What, EXACTLY, do the bot orders command them to do?

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

This posting is a bit embarassing to me, but I'm posting it here anyway, just because the extra clarity may help others out as well.

In spite of my having played INF for quite a while now, I'm still not 100% sure as to what all the orders to the bots are ACTUALLY doing. This is primarily due to the fact that I almost use two orders exclusively, "Cover me" and the one that orders the bots to return to using their default behaviors. I'm using these two orders a lot because they are the ones that seem to work the most effectively.

Why doesn't the order "Cover me" work well on offensive EAS maps?

What does the order "Defend" mean? Do bots "interpret" said order to mean "Stop where you are, and fight from THERE," or is it interpreted as "FIND nearest high priority area/objective and defend it," or does it mean "COME to the area where I'm at and defend it," and whatever this order exactly means, is it influenced by whether or not the bots are on offense, or defense? If this order's MEANING is based on whether or not the bots are attacking or defending, how do these two determiners modify the bots' defensive behavior?

If anyone happens to know more particularities about how the bots' AI "interprets" orders than what I've mentioned above, the please feel free to list them below. Such "nuances" (if these bots are actually capable of such things) would be greatly appreciated, and add even more game depth to the community's experiences.

Kyle

 

[sir_edmond]

Attack... Complete the objectives, usefull in EAS maps,
Defend... Camp the objectives, Usefull in EAS
Cover me... Follow you, Usesfull in TDM
Engage... Do to there "Free" will

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

Your insight is MOST useful...

Sir_edmund,

Your short but precise answer is deeply appreciated. It's good to know that "Defend" means "Defend OBJECTIVES." Now I won't be wasting any more time to pressing the "defend" key during engagements when my team's on the offensive. It'd be kind of pointless to do that.

Thanks again,

Kyle

 

[FieldMedic]

The "Hold this position" order is a very usefull one in INF botmatches when you give this order to a bot at a time, it is wasted if you give this order to all the bots in the same time.

The first good point is that bot will move in the exact place you are in the instant you gave it this order. The second good point is that it will use the same orientation you had at the instant you ordered it.

Come in handy to setup good ambushes.

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

FieldMedic,

I can readily see where the "Hold this position" order would be fantastic for setting up ambushes, especially since the bot that's being given the command will assume the player's orientation at the time when the order was first given. A most useful command to use, and I thank you for filling me in about it.

Is it safe for me to assume that if the assigned bots get killed, that they'll RETURN to their prior spots before they died?

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

Where can I assign the "Hold this position" order? I've combed through the Speech Binds menu (the menu that allows you to assign orders/communications to bots/teammates), and "Hold this position" is not an available option. It was for this very reason that I spelled out in detail my confusion over what the "Defend" command actually does.

I believe that it WAS an option for the original UT, but it's been so long since I've played it that I can't say for certain.

If "Hold this position" isn't available for INF 2.9, I would certainly hope that someone with the skills would be kind enough to make it assignable via the Speech Binds menu. This would be one powerful command to give. Is this something that can be readily enabled via an ini file? If so, is it strongly supported by INF (the bots won't do anything silly due to INF coding)?

 

[Crowze]

It's called 'Hold up', I believe.

 

[FieldMedic]

That is right, it is the Hold Up order , bad memory strikes back .

In the QA menu , just select "Order" - "Hold Up" - then click on the name of the bot you want to give this order and he will move to your actual position and will face the exact direction you were facing at the order time.

As to be really effective in the ambush setup you have to give this order to each bot one at a time, i don't think you can bind this to a key (i can be very wrong as i am not an expert in key bindings).
If you want to give a global "Hold Up" order, you can bind it even if it will not be really effective for ambush setup, as all the bots will move to the same place (but will keep the direction you were facing) .
To bind this global "Hold up" , the code you have to assign to a key in your InfiltrationUser.ini is

speech 2 1 -1

I have no idea if after being killed a respawned bot will continue to move to his previous Hold Up position

 

[Crowze]

The last number in medic's last example is the number of the bot that you order, where -1 gives all bots the order. This is where SpeechPad comes into it's own...

 

[FieldMedic]

Thank you Crowze.

I had no idea of what this -1 was since all the time i used it
Very interesting precision, i can imagine some per/bot specific binds now

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

Alrighty then! Some REALLY nice info on bot commands that I'm most grateful to know about! Does "Hold up" effectively assign bots to locations when the team is on offense, defense, or both?

What does the "Go, go, go, go!" order do? I suspect that it's telling bots that are blocking the player's path to get out of the way, but I'm not sure. Can anyone supply any clarity to what this order does?

Also, is there a mut out there that allows the player to specify which bots occupy certain teammate slots in the Speech Binder menu? For example, right now, whenever I assign an order to Teammate 2, I have no idea who that teammate actually is until I startup the game, issue an order, and see who responds. Needless to say, this is a very time consuming pain in the butt. Is there a mut that allows me to bypass this mess?

 

[Crowze]

GoGoGoo! order means attack to the bots.

About the bot names, not really. I was going to add a feature to SpeechPad that told you the names of the bots that you order, but it's still somewhere in the pipeline at the moment.

 

[Kyle Kellahshehskee]

I'm going to have to try the SpeechPad mutator out. It sounds like it certainly has a lot of gameplay value.

And thanks for the heads up on the "GoGoGo!" order. And here for all this time I was pressing it to get the bumbling bots out of my way. lol Who's the bumbler now? lol