Bot abilities

[legacy-Fuzzlebunny]

Does anyone know what the bots' stats mean? Tactics, aggressiveness, etc.

Accuracy is pretty obvious, and I'm guessing agility means they dodge and maneuver well, but does anyone know how the other stuff works?
I'm trying to beat singleplayer on godlike, so I'd like to know what kind of team I'm making.

[legacy-Mr Evil]

Aggressiveness affects whether the bot would rather fight or back off.

Tactics affects many things, e.g. a bot with high tactics is more likely to try to engage from a distance when faced with a melee weapon (shield gun) rather than letting the enemy get in close.

[isaacjgs]

When you see a bot's stats before starting the game, it has four ratings: "Accuracy," "Agilty," "Aggressiveness," and "Tactics." But you will find something different when you are actually editing the bot in the "Attributes" dialog box UT 2004.

When I am in UT 2004, I hover my mouse when in the box that allows you to edit a bot's stats. I hovered my mouse over "Accuracy" slider bar and it says, "Configures the accuracy rating of this bot."

Apparently, the "Agility" rating factors in "Strafing Ability" and "Jumpiness" found in the bot's "Attributes" dialog box when you edit the bot. When I hover the mouse on "Strafing Ability" it says, "Adjusts the strafing ability of this bot." For "Jumpiness," I hovered my mouse over that, and it says, "Controls whether this bot jumps a lot during a game."

"Aggressiveness" in the bot's main rating, which is displayed along with "Accuracy," "Agility" and "Tactics," is determined by two other factors, "Aggressiveness" and "Combat Style" in the "Attributes" dialog box. I hover my mouse over "Aggressiveness" and it says, "Configures the aggressiveness rating of this bot."

I hover my mouse over "Combat Style" and it says, "Adjusts the combat style of this bot." Apparently this controls the preferred range where a bot would want to attack you from. If you keep it at the very left, the bot tends to stay a certain distance from you, but still within decent combat range, although this can vary depending on how close you get to a bot. If it has a shock rifle and a flak cannon, it will use the shock rifle unless you get closer to it, then it will switch to the flak cannon and seek to get into your face.

If you move it all the way to the right, the bot will have a tendency to favor getting up into your face regardless, although I will need to test this more.

I hovered it over the tactics bar and it says, "Adjusts the team-play awareness ability of this bot." Does this mean team-play awareness only, or team-play tactics only? What exactly do these things mean? They should have used a less misleading word or phrase, like "Team-Play Awareness," rather than "Tactics," if "Tactics" really do mean only team-play awareness ability of a certain bot. Because if you use the word "Tactics," it makes people think that it is a bot's ability to switch to the correct weapon for the type of situation it is in, like switching to the Flak Cannon for close range and the Lightning Gun or Sniper Rifle for long range, or for putting itself into a superior position than its opponent, like a bot seeking higher ground in the middle of a fight when it has the rocket launcher.

I did test the Tactics setting a bit, but I only saw its effects (at least so far) in Bombing Run, although it may affect CTF, Assault, Onslaught and other team modes, though I would need to test this setting more in this other game modes. But when I saw bots with a high "Tactics" rating go against bots with low "Tactics" rating, I noticed that if a bot was getting low on health, it would toss the Bombing Run ball, not necessarily at its teammates, but closer to the opposing team's base just so that the opposing team has to waste time to head back closer to their base and get the ball, so that the trip to the other side to score will be longer and more ground would have to be covered, and thus it would take longer for that team to break through the team that is trying to prevent them from scoring. I kind of wondered what other things the "Tactics" slider does besides making the opposing team's life more miserable by making it harder for them to score.

It's very tough to tell whether or not "Tactics" makes a difference in DeathMatch and Team DeathMatch, because even a bot with around 75% "Tactics" will still switch to the Flak Cannon if you get too close to them, for example.

For DeathMatch and Team DeathMatch, I have tested various bots, and found that Accuracy was probably the most influential setting of how well a bot does overall. I'm not saying it's the *only* setting that makes bots perform better; a bot will need a good Agility rating if he or she is going to stay alive long enough to make the next kill, rather than just standing there, getting killed, and wasting time trying to find a weapon. Therefore, bots with higher accuracy will overall *tend* to do better than most other bots, unless the other ratings, like aggressiveness, agility, and tactics, are very poor (say, below 60%). I will need to do more testing though, but this is what the data seems to say to me.

If an aggressive bot, like Barktooth, who has 83% accuracy and 97% aggressiveness, then you really have a killer bot on your hands! Conversely, Aggressiveness only seems to be a marginal benefit if the bot is not a good aimer. What good is aggressiveness if you can't aim?

Similarly, with Tactics. If "Tactics" doesn't just cover team-play awareness abilities of a bot, but also extends to how well a bot can switch to the appropriate weapon in a given situation, or change to a better position of attack, or whatever, then I can also safely say that Tactics are also dependent on how well a bot aims...if a bot can use all kinds of tricks in his or her bag, yet has poor aim, he or she is wasting time!

Agility seems to be an independent factor. It only determines how well a bot can move around and dodge to stay alive. This may be handy in getting a bot that has fewer deaths, which is especially useful if a bot is far up ahead of you in a Bombing Run game, and he has the ball. It is also useful in that the bot theoretically will stay alive far longer than a bot with not much agility, and so will live long enough to keep getting kills, but then again, the bot needs good Accuracy to make kills. This also means that the bot will not waste as much time getting weapons after respawning, since he theoretically is not getting killed as much as less agile bots are.

There are times when Accuracy is less important, however, so as long as it is not in a game with a mixed bag of weapons, which include instant hit weapons like the Minigun or the primary fire of the Shock Rifle. If the map in question has some instant hit weaponry in it, accuracy will prove to be the most decisive factor. Instagib, especially, will determine that accuracy is the most decisive factor. But if it's in a level with no instant hit weapons, and you only have stuff like rocket launchers, flak cannons, and other weapons that don't have instant hit abilities, then Agility will probably be the decisive factor, though I will need to test this.

So, once again, as I'm trying to find out, I hovered my mouse over the "Tactics" bar in the bot "Attributes" dialog box where you edit the bot, and it says, "Adjusts the team-play awareness ability of this bot." Does this mean team-play awareness only, or team-play tactics only? What exactly do these things mean? Does the "Tactics" rating also extend to a bot switching to the right weapon in a situation and/or to seek positional advantage? Does it also extend to smart "tricks" that bots will use to kill an opponent? What else, if anything else?

[Nemephosis]

Dude, this post was from seven years ago with two guys who don't have active accounts anymore (hence the "legacy" in their names.) Great start.

[Baryonyx]

N-N-N-Necromancy!

No really, you should post that in the "Tips for UT Newcomers" Thread, there it will be useful!

[Sly.]

Wow, I doubt it would fit into the first post, I'll read through it and see what I can include. If everything is useful I'll just link to the post to save space (I'm not sure but I think first posts in threads have also their limits).

[GreatEmerald]

That is indeed useful and raises good points. The Tactics one definitely does not include weapon switching (actually, weapon switching AI is in the weapons themselves!). However, it probably involves something about team play. Now, a great place to start is Bot. It says:

var float           Tactics;

Unfortunately, no comment, but a search through the file shows this:

    if ( Pawn.bCanFly && !Enemy.bCanFly && (FRand() < 0.17 * (skill + Tactics - 1)) )
    {
        GoalString = "Do tactical move";
        DoTacticalMove();
        return;
    }

    if ( Pawn.Weapon.RecommendRangedAttack() || IsSniping() || ((FRand() > 0.17 * (skill + Tactics - 1)) && !DefendMelee(enemyDist)) )
    {
        GoalString = "Ranged Attack";
        DoRangedAttackOn(Enemy);
        return;
    }

if ( (Squad.PriorityObjective(self) == 0) && (Skill + Tactics > 2) && ((EnemyStrength > -0.3) || (Pawn.Weapon.AIRating < 0.5)) )
    {
        if ( Pawn.Weapon.AIRating < 0.5 )
        {
            if ( EnemyStrength > 0.3 )
                WeaponRating = 0;
            else
                WeaponRating = Pawn.Weapon.CurrentRating/2000;
        }
        else if ( EnemyStrength > 0.3 )
            WeaponRating = Pawn.Weapon.CurrentRating/2000;
        else
            WeaponRating = Pawn.Weapon.CurrentRating/1000;

        // fallback to better pickup?
        if ( FindInventoryGoal(WeaponRating) )
        {
            if ( InventorySpot(RouteGoal) == None )
                GoalString = "fallback - inventory goal is not pickup but "$RouteGoal;
            else
                GoalString = "Fallback to better pickup "$InventorySpot(RouteGoal).markedItem$" hidden "$InventorySpot(RouteGoal).markedItem.bHidden;
            GotoState('FallBack');
            return;
        }
    }

It also influences how the bot uses the translocator. See function Actor FaceActor(float StrafingModifier) for more code.

Another great place to look at is SquadAI:

    if ( (P == None) || (NavigationPoint(RouteGoal) == None) || (B.Skill + B.Tactics < 4) )
        return FindPathToObjective(B,P);

            else if ( (B.Pawn.Health < B.Pawn.HealthMax*0.125) && !B.Pawn.bStationary && (B.Skill + B.Tactics > 4 + 7 * FRand()) )
            {
                //about to blow up, bail
                Vehicle(B.Pawn).VehicleLostTime = Level.TimeSeconds + 10;
                Vehicle(B.Pawn).KDriverLeave(false);
                return false;
            }

And there are even more uses of it in the other SquadAIs. So apparently it is an influential factor on how the bot is able to perform some of the more specific tasks, like doing evasive manoeuvres in the air, camping, going for specific pickups, bailing out of vehicles before they explode, using translocator more often, doing self passes in Bombing Run etc.

[Crusha K. Rool]

The bots tactics and abilities are also greatly influenced by the difficulty level:
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:...d#Skill_Levels

[isaacjgs]

Wow, this is great. I didn't expect to see any responses...hehe, much less more explanatory responses! While I do play the game, I will also do stuff that most people don't really do: Testing the bots against each other, and looking for patterns and statistics so that I can choose which bots are actually the best for my team---I can't always rely on numbers. But certain things are not always easy to see...hence, the "Tactics" rating.

I sometimes wonder if a certain combination of numbers, even though the numbers for a certain skill rating/some skill ratings/all skill ratings could be higher...could actually optimise the bot's ability to do combat. For example, a bot with a slightly inferior set of stats vs. another bot that has higher stats, yet, the one with the inferior stats for some unknown reason, beats the better bot.

Thanks, GreatEmerald, for displaying the code. It's good that it's there, but I will have to figure out a way to make sense of it, since I'm not all that experienced with UT 2004, much less its code. But once I do get a chance to study it and figure out what it means, then I will find a way to decipher it and find out what it's really telling me. It's *very* good to finally at least have an idea of what the "Tactics" rating really means, and I will figure out what each of the details mean. Thanks a lot.

---Isaac

(P.S.: Anyone else have anything to contribute concerning bot ratings in detail? Keep them coming!
In addition, I also wonder if the single player (not Instant Action) has a certain mutator called something like "Race Statistics" or "Team Statistics" or something like that...THAT right there can also influence bot skills, making single player play like Instant Action with "Race/Team Statistics" Mutator turned on...)