Author Topic: New Bot AI Progress (Read 38987 times)

shockk · « **Reply #80 on:** January 19, 2015, 08:49:49 AM »

One should be knowledgeable douche. He can grab both flags in reminissions and then hold down the secret room till his last breathe :p
Aside, what about bots strafing on ice?

jitspoe · « **Reply #81 on:** January 22, 2015, 06:08:07 PM »

Ice and other speed/trick jumps will require something more than waypoints. A few ideas I've had:

1) Build paths of recorded player input. Bots could use normal pathfinding to reach the start of these paths, then replay the exact input players used to reach different locations at a fast speed.
Problems: Player input can be very erratic and weird if they're aiming at/dodging other players. Looks dumb when there's nothing there. Getting to the exact start point can be difficult. Being off just slightly can cause the replayed input to miss necessary ramps/ledges to complete the path.
2) Create a representation of the world -- something like a navmesh or Quake3 AAS file -- optimized for path finding. Programatically figure out the most optimal way to navigate the space.
Potential problems: Figuring out the math to calculate the optimal paths could be very difficult. Computing these paths could use a lot of CPU, impacting the performance of the server (or game framerate, playing alone with bots).
3) Create a representation of the world and use machine learning (things like neural nets and genetic algorithms) to figure out optimal paths.
Potential problems: Machine learning is a big unknown -- would probably take a while to research and implement, and could fail miserably. Could be resource intensive.
4) Some kind of player path/machine learning hybrid. Instead of recording and playing back exact inputs, record a path of player positions and velocities, then have a learning algorithm try to match these paths.
Potential problems: Again, the machine learning aspect is a big unknown, still, and needs some time to be researched.

On a progress note, I've been testing/fixing some minor things to make sure it's safely releasable, like making sure players connecting when the server is full of bots doesn't do weird stuff like treat the player as a bot. Even if it's not in a very complete state, I really want to put out another release soon, so I can start making more frequent/minor updates.

shockk · « **Reply #82 on:** January 23, 2015, 12:43:00 AM »

1 sounds like a good idea, maybe make the waypoints that start the process being of a higher sort of value of attractiveness to the bot? Like theyre more likely to aim for that waypoint compared to others?

I think the player recorded input is a good idea, doesn't need to be too much more specific than that, some set jumps makes a bots play much more dynamic I'd say. 2 sounds kinda like the same thing and also a good idea.

TRION · « **Reply #83 on:** January 23, 2015, 06:23:26 AM »

What if only the movements are captured in option 1 ? so acebots can keep strafing fast like ninja and showering death in all directions

xrichardx · « **Reply #84 on:** January 23, 2015, 09:19:06 AM »

Quote from: TRION on January 23, 2015, 06:23:26 AM

What if only the movements are captured in option 1 ? so acebots can keep strafing fast like ninja and showering death in all directions

Mouse movements are an important part in jumps. Without, strafe jumping will not get you above 36mph. As long as the bots rely on the same physics as all players do, that would disable a lot of jumps for them.

jitspoe · « **Reply #85 on:** January 23, 2015, 06:57:10 PM »

Yeah, that's another problem with #1. Bots won't be able to aim while doing these jumps. They still make good target practice, though, which I guess is something.

TRION · « **Reply #86 on:** January 24, 2015, 09:53:39 AM »

Quote from: jitspoe on January 23, 2015, 06:57:10 PM

Yeah, that's another problem with #1. Bots won't be able to aim while doing these jumps. They still make good target practice, though, which I guess is something.

Independent system of motion and aiming for bots? it will be easy I guess

jitspoe · « **Reply #87 on:** January 24, 2015, 10:43:55 PM »

Quote from: TRION on January 24, 2015, 09:53:39 AM

Independent system of motion and aiming for bots? it will be easy I guess

It could be done, I suppose, but that would kind of give the bots superhuman abilities, being able to aim perfectly in any direction while strafe jumping.

TRION · « **Reply #88 on:** January 25, 2015, 12:30:01 AM »

Quote from: jitspoe on January 24, 2015, 10:43:55 PM

It could be done, I suppose, but that would kind of give the bots superhuman abilities, being able to aim perfectly in any direction while strafe jumping.

If bots go with the movements of the players but not rotation then.. what if they rotate slowly,have low Fov,a little imperfection in code.. Won't that work?

shockk · « **Reply #89 on:** January 26, 2015, 02:48:42 PM »

I wouldn't think not being able to shoot while doing ice jumps and stuff is a big deal, most normal players have to commit to the jump without shooting anyway so it's pretty natural. Ofcourse sometimes ppl break the jump, stop and start shooting instead but having bots commit to a couple jumps wouldn't be bad.

Maybe a way for them to break the jump process if they feel they should be shooting?

jitspoe · « **Reply #90 on:** April 21, 2015, 11:14:50 PM »

Tried to add some things to make the bots aim at targets over time with a little random variance, so they could aim more naturally "mess up" a little.

They messed up a lot...

jitspoe · « **Reply #91 on:** May 06, 2015, 12:41:24 AM »

Video progress update talking about what I've done for aiming and shooting:

https://vimeo.com/126889898

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfVI0218V4U

(both are the same video, just on different hosting sites).

JMR · « **Reply #92 on:** May 06, 2015, 03:04:35 PM »

I am really enjoying these development updates, thanks for keeping us up to date, I really appreciate it.

Things are coming along nicely, I'm impressed by how you've made the aiming appear natural compared to the old AceBots where they'd just insta-aim. -- I didn't notice the "chasing DP2Bot02" until I was half way through the video, I thought it was you aiming and jumping.

I assume for different bot difficulties, it wouldn't be difficult to change that 20% variation to say, 40% or 10%?

Keep up the good work!

Would it be possible for players to save "waypoint packs" to use on their servers? For instance, experienced players who can jump around a certain map could upload their waypoint data to the forums which in turn would allow other not-so-good players to play against bots that know how to do these jumps.

jitspoe · « **Reply #93 on:** May 06, 2015, 07:57:09 PM »

The waypoints are just a file, so it's easy to copy them. I was pondering doing some kind of system where people could merge bot path files for more advanced movement (depending on how that's handled). I'm not sure if it will be necessary, though. Once a map has been played through a couple times, I think most of the paths will be covered.

jitspoe · « **Reply #94 on:** July 19, 2015, 11:19:40 PM »

I've got 4 bots up and running on the EV1 server. They seem to be working pretty well, aside from a few places they tend to get stuck, and they need to prioritize capping a bit more.

MON1TOR · « **Reply #95 on:** July 20, 2015, 04:35:53 AM »

Quote from: jitspoe on July 19, 2015, 11:19:40 PM

I've got 4 bots up and running on the EV1 server. They seem to be working pretty well, aside from a few places they tend to get stuck, and they need to prioritize capping a bit more.

I saw 'em. Nice Work!

flamer · « **Reply #96 on:** July 25, 2015, 02:54:00 PM »

Commenting a bit late but oh well.

I watched your video showing the waypoints. Do you think it would be possible to implement the creation of waypoints during the warmups ?

At the beginning of any game, if this was implemented, we could create waypoints simply by moving around the map during the warmup. That would allow you to gather a lot of waypoints on many, many maps, leading to a bot being able to play 'Smart' on more than 1 map.

What do you think ?

mRokita · « **Reply #97 on:** August 01, 2015, 04:09:04 AM »

Quote from: flamer on July 25, 2015, 02:54:00 PM

Commenting a bit late but oh well.

I watched your video showing the waypoints. Do you think it would be possible to implement the creation of waypoints during the warmups ?

At the beginning of any game, if this was implemented, we could create waypoints simply by moving around the map during the warmup. That would allow you to gather a lot of waypoints on many, many maps, leading to a bot being able to play 'Smart' on more than 1 map.

What do you think ?

+1

To jitspoe:
I've tested the new bots, and didn't feel any difference, maybe they didn't get stuck in the same way the old bots did.
IMO it wont improve the game very much :/

xrichardx · « **Reply #98 on:** August 01, 2015, 07:26:53 AM »

I think the bots work very well and are much better than the old ones (Good job, jitspoe!

. They could be used to introduce new players to the game. The thing is that they really need the navigation data, so it would be necessary to distribute it with the game to make this work like a singleplayer mode.

MON1TOR · « **Reply #99 on:** August 01, 2015, 08:33:10 AM »

Quote from: xrichardx on August 01, 2015, 07:26:53 AM

I think the bots work very well and are much better than the old ones (Good job, jitspoe! . They could be used to introduce new players to the game. The thing is that they really need the navigation data, so it would be necessary to distribute it with the game to make this work like a singleplayer mode.

If there was only a way to make bots so smart like in TF2...