...grave bot... a Half-Life engine AI
 
 
Downloads are now fixed Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005
The older versions of Grave Bot can now be downloaded for archival purposes. It is highly recommended all users download the latest version.

-Ghoul

Downloads Tuesday, February 1st, 2005
The host I use which has the Grave Bot downloads on them went down yesterday and hasn't came back up. I moved the Grave Bot beta 0.3 files to the local website here, but have no backups of the older versions. Beta 0.2 and 0.1 will not be availible until my host returns (or someone can send me the older files). Sorry about this.

-Ghoul

The Third Release Sunday, January 23rd, 2005
Here is beta version 0.3. Changes?

- FIXED SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY LOOPING 'CRASH'!
- Hopefully fixed crash involving min_bots and max_bots
- Reprogrammed the way bots find what to avoid in front of them
- Removed bots following other players in S&I when attacking (usually they just got stuck on each other)
- Bots should no longer fire at their own team's tripmines in S&I (not tested)
- Included CoCoNUT's S&I waypoints
- Removed waypoint floyd matrix files (.gb1, .gb2, etc) to slim down the download size
- Compiled a Linux version of the normal hooking .dll
- Compiled a Linux version of the metamod .dll
- Probably some other slight changes

Grave Bot beta 0.3 Binaries (Windows and Linux)
Grave Bot beta 0.3 Source

-Ghoul

The Second Release Thursday, January 6th, 2005
Here is beta version 0.2. The main highlight of this release is a metamod version of the bot as well as a standard hooking DLL. There are also some bug fixes, mostly small ones. A big thanks goes out to Pierre-Marie Baty for modifying the source code to be metamod compatible.

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY STILL SUFFERS FROM CRASHING

Sorry, but I just haven't been able to discover a fix yet. The demand for a metamod version outweighed putting off the release to fix this issue. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please see this thread: Waypointing (yes I know the title is strange :P).

Grave Bot beta 0.2 Binaries
Grave Bot beta 0.2 Source

-Ghoul

Here you go! Friday, November 26th, 2004
You should just have to extract the binary zip to your Half-Life directory, then follow the included installation document.

Grave Bot beta 0.1 Binaries
Grave Bot beta 0.1 Source

-Ghoul

Beta release soon? Sunday, November 14th, 2004
Well, now school isn't quite as insane, and some testing on the bots has gone well. I think I'll be able to make a beta release soon, maybe even tomorrow? I still have to run a dedicated server test of S&I. If that holds out over night, then I should be able to pack up the source and binary, and send it off to the internet. For now, there will only be a release (.dll) available to Windows, but the source code will be there for anyone to mess with.

Now, remember, this is a very beta release. A few bugs are still floating around, and the bots aren't the smartest things in the world. Even so, in a properly waypointed level (right now I have datacore and boot_camp of HLDM waypointed, and si_overtime of S&I waypointed) should give them decent performance. Even so, it should help the community learn a few things, either how to program something excellent, or how not to. Depends on what way you look at it. :P

Moving on, to be honest, Grave Bot was never a large serious project to me. I originally started it as something to do during the summer, as I was bored with my dead HL mod and wished to dive into the world of AI. We all know that HL2 will be released (or unlocked, to put it another way) on Tuesday. I already know that right now I don't plan on instantly joining some mod team, for a while if I'm going to do anything, it'll be for myself. Another thing I know is that I most likely won't be going back to HL1 for any projects, there's just simply no point. However, Grave Bot is a kind of project where it isn't stuck in the confines of HL1, so there is a good chance I might be continuing it as a HL2 project as well. This, however, depends on whether any good DM mods (or other game types, I suppose) crop up, and HL2's server side support.

I can't say if Grave Bot for HL1 will experience any release beyond it's initial one, it really depends on where my interest moves. Either way, don't expect me to be fully dedicated to the project, I can already tell you that it just won't happen. I'm crazy and like to create new projects all the time, then jump between them constantly.

Anyway, maybe you'll see a release tomorrow, or maybe my computer will explode during the night because of my faulty programming. We'll see. Till then!

-Ghoul

Progress Monday, November 1st, 2004
School has really been taking a lot of time out of my hands. In fact, I should be working on my homework right now rather than typing this, but oh well. Grave Bot is nearing a beta release, but there is one issue holding this back. To have any success, Grave Bot needs to have a Linux build as well as a Windows build. I, however, do not have a Linux machine at this time. If all goes well, I should have this situation resolved shortly. In the meantime, you'll just have to wait.

There are a few feature I wish to complete before the bots are released. School though is pretty packed full right now, and probably won't lighten up for at least two weeks. Even so, I'll try to get some development in. I'm happy to announce that a week ago I was able to run the bots for 10 hours straight without any crashes. It was a game of HLDM in Boot Camp with 30 bots and myself. Of course, I didn't play for all 10 hours, so I just turned on observer mode and hid in side that large bunker with the egon. You know, the one by the field with poles in it. There are screenshots of this game in the media section, use the navigation bar to your left.

I'll try to update the bot and waypointing sections sometime soon, but I'm not making any promises. Both of those sections are rather length and just full of technical jargon like command names and cvars. Anyway, I'll see what I can do. Check back soon for more updates.

-Ghoul

Some more content! Tuesday, October 5th, 2004
Finished some more content today.

1. Wrote temporary Files section.
2. Wrote temporary Media section complete with javascrip popups and example images.
3. Wrote Contact section.
4. Grave Bot header image, and right blurb.
5. Small HTML and CSS adjustments.

-Ghoul

Progress as of.. read date to the right. Monday, October 4th, 2004
I'm working on getting the content of this site fleshed out, so far I only have the about section done and this news post, heh. After I finish all the content I'll be removing all news posts and rewriting a proper introductory news post. Until then, here's what I did today:

1. Wrote About section.
2. Fixed up some of the HTML and CSS.
3. Finalized (I think) the left navigation section.

Notice that there is no header and it simply says "...grave bot..." in grey text. This'll be changed eventually. Also notice that the design is extremely plain. I want it like this, as the goal of this website is to deliver content and information about Grave Bot, not to be impressive. With a setup like this, I reach a large audience of internet users, so it will remain like this. Okay, I'm done for today.

-Ghoul