Time to see the AI director take on a part-time job

Dec 22, 2009 09:26 GMT  ·  By

Valve is known for taking on side projects, its very own quirky science projects that it decided to work on even if they might turn out to me something only it really appreciates. Its unique ideas reach farther than just that, as we've seen in the developer commentary that it released for some of its games, ever since the ones in Half Life 2 Lost Coast were so well received by players. The last brilliant thing it did was the War update for Team Fortress 2, and, while that is over, it looks like the title has just begun.

The game gets another big, new feature, as Valve is preparing to add a proper set of bots for it. At the moment, the little guys are still somewhat retarded, as they're only in beta stage and a lot of their AI brain is still pending completion. They're only effective on three maps right now, koth_viaduct, koth_sawmill, and koth_nucleus, since, as Valve declared, “They don't understand the rules of multiple point capturing, cart pushing, or flag getting... yet.” The good news about these bots is that they're not the omnipotent gods that previous bots, such as the Counter Strike ones, were.

“The bots have simulated humanlike senses, and only know what they see, hear, and touch. They also have realistic reaction times and aiming limitations. They don't 'cheat' or use omniscient knowledge of the server state to make their decisions.” The only bad piece of news for this beta, if there is any, is that getting these little guys to work will take a little bit of tinkering in the developer's console. This, of course, shouldn't be a problem for an experienced Valve gamer, but the more casual players might find it a little bit awkward. So, the bot command list, along with the bots' respective parameters are posted bellow. If you feel like giving a hand in the beta, or you are just tired of the people you're usually coming up against online, you can give the bots a try and see what they can do.

To add bots to your game, use the console command tf_bot_add. This will drop a random bot onto a random team (assuming there is a free player slot). The tf_bot_add command can also take up to three optional arguments: <count>, <class>, and <team>, in any order. For example, tf_bot_add 10 will add 10 random bots to the game with auto-assigned teams. Typing tf_bot_add pyro blue will add a Pyro to the blue team. Entering tf_bot_add red 5 will add 5 random bots to the red team. The command tf_bot_add red 3 heavyweapons will add three heavies to the red team.

In order to put specific bots on specific teams (for a bots-vs-humans game, for example), you may want to disable automatic team balancing. To do this, enter mp_autoteambalance 0 followed by mp_teams_unbalance_limit 0.

To remove a bot, use the console command kick <bot name>. To remove all of the bots in the game, use the command tf_bot_kick all.