Bots Can't Chat

[agentx]

There seems to be no way to let bots communicate with each other like the way humans do by team chat. Actually in a 2v2 game, humans v. bots, humans can exchange info and tactics, bots can't - so chatting is cheating.

Imagine sending "attack in 20 sec" to your bot ally to launch a synced attack. Or "need 2000 metal" to force a tribute. Mixed teams would add a new level to the game.

Is it a big problem to put two way chat on the API? Sending is already there. Just listening is missing.

[RoekeloosNL]

you mean give your allied bot commands i must say that can work.

[niektb]

I think even more: that two allied bots coöperate with eachother through communication. Sounds cool.

[sanderd17]

The API is only an experiment that grew by accident. So you can let it grow more.

Normally, the first AI programmer to want a feature is the one who adds it to the API.

But do watch out for localisation. An AI can chat to the player in his local language. So the AI should somehow be able to accept local messages back, without causing problems when multiple people in a game have a different language.

[Lion.Kanzen]

Do it man can be funny. In many rts thesis ally or enemy try to menace or intimidate enemies or simple ask for help.

[thamlett]

I have often wished this could happen. It is more likely to get implemented with Petra than Aegis (the rumors are that Aegis is getting replaced by Petra). I wonder what Wraitii thinks about it?

[Loki1950]

I wonder what Wraitii thinks about it?

He was the one who suggested it

Enjoy the Choice

[agentx]

Normally, the first AI programmer to want a feature is the one who adds it to the API.

Are you proposing different binaries for different AIs?

[sanderd17]

The API is scripted too (for the biggest part). And if you add something, just give us a patch. If it doesn't break other code (which is unlikely when only adding a feature), it will get committed.

[agentx]

Yes, but in this case scripting can not add bot chat as feature. The most important part of the API is written in C++.

Is bot chat really more difficult than e.g. barterprices? An object with player id as key and message as value would be sufficient.

[sanderd17]

You should be able to reroute the chat from the GuiInterface to the AiInterface (in public/simulation/components), and pas the message on to the ai like that.

Well go through the cpp part, but that's very liberal. It just clones objects (which is needed for future parallelism), and passes them on.

[agentx]

Challenge accepted. I found all (human/bot) chat messages go through GuiInterface.prototype.PushNotification. What do you mean by "reroute" ?

A wild guess would be:

1. collect messages in PushNotification
2. add a new event type e.g. "chat" in AIInterface.prototype.EventNames
3. use AIInterface.prototype.GetNonEntityRepresentation to ask GUI for collected messages

anything more?

Not clear is how to deal with network chat and recognize team chat.

[sanderd17]

You can send them from the GUIInterface to the AIInterface directly, like this:

GuiInterface.prototype.PushNotification = function(notification){    this.notifications.push(notification);    var cmpAIInterface = Engine.QueryInterface(SYSTEM_ENTITY, IID_AIInterface);    if (cmpAIInterface)        cmpAIInterface.PushEvent("Notification", notification);};

Querying them from the AIInterface also works. But then you need to figure out when the messages are pushed and when they get flushed again (they disappear from that list when they get in the GUI I think).

I think the notification.type should be "chat" in case of a chat. But you'll also get all other sorts of notifications (like building failed notification).

I don't know much of the AI code, so I can't check if these events come through. But if you know it's working, I can commit your patch.