The Q2Crew - Half Life page

Bot Leader

• What's New

• Manual Addendum

• Quick Start

• Downloads

Thanks to its fantastic gameplay features, Half Life is probably the most serious candidate to the multiplayer throne of Quake2.
Even if it can't reach the same terrific numbers of id's shooters, there are many bots, and they fight enough hardly too!
So, here there's the Bot Runner version dedicated to Half Life, that I decided to call Bot Leader.
Regarding player models, there are on the net even more than for Quake2! You can start your research from Wonswap and Cold Fusion.
Even if you can't wait, please read at least the Quick Start section.

Manual Addendum

Being Bot Leader fully based on the code of Bot Runner, I don't think another manual is necessary.
So below you can find what's new respect the Bot Runner manual (that's included into leaderXXe.zip).

My product's features:

• multibot support
• DM and Team DM allowed
• automatically and casually chooses a map among the installed ones
• automatically supports every .bsp map installed into valve/maps
• supports also the .pak ones, if you teach it you have them
• automatically recognizes (and uses) every model installed into valve/models/player
• cycle trough the models, so you'll see different ones every time, until you see them all (if you have enough of them)
• chooses for every bot, a casual model and skin
• if you own enough models, every bot will have a different one
• allows you to exclude every
  • map (so you can avoid the single player ones)
  • model (i.e. to reserve some of them for the human players)
• updates the map list with a click
• allows the user to save and reuse specific configuration (and once for every supported bot...)
• allows the user to change map without loosing the bots
• allows (obviously!) the user to customize the deathmatch flag through config text files
• especially, and I stress especially, it starts with 3 mouse clicks!

Moreover, Bot Leader is the only (I think, maybe there are others I don't know) front-end that automatically replaces (if possible; otherwise, it moves models and maps) standard dll with bot's one (and restore it when finished); in this way, you don't have to copy/move maps and models or extract them from .pak files.

Mainly different are, of course, supported bots , that are:

• Botman: DM only (also known as Pretty Good Bot, Cinco Bot), only some models are available

• Bot Match: DM, this bot is only a Phineas with a .pak file that contains every standard map and model (unuseful, if you use Bot Leader...)

• Hoco bot: DM only, bots need to reconnect pressing"b" when level changes

• Jumbot: DM, Team DM and Coop (see the bot manual to unterstand how launch it), with or without waypoints

• Phineas bot: DM and Team DM

• Rho-bot: DM and Team DM

Obviously, if you know any other, please email me!

At the moment, there's no bot capable to play CTF.
About starting Bot Leader, the instructions are the same; the program will ask you to update dlls' file (/valve/liblist.gam) and the maps' one (mapcycle.txt). Bot Leader changes also settings.scr and game.cfg (in the valve folder).
Although Bot Leader has been fully tested, precedent experiences with Bot Runner force me to recommend you to make a backup copy of this files!
Moreover, every model takes as its name the directory one; because of the lack of the skin concept in Half Life, model and skin can be considered as synonims.
For the same reason, the exclude.lst file (although present) is no longer used.

Obviously, every directory changed; here's the list:

Obviously chapter 7 is completely unuseful; there's no dmflags setting, so I suggest (you can change them in the /leader/deathflg.cfg and /leader/tmflg.cfg files):

• deathmatch: weapons stay, flashlight, footsteps set to 1

• teamplay: friendly_fire set to 1

• Jumbot: this bot can use or not the so called waypoints (files that contain path, to improve bots' behaviour); so set death.vbs creates a file dmap.lst into /jumbot folder containing only maps that owns these files (they are into /jumbot/wpfiles); being jumbot behaviour very instable without waypoints, if you want to use also the other maps (using the dynamic generation system) you must copy the dmap.lst file from /leader to /jumbot folder manually. This choice is not recommended, because this system is very buggy. If you choose to use waypoints, Bot leader will preserve your bot configuration file, creating and using one named leader.cfg.

If you want to start a dedicated server, open the proper .vbs file, search the lines with wsh.run and change hl.exe into hlds.exe (obvious, I think); moreover, you'll have to put a exec bot.cfg line into the autoexec.cfg file.

Here's the history line:

What's new in version 1.3

• brand new system to choose also bot names; see here for more info

version 1.2

• teamplay support completely rewritten

• finally able to change team models and to set default flags without typing exec bot.cfg (or pressing the key binded)

• Bot Leader is from now the only launcher able to switch from teamplay to deathmatch without passing through the multiplayer menu

• supports Hoco Bot

version 1.1

• support for Rho-bot

version 1.0

• support for Botman (previously known as pretty good bot), Botmatch and Jumbot with waypoints

• capable to autobind a key to exec bot.cfg

• better support for team dm

version 0.8

• support for Pretty Good Bot and partial support for Jumbot (DM, Team DM and Coop)

version 0.7

• same features as Bot Runner

• supports Phineas, in DM and team DM modes

Next Versions of Bot Leader will include:

• support for other bots

• support for Jumbot Coop mode

• better support for team dm (currently, I'm not able to change the models for the teams)

Quick Start

I prefer to leave this section here, so you don't need to read the whole manual to simply play.

Finally, Bot Leader can start Half Life directly with all options; however, if you chose not to bind a key to exec bot.cfg, you'll have to type it manually into the console every time the level changes to reconnect bots not capable to do it.
So, I strongly suggest you let Bot Leader set this!

Follow these steps:

• upgrade Half Life to version 10.13 or higher (not requested, but recommended)
• if you have Windows 95, download the wsh.exe file and install it (simply executing)
• unzip the bots you want to use, everyone in its folder (i.e.: Phineas into /halflife/phineas and so on)
• unzip the Bot Leader archive into the Half Life directory (with the complete path)
• start set death.vbs and answer a key, yes, ok to the questions

you have to do this only once, execpt if you install new maps (in this case run set deah.vbs again)

• start death.vbs and answer to the 3 autoexplicative question
• follow the instructions of the message box
• press the key ("b" is the default) everytime the level changes, if the bots don't appear (for example, if you're using old Botman versions)
• frag to death!!!

You can answer to the first question with a number (and you'll play deathmatch), or with two number separated by commas(and you'll play team DM), or with a name of a previously saved configuration.
In case of team game, Bot Leader will set up as many bots as the sum of the two teams; once in the game, Half Life will autoassign bots to the two teams.
Remember that there are two methods for building up them (see the manual); if you use the new method (recommended), the file format is different: instead of model/skin,model2/skin2; you must write name/model,name/model; where name is what you'll see in the score tab and model is the folder name.
Please also remember that the old method is currently unavailable for Jumbot and Rho-bot (sorry, too many files).
Notice: you need to run set death again only when you install new maps.
Due to the fact that Half Life bots are very buggy, it is possible that the game freezes the computer. If this appens, reexecute set death. This should recover any damage.
If not, go into the bot folder and move /maps and /models folders into halflife/valve directory.

From version 1.3, I've implemented a method to manage bot names; into /leader/botnames.cfg you can find every available name, with this syntax: modelname(name1,name2,etc).
To add some names, you've only to search the model you want or add it, if it not exists; after ( place all the names, spacing them with commas; you can use every character except for "; you must close the parenthesys at the end, but the last comma is not needed.
Every time Bot Leader assigns a model, it chooses a casual name from the ones available in the file; if the file doesn't exists, or there's no available name, model's name will be used (as in old versions).
If you want, you can add generic settings using ### as a model name; these settings will be used with every model not explicitly defined in the file.
Regarding files created with the new method, there's no change, cause bot names were alreeady supported
For those who don't like to edit files manually, i've added a little utility to automatically create the file; start botnames.vbs (into /killer folder) and it will add (if the file exists, it won't be overwritten) every model not already present.
This program can also correctly import names from Jumbot configuration files.

Downloads

Et voilà. Here's everything you need to start a good massacre.
To use my front-end, you need only the file leaderXXe.zip (into it you'll find also the manual in HTML format).
Obviously (there's no mod capable to use bots) there is no cfgpak file for Bot Leader.
I remind you that you need at least Half Life 1.0.1.3 (strongly recommended) and Windows 98. If you have only Windows 95, you must download also the WSH, either from the link in this page, or directly from Microsoft's site. Otherwhise, you can install Internet Explorer 5.0, that includes it.
Moreover, you can download the bot manager you prefer, if it's supported. You can find the latest version on Bot Epidemic.
Obviously, for every bot/mod, more the symbols, higher the score (in author's opinions).

Bot Leader

	leader12e.zip	Bot Leader version 1.2	50 kb
	WSH.exe	Windows Scripting Host for W95	575 kb

Supported Bot Managers

The blue link leads you to a local copy of the file, the red is linked to the home page.

	bm0.80.exe*	Botmatch v 0.80	6,84 Mb
	bot8.exe	Botman v 8	578 kb
	hoco.zip	Hoco bot v 0.6	832 kb
	jumbot14.zip	Jumbot v 1.4	486 kb
	phineasbot_021.zip	Phineas bot v 0.21	266 kb
	rhobot.exe	Rhobot v 1.0	1,02 Mb

* Due to their excessive size, these files aren't available locally, but only as link to the original site (you can find the other links in the dedicated section).

** These extensions requires also the complete original mod

*** At the moment these bot manager can't use additional models

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