DescentBB

Curious if there was a specific reason why no one ever made multiplayer bots for the Descent games (unless I'm forgetting something?). Always did appreciate the ability to play a game offline and still be able to play the multiplayer gametypes against bots.
Was it simply due to difficulty in programming bots to move in 6-degrees of freedom?
Or some limitation in the modding tools available?
Or something else?

Co-op MP mode in D3, there are usually 2-3 servers up at any time I also remember a D3 CTF level w/ robots in it, they where sentinels limited to the flag rooms and would target the other teams players. Forgot the name tho.

I've played as well, but they get in the way and don't really add to the game. Everyone spends about the first 3 minutes killin all the bots then get on with the game.

I mean actual AI-controlled ships, not just the bots from sp. When I said bots I meant like you'd find in most first person shooters from the late 90s, like the Quake games.

the hardware of the time wouldb't be able to handle it too well.

In level 4 of D3 Retribution there were the Black Pyros... and BlueDevil, a multiplayer level that came with the Mercenary pack but was made by a fan, had them too. You could face them in singleplayer. And if you can't find it, you could always ask someone to make a level with them. There were the Starhawks too... but they were never used, except in Roth-513.

Descent 3's AI just wasn't smart enough to create a compelling human-like opponent.

There were custom levels (and in D3, even some built-in levels) with AI-controlled player ships. They were pretty dumb though.

This is something that I've wished for since UT1 came out. The first time I played against the bots I immediately wished Descent had that. I imagine programming full rotational 3d pathing AI would be a bit daunting, though.

Thiefbot had it. It was primitive, but it had it.

Only issue is that the Descent 3 engine didn't have cubes to work on, which makes it substantially harder. It does have rooms and portals, but no clear sense of how to get from one to the other (it really depends where the geometry is).

Have you tried Firing Range? It's a single player level with AI bots designed to train players for multiplayer. The AI can't compare to real human players, but it's good enough to help really bad players like me.

Dang, someday I just HAVE to get D3 running on my Ubuntu box. It's been a LONG time since I played.

Thanks, I'll check that out if I still have D3. I just recently reinstalled 1 & 2 but haven't searched for my D3 discs yet. I'm not sure if I gave them away with most of my old games or kept them with 1&2.

Kilarin wrote:Dang, someday I just HAVE to get D3 running on my Ubuntu box. It's been a LONG time since I played.

I just got that working the other day. It took all of 15 minutes, though that was migrating an installation from Windows. Do you have Stickman's guide?

Wishmaster wrote:Do you have Stickman's guide?

Nope, I did a google and wasn't coming up with anything. Do you have a link?