question about this. is there any chance that we'll be able to still use a config that allows us to have our own bots in it? just something similarly to the ZCajun config without all the fancy stuff (aiming, perfection, reaction, isp), but allowing us to still use our own skins essentially

I really don't have a clue as to how far these ZScript bots would go in terms of small subsidiary features like that, because honestly, something like the AutoDoom bots should suffice already

it would be interesting to hear from you how advanced these ones would (or should) be without them becoming what would be considered too complicated

[Rachael]

That would be quite possible. In fact, it's all just player data anyway, and the code can be moved out of the zcajun code and put into GZDoom proper somewhere.

Basically, if I were to do this, the only thing GZDoom.exe would do is spawn the bots and set the bot flag on them. ZScript would be responsible for handling the bot's actions and logic.

[nazakomu]

sounds like a fantastic approach

I wonder what Graf thinks about all of this

[Graf Zahl]

Bring me a working concept and we may be in business. My interest in bots is on the low side, so I won't work on this myself.

I'm moving this to "on hold" for now, pending some results.

[Rachael]

What I'll do is create a branch with the zcajun code neutered and removed, and porting the bot spawning commands to special player handling files - something that will eventually have to be done with the move to C/S anyway, since we'll need a way to spawn players in as they join an open server. (The client will have to do this too, obviously, or it won't have player info to replicate as the server feeds it to them)

I'll then provide binaries for it, along with what variables get exported to check for a player's bot status, and you can do the zscript side implementation yourselves, and then we'll merge the whole thing as a single package.

[Graf Zahl]

Speaking of C/S, what's the status there? I haven't heard anything new in months.

[Rachael]

Gonna answer in PM.

[invictius]

Am I missing something here? Summoning a friendly seems to be a more intelligent AI than zcajun ever was. Also not only does https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/combos/bia have good AI, it was described as being able to win a dozen cacowards if the author made the friendlies a bit weaker (they mow through even the biggest slaughter maps)