Computer Controlled Players

[Kyace]

While getting the bot to take damage may seem like a lost cause, there are fairly decent ways to mime it. If you use the bot methods to figure out when the player shoots, (when a warbird's energy drops the exact cost of a bullet) and a bot can tell where a player is on the map, what direction it is facing, the speed it is traveling and such, then your bot will be about to figure out when it gets hit (or atleast when it crosses the path of the bullet and appropreat locate of the bullet on this path) and you can make the bot act accordingly, i.e. die.

It is 4:30 am here so I'm sorry if I can't think correctly.

[Jeansi]

Bot vs bot would be cool, kind of like some AI-robocompetitions that there are.

Lots of skilled players out there who could make competitive bots to duel I think.

[Troll King]

So we could have MORE people in spec watching other ships play?

[WiseCherub]

Bot vs bot would be cool, kind of like some AI-robocompetitions that there are.

Lots of skilled players out there who could make competitive bots to duel I think.

Ever heard of C-Robots programming game? Do a google on it, it was around for a long time and is similiar to what you say.

I have always had an interest for autonomous robotic competitions either virtually stimulated or real world.

Robotwars or Battlebots is sort of silly, its all tethered robots.

Look at http://www.robocup.org/02.html for an example of real robotic games.

Ohya in the tw botcore I see there is METHODS to fetch Player ship coords. The bot doesn't get coords from the packet, the server does... the BOT talks to the Zone's server to get game/ship information it needs.

The key thing for any AI application, you need fast enough processing at the real-time level (atleast 66-100ms).

If some of us can get a somewhat autonomous bot player working. It would be a good challenge or game to see if it could beat an Elite player in a duel.

And no this wouldn't be a novelty, it would open the way to many different types of hosted events.

[Kid Kaos]

I dont know if anyone already said this but I think that cpu pilots in ss goes against everything the game was ment to do. This game was made to have NO cpu pilots at all, its meant for every ship to have its own pilot behind it who can think for themselves. It makes it more fun without cpu pilots.

[Nockm]

I think people who are uninterested about this topic are discussing the shallower points of this subject. Yes of course there aren't meant to be CPU pilots in this online game.. no it shouldn't take up excessive bandwidth.. etc etc.

I'm more interested in things like (at least for TW warbird duels), can a bot be made to be unbeatable? The viewing of two different people's implementation of a bot fighting against each other. What new games could be devised/hosted using these bots? (etc etc.)

There's a whole new avenue of potential with this subject, there's no need to dullen this thread with shallow-minded negativity.

[Pan]

I'm more interested in things like (at least for TW warbird duels), can a bot be made to be unbeatable? The viewing of two different people's implementation of a bot fighting against each other. What new games could be devised/hosted using these bots? (etc etc.)

There's a whole new avenue of potential with this subject, there's no need to dullen this thread with shallow-minded negativity.

Yeah it be pretty amazing to play a hosted game such as ?go zombies and have actual hunter squads of zombies. I think I would play zombies if you had zombies that actually could hunt you down like in cheesy vintage movies. I think AI is a really cool thing even though everyones been talking about the negatives such as cheating, but the time someone pulls off a good AI bot I will probaly be married and hosting little league baseball games.

[Reaver]

About the bandwidth problem:
We could set up a seperate server. Paid for, or held up by all the other zones that are in with the 'plan'. Have arena's with special settings, those of the other zones(such as ?go TrenchWars / ?go SVS / ?go EG).We could have all of continuum contributing to this idea, and have insane training sessions. But, only by submission do we get the settings from the different zones. So, it probably won't be all of the zones, but I'm guessing some zones will put in their settings to trustful people, known people (*cough* this is where 2dragons and TWDev team comes in *cough*) so they don't think we're just stealing them..

This is a brilliant plan in the making! And we're just getting warmed up Wait until the REAL ideas come to hand!

How about we start by making Trench wars server itself, self sufficient, before we start on something new which requires bandwidth, lets get more people to sign up for twsites

[THE ENFORCER]

I find it really cool how all these people that help in the development of SS are only doing it for the self-satisfaction and not for money if only that concept could be used in real life.

[Kyace]

I think people who are uninterested about this topic are discussing the shallower points of this subject. Yes of course there aren't meant to be CPU pilots in this online game.. no it shouldn't take up excessive bandwidth.. etc etc.

I'm more interested in things like (at least for TW warbird duels), can a bot be made to be unbeatable? The viewing of two different people's implementation of a bot fighting against each other. What new games could be devised/hosted using these bots? (etc etc.)

There's a whole new avenue of potential with this subject, there's no need to dullen this thread with shallow-minded negativity.

How do you mean unbeatable? Do you mean they don't die or that they are skilled enough so that they beat anyone?
I've just now gotten the tw bot core and I can really play with it after finals and such. However, there are methods in the classes that would make it possible for a computer controlled ship to track the exact location and ship of enemy ships so your bot can lead the target to make amazing radar shots. If you really want to be accurate, then you may want your bot keep track of how each player dodges (either they normally slow down, speed up or turn and such) and by the end of a duel the bot may 'know' the player's style.

Edit: BTW Nice job and good work to everyone who worked on the TW core in the first place.

[mirroreimaj]

Would it be possible to have the bots learn from their duels? That way, it'd be a great training excersise..

the word 'learning' constitutes A.I. so no they could not learn.. but its not imposible to make a bot harder than most advanced players could beat.. so it would be a worthy skill test so that people can teach themsleves. .. heres an idea. a trainer that would tell you the mistakes you made every round in a bot duel and help you along with hints and advice.. from noob to exp players, all have new things to learn

[mirroreimaj]

and how bout that lag created from thousands of bot players.. lol.. what about the lag from all the afk ppl out there? i think bot players would be a worthy advancement in ss gaming

[Nockm]

How do you mean unbeatable? Do you mean they don't die or that they are skilled enough so that they beat anyone?

I mean skill. Just like as in computer chess opponents etc. IMO theoretically it is possible to make an skill-wise unbeatable bot but in practice that's another matter.

This may be obvious to many, but as far as I know, the bot has the following information:
1. The bot's position and velocity
2. The human's position and velocity
3. Instant notice of when the opponent has taken a shot (plus any lag)

It's just how you make the bot process that information that counts. Factor in the speed of a bullet and then you can make the bot aim. However as previously mentioned, making the CPU dodge is a much harder issue. I think that's where creativity and hard work comes in I just remembered the bot has to know where all the asteroids are too.

It seems other people have already made scratchings of bots already. If so, it would be nice to see them both online and duelling each other. :P

[Mythrandir]

I've been studying this particular subject before. There are a view issues I'd like to bring up which makes it difficult to create such a bot.

First of all, you will have to create a client program equal to Continuum. The client has to download and interpret the map. It has to understand all the configurable settings for an arena so that it will accurately simulate the physics of the ship it's flying. It has to anticipate on bouncing against walls. It has to track bullets, do accurate hit detection, apply the right amount of damage.

After you've done this, you would have a bot program that could log on to a zone, download the map, simulate the shipsettings. If you also programmed keyboard input into it, you could fly the ship realistically as well.

The next step would be to actually create the computer controlled ship.
Applying pathfinding to the ship wouldn't be that hard. But if you want to add all the 'extra' movements, such as going quickly across a corner by bouncing against one wall, or moving to a point while dodging a bullet, then it's already a lot harder to program.

Now there 2 options in how you create your bot: A bot that can learn, a bot that can't learn.
To create a bot that can't learn would be relatively easy, you just study shooting and movement patterns from experienced players, and program that into the bot. To combine these patterns to one fluent playing ship would be tough, but doable.
The downside to such a bot is that it's incredibly predictable. Sure, you can add some randomizer on what movement pattern to follow next. But after a few hours the enemy player will quickly recognize movement patterns of the enemy ship and catch it on the same mistake the bot keeps making.
In pub you can kill a newbie only a couple of times in the same way, then he will adapt to it and change another way of flying. The bot however will proceed making such stupid mistakes. Hence why such a bot will always end up dissappointing, unless the programmer has so much free time that he programs dozens of different behaviors in the bot.
Ofcourse such are my views on it, as there are computer games with computer controlled enemies which play quite well. On the other hand, they got one or two persons working at least 40 hours a week on such an advanced AI.


To create a bot that learns is even more challenging. I guess it's doable with a set of static operations (like pathfinding, goals) mixed with flying behaviors which could be defined such that you can apply a genetic algorithm on it. So that the bot would experiment combinations of behavior and proceed with merging and mutating succesful behavorial patterns. Maybe small neural networks could be used in aiming for the target, as to anticipate on which way the enemy is most likely to dodge. A problem is that the feedback of each bot behavior can only be achieved by actively dueling players, so it would take days (weeks?) for a bot to "learn" the basics.
I'm not an expert in AI programming so what I've said above might be untrue on some aspects.

[Reaver]

I think people who are uninterested about this topic are discussing the shallower points of this subject. Yes of course there aren't meant to be CPU pilots in this online game.. no it shouldn't take up excessive bandwidth.. etc etc.

I'm more interested in things like (at least for TW warbird duels), can a bot be made to be unbeatable? The viewing of two different people's implementation of a bot fighting against each other. What new games could be devised/hosted using these bots? (etc etc.)

There's a whole new avenue of potential with this subject, there's no need to dullen this thread with shallow-minded negativity.

Since I feel this is somewhat directed towards me, I will justify what Im saying. Im not whining about bandwidth because I want to stop or slow you guys down in whatever you do, in fact I think what you guys have here is a fantastic idea. Im just simply pointing out that dont you think its a little unfair to the people that have to pay for the bandwidth that TW uses out of their own pockets and TW isnt self sufficient yet, and your thinking about something that will require more bandwidth, I.E. the A.I. Bots. Im no expert on whether it can be done or not, talk to myth about that, Im just simply talking about bandwidth, maybe someone could fill us in on about how much bandwidth one bot alone uses?

P.S. Instead of those of you using exquisite hosting, maybe you could use twsites hosting...