Official Community BETA of the EQEmu Server Bots Begins Today!

[Taurinus]

WildcardX,

The bug affecting bots with pets seems to be related to pathing. I cannot replicate the bug UNTIL the bot's pet ends up against a wall or other object. The little hut in Crushbone with the Orc Scoutsman is where I can get it to happen with great frequency. When the pet gets "hung" on the back wall, the endless attacks occur. Also it seems to happen most when the pet is positioned behind the mob.

Also I have an issue with 'bots' table in the database. I cannot remove bots from the table (via Empty or Truncate with NaviCat) due to foreign key constraints. This may be related to some ineptitude on my part, but I cannot get it to work.

Quick question: Do you plan to add GM bot editing commands since #npcedit will no longer apply to bots?

I think the work you are doing is great, WildcardX. Please keep it up!

[leslamarch]

More testing...
Ok this time I used a Barb BL and for the bots I had Barb warrior, and DE cleric. I have screen shots to maybe help understand what I'm talking about. Everything is a fresh install, Eqemu rev 880 and PEQ Rev859.

[Taurinus]

WildcardX,

I've found a few more things that might need looking at.

Using '#bot spawnraid' can spawn the bots, but have them appear 'grayed-out' in the party window (as though they were clients in another zone).

There seems to be an aggro problem (a HUGE one) possibly related to leslamarch's problem. Take your bot group to Mistmoore and attack something. Soon you will have what appears to be the entire zone upon you. I couldn't confirm it was the whole zone, but it looked like what happens with #aggrozone.

Giving a bot a weapon with a proc that they cannot proc yet yields the message "Your pet's will is insufficient...".

There is a bug in that the client sends something like OP_FloatListThing (approximate name...not sure on that) and that results in the client getting disconnected.

Cancelling trade with a bot can make an item appear to *poof* (not visible in the client inventory or on the cursor). When you attempt to trade another item to the bot, it gets the item that poofed.

Bots appear to be running past the mob, in a straight line in the direction they are facing, but then warp back to their actual location (looks like classic lag effects between clients).

One of my human monk bots has a different face each time she shows up. lol

[WildcardX]

Nice screenshots I don't know why I can't get this to happen for me, though. If I could get it t work then i can debug it and fix the issue. I am sure its probably something small and overlooked.

As for your issues, Taurinus, the constraints in the tables are to enforce data intgerity. You'll find that if you first delete the bots records in other bot tables, like botinventory, then you can go ahead and delete your bots.

At this time, I do not plan on implementing any time of #botedit commands as I don't believe bots are going to be editable in the same sense you would edit a NPC.

I think the issue about the weapon not procing because the bot isnt sufficient level to use the proc is by design and not an issue.

I am aware of the issue with cancelling trade. its annoying that it happens but I am planning to overhaul how bots calculate their stats and their inventory before I get to an issue like this one. In the meantime, I guess just work around it

As for bots running past their target, what rev where you using when this occurred. I don't believe this happens in r880, but you tell me.

And your right, buts dont maintain their appearance at all. Again, its annoying, but I will get to fixing it after I merge back to trunk.

The bots code is far from perfect. There are many known issues, especially regarding how bots calculate their stats and how they access their inventory. I do plan to address all these issues and get them right, but I have to prioritize as I am only one man and I do have a day job I have to write code for. If I get some help with developing then maybe I can dibby up the work and we can perfect this system faster.

For now though, I am not aware of any critical or severe issues with the bots code. While it isn't perfect, neither was the system this is replacing. As i do not see any evidence of any critical issues like zone crashes or anything that is negatively impacting the normal, non-bots server logic, I am going to go ahead and merge this system to trunk and remove the EQBOTS code.

[WildcardX]

Using '#bot spawnraid' can spawn the bots, but have them appear 'grayed-out' in the party window (as though they were clients in another zone).

I believe I have this bug identified and fixed in r881. Go ahead and give this a try now.

[Taurinus]

WildcardX,

Yes, that fixed the #bot groupraid issue.

The issue about the bots and the procs is that I didn't think that the client should be getting messages about pets in reference to bots...but then again that is what they are afterall I suppose.

I really appreciate and enjoy the changes you've made to the bot behavior especially the rogue. He's even nimble enough to path behind and stab an npc while soloing it!

I do have coding experience (about 7 years of it) with c/c++ and intel assembly. I might dig in and see what I can do.

Thanks for the quick response.

[WildcardX]

Thats cool to hear your a developer and thanks for the praises! If you come up with any code for it, please send me the diff so I can see what you can do. I can definitely use assistance with bots. There is so much to be done but I just don't have the time to do it all myself. PM me if you have code to share for improvements and I'll provide you with my email you can send it to and we can discuss.

[laxative]

I'm just about to start using this new code update. I do ALOT with Bots in many different zones I'll see what I can come up with.

Laxa

[laxative]

oh another quick question,

I'm reading through the changelog, does this mean I need to recreate all my bots?

[Xzam]

I need a little help with Linux compile please, I downloaded EQEmuServerBOTS and I run make from that dir and everything works except Bots, I used the Linux guide made by Hunter and I have Debian running. Any help would be much appreciated!

[WildcardX]

I think for linux compiles, you need to edit your makefile.common in the zone project and remove the "petAI.o" and "botAI.o" and then add "bot.o". Then in your makefile for both zone and world, you need to replace "-DEQBOTS" with "-DBOTS". Let me know if this works.

[Xzam]

Thanks a million, I'll try as soon as I get off work today!!

[Xzam]

Well, No Bots on my Linux yet, lol. I've added bot.0 to the makefile.common but petAI.o and botAI.o where not there to delete. Then I searched for -DEQBOTS in makefile in zone dir and none found so I added -DBOTS, after compiling I had no zone, launcher or world file that it had created. So I changed -DBOTS to -DBOT and it compiled all files but no bots in game, the command is not recognized. Everything else in game works fine. Any suggestions?

[trevius]

OK, I updated to the latest revision last night (after the merge of the branch back into the trunk), and here is a bug report from my Dev, Kayen:

I am experiencing some pretty funky bugs with combat state

First it wasn't switching it correctly. Now I can't even get it to define a combat state. All I am doing is running a timer with $combat_state and it comes back undefined, and sub event combat state does nothing.


Tried this on a few scripts seems its broken

So far that is the only thing that needs quick attention that we have seen so far. I will keep an eye out for more issues, but we will probably have to revert back until this issue is resolved.

[WildcardX]

If any of you can help identify these bugs, send me code so I can look it over. Otherwise I'll get to them as I can.