QuakeWiki
May 31, 2011

Quake 1 Bots

This is a complete list of all Quake 1 bots.

In development! Page not complete!

Zeus Bot

This chap can be a loyal friend and now can be spawned as a DM opponent. He begins with the standard shotgun, and will pick any weapons he finds.

Try starting a Multiplayer game, spawning 4 DM opponents and 3 helper Bots. Then the mayhem starts, it’s non stop noise and fragging!

Sometimes when a DM Bots frags you at close range, he’ll walk up to as you lie on the ground, bend down and say ‘That looks painful’ or another one I saw was ‘The last time I saw you momma she was in that same position’. The best taunt of all though, is when you hear him laughing at you from behind his hand whilst rocking back and forth.

Here’s a list from the enclosed ‘ReadMe’ file of some of the enhancements over the previous versions.

  • can pick up any item a player can pick up.
  • knows how to jump intelligently across obstacles, down from ledges and into water.
  • can fire all of the standard weapons, plus the plasma gun (included in this mod).
  • knows when an object is unreachable.
  • based on the player model — uses all player frames.
  • multiskin support for up to 16 skins.
  • can swim — follows and attacks under water.
  • can jump out of water onto ledges.
  • can navigate broken ground as easily as a human client.
  • strafes and circle strafes while attacking.
  • chooses its best weapon based on available weapons/distance.
  • can use platforms, open secrets, shoot switches and push buttons.
  • Has *totally new* movement code which makes it the smoothest and fastest bot ever made.
  • can roam levels by itself, or follow the player.
  • Advances or retreats based on distance from target.
  • has all the off-color and corny comments expected from Zeus 1.0.
  • can spawn up to 15 opponent and helper bots.
  • opponent bots respawn when in deathmatch.
  • can be told to attack with only an axe (and he’s tough with it, too).
  • can be told to stay or follow, glow, attack or not, teleport to owner, and report on his status.
  • view toggle between bot’s and player’s view.
  • opponent bots get their own unique name in a deathmatch.
  • will not fire when owner or teamate is in between bot and enemy.
  • helper bot automatically respawns after each level if he was active when the last level ended.
  • bot leads target based on skill level.
  • bot has a chance to miss with shotguns based on skill level.
  • bot’s cannot see invisible players until fired upon.
  • if teamplay is set, opponent bot’s will all be on the same team, verses the player.
  • has a Holographic Heads Up Display system.

Source: http://easttown.co.uk/quake/zeus.html

Author: Jonathan Wright

Reaper Bot

Just look at some of it’s abilities

  • Learns levels as it plays them
  • Understands
    • Doors – will fire at secret doors
    • Teleports
    • Triggers
    • Buttons
  • When fighting
    • Picks the best weapon
    • Strafes
    • Circles or charges
    • Even goes for health if needed
  • Will try to avoid combat if low health or ammo is low
  • Follows opponents
    • around corners
    • through doors
    • through teleports
  • Can telefrag and be telefragged

These guys are good at the default skill level of 1 they will give the average player a good challenge. Only really tip top DM players need apply when they are set to skill 3!

Their artificial intellegence is very realistic. They jump around and strafe left and right when you’re trying to nail them. The author designs router software for a living, so it’s not surprising that, as they build up a map of the level it doesn’t take them long to find the weapons and hunt you down.

Reaper’s also don’t mind getting wet. When swimming they will avoid drowning, even in combat. Thankfully they won’t use the Thunderbolt underwater… unless invincible! These guys get everywhere, I was fragged by one in the secret area that can only be reached by swimming underneath rocks in E1M5 Gloom Keep!

With half a dozen or so running around a DM level it’s just like being in a Net game, lots of noise, people round every corner, nowhere safe to rest… but NO LAG!!

Summary of Key commands

These commands can be typed in from the Console or bound to a key for example use bind b ‘impulse 205’. Then each time ‘b’ is pressed another Bots enters the game.

  • IMPULSE 205 Adds a Bot
  • IMPULSE 208 Adds four Bots
  • IMPULSE 211 Remove all Bots
  • IMPULSE 210 gives a break down of the current scores, frags, suicides, bots v. bots, human v. bots etc. Bring up the Console to read these stats.
  • IMPULSE 212 Toggle for Limited observer mode, you’re invisible to the bots.
  • IMPULSE 215 Toggle for verbose mode, the Bots tell you what they’re doing.
  • IMPULSE 222 Shows top three scores, no need to go to the Console.
  • IMPULSE 1nn The value of ‘nn’ sets maximum number of players in a game. Bots will enter and leave the game when the number of human players change. (‘nn’ must no be greater than 15).

Reading the accompanying text file promises even more features for the preposed V1.0, including

  • Learning AI, with personalities – choosing to camp or snipe based upon previous successes or failures.
  • Retreating when low on health or bad weapons
  • Being able to look up and down

There is no mention of adding them to the status bar like human players. It would be nice if you are playing against Bots only, to have their scores on the status bar to see how you’re doing all the time.

Changing the Bots skins

The pictures of the Reaper Bots in action were taken while using the Reaper Skins (378k) file. Written by Mike Kelly

To use the file

  • Create a progs directory inside the Reaper Bots directory
  • Extract the player.mdl file to the progs directory
  • Run Quake using the Reaper Bots patch
  • If you EXEC the Reaper.cfg file
    • Press P to enable the Skins support
  • If not
    • type IMPULSE 202 to enable Skins support
  • Add four Bots and they will be different colours.

The Skins support key (P or IMPULSE 202) has three levels

  1. Off
  2. Normal On
  3. Skill skins (ie. Skin colour depends on Bot skill level)

The Best way to use the Reaper Bot

This is the best way to simulate a multi-human player frag fest.

  1. Run Quake using the Reaper Bot patch
  2. Select DM1 as the start map
  3. Set a frag limit and/or a time limit
  4. Start the multiplayer game
  5. Activate skins support and add the Bots
  6. Play the map

When the level ends, either by frag count or time, the next DM map will be loaded.

Now the clever bit… the Bots will re-enter the new level at a skill level based upon their performance in the previous map.

So if you do well the Bots skill level increases, but if they beat you up they’ll be easier for the next level. The increments are tenths of a skill unit, so the Bots don’t adjust too drastically between levels.

The great thing about this mode of play is that the Bots become varied and you’ll soon see which levels you’re good at. Perfect practise for playing against human opponents!

By the way it’s very addictive!

Here’s how I installed the Reaper Bots…

  1. Create a new directory inside the Quake directory, called ‘rpbot’
  2. Unzip the ‘progs.dat’ and ‘autoexec.cfg’ files to the ‘rpbot’ directory. Much easier to do if you have a prog like WinZip.
  3. Create a batch file using ‘edit’ or ‘notepad’ as follows
    quake -nojoy -game rpbot
    Note: only include -nojoy if you’re not using a joystick
    Save the batch file as something like ‘reaper.bat’ into the Quake directory.
  4. Start Quake by running the ‘reaper.bat’ file or create a new shortcut pointing to ‘reaper.bat’.
  5. The keys will have been set to allow you to start up some bots.
  6. Start a multiplayer game, direct connect if you’re playing alone, you can also set things like Frag limits etc before you start. Frag Limits are especially interesting, because the game becomes a race to see who can reach the limit first and end the level.
    You should see a message saying ‘Server running Reaper Bots v0.8’
  7. Once the game has started, use these keys to control the bots.
    • b addbot
    • n add4bots
    • m frags
    • q top3
    • v verbosebots
    • o observer
    • [ skinup
    • ] skindown
    • p skinmode
  8. So press ‘n‘ to add 4 bots and off you go!!!!

I hope this gets you going, the Reaper Bots are far more fun than the monsters in my opinion.

Source: http://easttown.co.uk/quake/reaper.html

Author: Steven Polge

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2 Comments

  1. Cameron Newham Says:

    I see you have the archive of BotArea 51 and my bot Eliminator. Very useful as it gives the date when it was released – 19 Sept 1996 – which means it was the first level-aware bot to be created and beat Steve Polge’s “Reaper Bot” by several weeks. Indeed, mine was also the first to use map waypoints for bot navigation and the first bot which presented a real challenge to human players. Sadly I only got three weeks to work on it before moving to another country and having no time to improve it, so it’s almost forgotten about now. However it’s nice to see it has been archived after all these years!

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  2. Chip Says:

    Thanks and welcome to QuakeWiki.net. Hope you enjoyed your stay! :)

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