AI Bot Request Thread - Want a bot in your name?

@HeIIoween:

Name: He||oween
Preferred Faction: Outcast
Alternate Faction: Rogues
Preferred Ship: Ruiz B… sorry Sabre
Alternate Ship: Mule
Loadout:

• Sabre: 1xKraken Turret, 4xKraken Type 2, 2xAdv. Debilitator
• Mule: 4xPyros Turret Type 2, 2xPyros Type 3, 2xDebilitator

If you’d like, I can also create a bot piloting the Mobile Ruiz Base, and that could be your bot’s “Capital Ship” char (ChipBot already pilots a Mobile Depot).

Player docking does not, unfortunately, function on AI-operated ships - although, to be honest, it probably could with a little work. You’d have to ask M0tah about that though.

Alright, I’ve begun processing the bot requests. This is how it looks so far:

(general legality) - (voice) - (name) - (faction) - (ship(s)) - (loadout(s))

(Lawful) king - SnakePlisskin - The Order - Anubis - Flashpoints, Civilian Engine
(Lawful) hakkera - SushiBot - Kusari State Police - Dragon - Blue / Purple Guns
(Lawful) ozu - Lonestar - Lawful Freelancers - Serafina - 2 High-class Stalker missiles, Justice mk III's Shield recharge rare, shield booster rare
(Lawful) orillion - M0tahBot - DSE - Patriot / Progenator - Loadout on file
(Lawful) sinclair - PetBot - Bounty Hunters - Hydra - Firekiss MK IIs, Rheinland Engine
(Unlawful) quintaine - NairaX - Corsairs - Pursuit Dagger - Blue / Purple Guns
(Unlawful) walker - KillerJaguarBot - Unlawful Freelancers - Osiris / Red Dragon - bunch of Rogue lasers? Why not
(Unlawful) botzler - StarAvenger - Xenos - Banshee - Hogosha guns with a BW Engine
(Unlawful) vonclaussn - He||oween - Outcast - Sabre / Mule / Ruiz Base - Sabre: 1xKraken Turret, 4xKraken Type 2, 2xAdv. Debilitator; Mule: 4xPyros Turret Type 2, 2xPyros Type 3, 2xDebilitator
(Unlawful) tobias - SSGTSolaBot - Bundschuh - Centurion / Transport - Some cool shit
(Neutral) juni - SonaBot - Zoners - Sleeper Ship / Lifeboat - bunch of rares (Doofus_the_Destroyer's loadout?)

I did some minor faction change-ups, as I’m trying to maintain a balanced ratio of lawful:unlawful bots. As you can see, I’m assigning one voice per bot, per batch. I’ll be doing the same for the 3rd batch. When this second batch is implemented, this will bring the total to 22 unique bots; by the end of the 3rd batch, the total will be 33, and so on.

Again, I’ll be starting a 3rd batch of requests, so keep the requests coming!

Edit: Right, I totally forgot to mention - you can have bots registered under a generic “Lawful/Unlawful Freelancer” faction - this is the default faction players are placed under if they do not manually join a faction. It’d be nicer if you requested a real faction, as this is what most players themselves are registered under, but the option is there none-the-less.

Edit 2: Totally forgot, feel free to request shipping companies etc. as a faction - in fact, a dedicated trader bot could be fun. Transports, Trains, and Liners are all fair game; you can even specify the goods (vanilla) you’d like your bot to trade, if you wish.

Hey gang, I figured I’d give a long-due update on this. These new additions are actually still in the works, and have been on hold for a while as other sections of the mod are tended to.

Currently, this is the final bot list:

1st Batch:
(done, lawful) king - foxBot 459010 - Kusari Naval Forces
(done, lawful) juni - KittBot 459013 - Liberty Navy
(done, lawful) orillion - Grim’s Green 459017 - Bounty Hunters Guild
(done, lawful) vonclaussn - Wo3dy 459020 - Rheinland Military
(done, lawful) tobias - ChipBot 459035 - Bretonia Armed Forces
(done, unlawful) hakkera - Trickbot 459015 - Rogues
(done, unlawful) ozu - Outsider’s Followers 459014 - Outcasts
(done, unlawful) quintaine - DarkMarauderBot 459037 - Blood Dragons
(done, unlawful) walker - ww2JacobBot 459019 - Mollys
(done, unlawful) botzler - Dread Pirate Lowsound 459018 - Xenos
(done, hostile) sinclair - HowdaDoodeWTF 459011 - Nomads

2nd Batch Requests:
(lawful) king - SnakePlisskin 459077 - Lawful Freelancers (Order eventually?) - Anubis - Flashpoints, Civilian Engine
(lawful) hakkera - SushiBot 459078 - Kusari State Police - Dragon - Blue / Purple Guns
(lawful) ozu - Lonestar 459079 - Lawful Freelancers - Serafina - 2 High-class Stalker missiles, Justice mk III’s Shield recharge rare, shield booster rare
(lawful) orillion - M0tahBot 459080 - DSE - Patriot / Progenator - Loadout on file
(lawful) sinclair - StilBot 459081 - Interspace Commerce - Falcon - Falcon 1: Pirate Engine, Hogosha Weaponry; Falcon 2: Bretonia Engine, Skyrail Weaponry
(unlawful) quintaine - NairaX 459082 - Corsairs - Pursuit Dagger - Blue / Purple Guns
(unlawful) walker - KillerJaguarBot 459012 - Unlawful Freelancers - Osiris / Red Dragon - Osiris: pirate turrets?; Red Dragon: bunch of Rogue lasers? Why not.
(unlawful) botzler - StarAvenger 459083 - Xenos - Banshee - Hogosha guns with a BW Engine
(unlawful) vonclaussn - He||oween 459084 - Outcast - Sabre / Mule - Sabre: 1xKraken Turret, 4xKraken Type 2, 2xAdv. Debilitator; Mule: 4xPyros Turret Type 2, 2xPyros Type 3, 2xDebilitator
(unlawful) tobias - SSGTSolaBot 459085 - Bundschuh - Centurion / Transport - Some cool shit
(neutral) juni - AshBot 459086 - Zoners - Lifeboat - doofus_the_destroyer’s loadout

3rd Batch Requests:
() king
() quintaine
() sinclair
() tobias
(lawful) ozu - DofodBot 459087 - Universal - Cavalier / Prison Liner - Liner: a colorful array; Patriot - light power pod, regular thurster, razor mine, wasp CD, 2 Borrocos, 1 catapult and 1 moonstalker
(lawful) orillion - PetBot 459088 - Bounty Hunters - Hydra - Firekiss MK IIs, Rheinland Engine
(lawful) hakkera - Why484andNineTenths 459089 -
(unlawful) juni - DarkWraith007 459090 - Blood Dragons - Drake / Eagle - Advanced Thruster, Advanced CM Dropper, 1x high-class missile, high-class mines; Drake: Hornet CD, 1x Tarantula, 1x Adv. Tarantula, 1x Hellflurry Mk II, 1x Stealthblade Mk I; Eagle: Rh. Engine, Starkiller Torpedo Launcher, 1x Skyblast Turret B, 2x SILVER FIRE, 2x Tizona del Cid, 2x Reaver Mk II
(unlawful) vonclaussn - SojournBot 459091 - Junkers - Rheinland Cruiser / Stiletto - Rheinland Cruiser: 5x Missile Turret, 2x Def Turret, 1x FG; Stiletto: 2x IMG Guns, 4x Xeno Guns
(unlawful) botzler - HonkBot 459092 - Red Hessians - Kusari Battleship / Piranha - Kusari Battleship: Flak A/B, Piranha: Pirate Engine, RocketTurd’s loadout
(neutral) walker - Son’aBot 459016 - Zoners - Sleeper Ship / Clydesdale - Sleepership: 8x pirate station turret, 2x rheinland flak A, 2x rheinland flak B, 4x SmOP missile turret; Clydesdale: Stunpulse MKII on the rear turret, rest are Javelins

Special (Non-Arena Combatants)
(hostile) none - Borg? 459093 - Boss Faction - Prison Station - All Rheinland Primaries

Nearly all of the framework stuff is complete (as you might guess, the 4590xx are IDS names of the bots, which are used everywhere in bot code). The only stuff not done is bot interfaction data (setting up each individual bot mini-faction in relation to the faction it’s a part of, and all the other bots - not difficult, just time consuming) and loadouts for the bots (again, not difficult, but very time consuming). As I will be building the loadouts in-game, I will do my best to playtest the effectiveness of each loadout before committing it as the bot’s final loadout(s); I will try to adhere as much as possible to the requested loadouts, however I may deviate a little to make each bot as effective as possible.

Finally, although there are empty slots in the 3rd batch, I am currently not taking any more requests, as I’d like to finish these up first - as it stands, Flak will have more than 30 unique AI bots (47 total if you count alternative loadouts for some bots!)
It’s pretty crazy, but it’s always fun when you start seeing people on the server developing personal grudges against the pesky AI. =P

I’ll update this post with screenshots (and maybe videos?) as I start working the final bots into the game.

Another long-due update on this.

As you can see, I’ve started building in-game loadouts of the new bot requests. So far I’ve nailed just about the entire 2nd batch, and will be moving onto the 3rd batch tomorrow. I spent a fair amount of time on each loadout, balancing the gun, shield, and equipment levels to be at least reasonably efficient. As a few of you requested specific equipment, I did the best I could to adhere to the requests, however I took the liberty of swapping out equipment here and there for a more efficient loadout.

At this point, I just need to finish the 3rd batch of loadouts, and write up the general code for the bot mini-factions! Hopefully in the coming days I’ll be able to capture some video or screenshots of the AI bots in action.

For now, I snapped a few pictures while building some of the loadouts, incase you’re curious as to how some of the new bots might look ingame:

SushiBot:

The first request I took. He requested (and beat everyone else to) the Dragon, armed with some purple weaponry. I ended up mixing together Skyrails and Scorpions in an attempt to get the color purple, and uhh it works I guess. I also strapped on an admittedly ugly Border World (white) engine, as it was the most efficient choice for this loadout.

SnakePlisskin:

Because no AI Bot collection is complete without our resident Nomad killing machine Snake Plisskin. Standard Order (red) equipment, Firestalker Homing / Decimator EMP Missiles (red), and finally a “Hurricane” tractor-beam (red). There’s a lot of red here, because red stands for ass kicking.

Lonestar:

Lonestar loves that Serafina, so if you play Flak, don’t be surprised to run into the Serafina in both bot and actual player form. XD Don’t let the Justice MkIIIs throw you off either - low-class guns are very accurate and energy efficient, making them great for sustained fire, which is the best way to break through a VHF shield tank from range. Freighters can be very deadly when used like this.

NairaX:

This loadout’s crazy. While the Tachyon guns are pretty standard fare, you don’t often see slow, hard-hitting rares on PLFs due to rares being so inefficient with power. This should be an interesting one to fight.

He||oween:

This loadout’s also crazy. I adhered to Helloween’s high-class gun request, but as a result this freighter can only sustain fire for about 2 seconds, even with the high-power Rheinland engine strapped on. However, that 2-second volley can be enough to put a reasonable dent in a slow-moving HF. This should also be an interesting one to fight. Helloween’s other loadout is a Sabre, but I didn’t take a screenshot of that.

KillerJaguarBot:

KJ is currently holds the highest total kill count record in 88 Flak, and his Red Dragon, armed with Rogue Usiels and all three missile types, should prove an interesting opponent. KJ’s other loadout is an Osiris, but I didn’t take a screenshot of that.

AshBot:

This has the honor of using the loadout belonging to my oldest 88 Flak character still in existance, Doofus_the_Destroyer, which has over 1,200 hours logged. The loadout is tuned in favor of highly inaccurate, but quick, damage, and enormously high amounts of shield capacity with little shield regen. It is geared for extensive pirating raids and Transport hunting - ironically, AshBot will be flying under Interspace Commerce. (yes, the Lifeboat is a pilotable rare ship)

StilBot:


My own creation, StilBot will fly in the pair of Falcons shown above (currently, the Grim’s Green and Outsider’s Followers AI Bots fly in pairs as well). The red Falcon is geared towards quick, hard-hitting close-combat damage, while the blue Falcon is geared towards longer-range, sustained EMP damage - the general idea is that the slower blue Falcon harasses your shields and power supply from range, while the faster red Falcon moves in to deliver high hull damage. This should provide some entertaining PvBot engagements.

Annd here’s another update, for those interested:

All AI Bot requests are now fully implemented in their bot forms into the game - while I’m still working on setting up the individual bot mini-factions for the roaming bots, they are all present in the AI Companion roster, bumping the selectable AI Companion count to 52 different bots.

• Added 26 AI Bots to the AI Companion roster, increasing the number of selectable AI Companions to 30 unique bots spannning a total of 52 different loadout selections to add to your AI Companion squad.
  – All 30 unique bots now have individual bot mini-factions and can be seen roaming the universe.
  – Certain AI Bots now occupy their time trading various goods.

All AI Bots are finished and will be featured in the 88 Flak RC129 release, which can be tracked here and here.