Dan is the author of the HOT_BOT for Half-Life's Front Line Force.
celtic88: How did you get started out working with C++?
Dan: I took a high school class that went way too slow, so I studied a lot on my own. I didn't do anything more with it for a while, then I discovered botman's forum and i got hooked.
celtic88: Where are you from?
Dan: Wisconsin, USA (contrary to popular belief, everyone in Wisconsin does NOT live on a farm, thank you :) )
celtic88: What type of work do you do?
Dan: Too much :) I"m a senior in high school, but i'm kept really busy with homework and extracurriculars so I don't get as much time to work on my bot as I would like. Next year, I will likely be going to Massachusett's Institute of Technology to study computer science and AI.
celtic88: Can you give us a little description of the Hot Bot?
Dan: Hot_Bot is a waypointless bot for Frontline Force. The main focus will be teamplay, once the basic framework is laid out. Right now it is just coming out of the alpha stages, with capture points and doors being implemented in the next release. It is also compatable only with some maps, due to bugs or features I still have to implement. er, the bots already fight really well on several maps (like flf_village and flf_kezman) and big improvements are in store for the next release, hopefully soon.
celtic88: Why a Front Line Force bot?
Dan: My bot originally started as a CS bot, but like tons of people I got sick of CS and thought that Frontline was more fun because of the constant high paced actioin, and the greater need for teamplay. The fact that teamplay is absolutely essential for FLF, made the neccessary AI more interesting in my opinion. Then of course there's also the fact that even now there aren't any "good" Frontline bots out there, so it was a niche that needed to be filled.
celtic88: Has your bot recieved a lot of attention lately?
Dan: yeah, quite a bit due to postings on planethalflife, halflife.net and tons of other bot and half-life sites around the world. I've seen my downloads jump to over five hundred in the last week, which is much higher than before. I've also been getting more feedback, which always helps. Anyone with suggestions or unreported bugs should email me.
celtic88: What are some of the planned features?
Dan: For the beta 1 release the major new features will be:
- bot can capture points
- bots use doors when neededbots attack and defend the cp's as a team
- small bug fixes
These are the major issues I am currently in the process of handling
Changes probably for later releases include:
- bots use ladders
- class specific combat changes (bots won't just run at an enemy)
- smart decisions on whether to attack or retreat, based on the situaion
celtic88: What area do you concentrate most in? (Combat, level navigation, etc.)
Dan: Since the beginning my focus has had to be navigation, since making a bot move well without waypoints and without sapping huge amounts of cpu power is quite difficult. My focus on teamplay combines the need to work with combat and navigation by collecting information about the environment around them and then making intelligent team decisions based on that information. In my opinion his can be done much better without waypoints, because waypoints specify certain paths with the bots must follow.
celtic88: Which area is the most complicated?
Dan: The navigation again was difficult, but I've been doing pretty well. One hard thing is that since i can't use waypoint flags to mark ladders, doors, cps, or stairs I have to use other means for the bots to recognize them and decide to use them.
celtic88: Do the bots get any type of advantage over human players to make them more challenging?
Dan: Well, at first some people complained that the bots were too accurate and reacted too quickly, so i added changes that modified the accuracy of the bot according to the weapon it was using, and by adding "humanlike" chacteristics like reaction time.
celtic88: What is your favorite bot at the moment?
Dan: Um... mine, i guess :) I'm really busy right now and I don't have time to do much with any half-life mod beside work on my bot. I must admit, originally i was a realbot junkie, but i found making a bot was more fun than playing against one. If I had to pick another bot mmm..... maybe oddbot, just because i think Brendan is a cool guy and we talk about bot stuff sometimes on ICQ,
celtic88: Anything else you'd like to add?
Dan: sure, I"m always looking for more beta testers, so if anyone is interested email me at :dannywent@hotmail.com . Also I'm always open to comments and suggstions And remember, the bot is still early in development, so don't give up on it too
celtic88: Thanks for the interview.
Dan: No problem man, thanks for asking me :)
