Bot

Bot

A bot (short for robot) is similar to an NPC in a multiplayer game, usually designed to behave like a human-controlled player. An example is the Counter-Strike: Source bot.

Long Version

Given the team-based competitive nature behind many first-person shooters, a player who plays offline games, presumably limited or no internet access, will be missing out a huge portion of the game. To remedy this, these games usually come with bots, which are NPCs that behave like a human player.

Another distinct definition of bot is that of a computer program which is commonly designed to perform monotonous or hard-to-achieve tasks such as "farming" and raising levels in RPG-type games. As a result, most RPG games have banned them from use because it is considered cheating. In FPS games this type of bot is also known to be a form of cheating. It helps players achieve better scores by improving their aim and reflexes which, in the extreme case, are completely controlled by the bot software.

Bot Classes and Properties

Bot Class	Game	Target Class for I/O, VScript	Is solid to NPC clip?	Affected by LOS Blockers?
cs_bot	Counter-Strike: Source	player	Yes	No
	Counter-Strike: Global Offensive	cs_bot1	Yes	Yes
survivor_bot	Left 4 Dead Left 4 Dead 2	player	No	Yes
tf_bot	Team Fortress 2	player	No	No

1: In VScript, if bot is the handle of a cs_bot, then bot.GetClassname() always delivers "player".
If a cs_bot receives a targetname, it turns into a player.

Related Console Commands and Variables

All games with bots have ConCommands and ConVars to control them. These might have slightly different side effects per game.

 Note:  The following need the prefix tf_, such as tf_bot_add.

 Note: For commands to modify where bots can go, see Nav Mesh Commands. To learn how to use them, see Nav Mesh Editing.

ConCommand / ConVar	Description
bot_add	Adds a bot to the server. Parameters can be used to set the name, team or difficulty of the new bot. This command might do nothing the first time if bot_quota_mode is set to fill.
bot_kill	Cheat command that makes all bots suicide. If a parameter is given, tries to kill the bot with that name.
bot_kick	Remove all bots from the server. Parameters can be used to target only specific bots. Bots don't die properly such that they don't drop any equipment.
bot_stop	If set to non-zero, bots won't do anything.
bot_zombie
bot_quota bot_quota_mode	Determines the number of bots on the server that are added automatically.

See Also

• Navigation Meshes
• NextBot
• Server-Side Bots
• Botrix
• Bot Behavior Trees
• VScript Examples#Functions to distinguish bots and human players

External links

• Computer game bot