B O T  -  H A N D L E R

Description

This is an early beta version of Bot Handler, a little Java program that I wrote to easily manage the properties of Bots of an Unreal Tournament game.
UT has lots of different skins and variations, but the in-game menus to change the Bot configuration are clunky and slow to use. Since I got tired of always playing against the same bots, I decided to write a Java program to randomize and easily change the properties of the bots.
At first I created a simple program that just wrote a new, completely random Bot list and then exported it to a file, but I wanted to have more control on the randomization. I thought that a program like this might be useful to someone else, so I started to write a more complex program with a fully functional Graphical User Interface and quite a number of parameters.


First of all a reminder, MAKE A BACK UP of any file you intend to load or overwrite with this program. I tested this program myself on both Linux and Windows and I think that it is fairly stable and functional, but it is still incomplete so I am not responsible for any kind of data loss. When using the "Save", "Save As" and "Export to user.ini File" functions double check the files you choose, since they will be overwritten without any warning.


As already mentioned, this is an early build of the program and some things have yet to be implemented. Major omissions from this build are:
- The Properties page, where you see the Bot's values, is a placeholder and doesn't update like it should. In the future this page will allow the user to change values directly (without using the Generator)
- Safety checks for when the program has Bot list data or not have yet to be implemented
- Safety checks for overwriting non-Botlist files have yet to be implemented
- VoiceTypes and FavoriteWeapon generation aren't implemented yet
- The possible values for Skins, Faces, Names etc. are all stored in an external file, which is scanned only at the start of the program. In the future there will be an external window where to edit them in real time.
- The GUI is very experimental, it might be subject of drastic changes in the future


The Generator, aside from the missing Weapons and Voices, is pretty complete and solid, and shouldn't be "breakable" with any kind of setting.
I am releasing this early build to get some feedback on the whole program, and although it is incomplete it can complete its main function, generate quickly some new bots with controlled randomization.

Enjoy

Installation

Unzip BotHandlerV060, then copy the files in a folder of your choice.

Then either double click the BotHandler.jar file, or right-click on it and select "Open with Java Runtime Environment".

You will need the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to open this program, you probably have it already installed but if that's not the case you can download it at www.java.com.

How To Use

When started, the program will not have any predefined Bot list. You can either:
- Create a new one from scratch (File -> New, or Generator 3 Tab -> Generate)
- Load it from a previously saved Bot list (File -> Load)
- Import it from you Unreal Tournament install (File -> Import user.ini File).

You can then modify the properties of the bots changing the parameters in the Generator tabs, and then using the Generate button again.
The Gen. All and Gen. Selection buttons allow you to choose between modifying the whole Bot list or only the Bots selected in the list on the left of the Frame. The list allows multiple selections when holding Ctrl and/or Shift when clicking.

The Min and Max spinners in the Generator 2 tab can be used to limit the possible values of the relative property, while the Chance spinners in the whole program are used to determine the probability of the relative property being different than the default value (i.e. a 0.5 Chance for the Team property means that about half of the selected bots will get a Team different than None. A 0.33 Chance for the Accuracy property means that about one third of the selected bots will get an Accuracy value different than 0.0)

You can toggle the buttons in the Generator 3 tab to decide wheter to generate or not the relative property (if off, the previous property of the bot will be kept when generating).

When using a Specified name, you can add the following identifiers to the name string to have them being replaced by the generator:
- %i     Gets replaced with the index of the current Bot (e.g. 4 for the fourth Bot in the list)
- %rN    Where N is an Integer greater than 0 and smaller than 10, gets replaced with a random Integer smaller than 10^N (e.g. a number between 0 and 1000 for %r3)

You can save the current Bot list at any time. MAKE A BACKUP OF ANY FILE YOU WANT TO OVERWRITE, and double check the files you choose in the File Dialogs since there aren't file type checks in the program yet. DO NOT USE Save As on the user.ini files in your UT folder, since doing so will not keep in the file all the other configuration strings.
The available save modes are:
- File -> Save, to update the currently selected file (NOT RECOMMENDED, MIGHT BE UNSAFE)
- File -> Save As, to choose a file where to save only the Bot list
- File -> Export to user.ini File, to insert the Bot list into a user.ini configuration file while keeping the rest of the file intact (AGAIN, MAKE A BACKUP OF THE FILE BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO USE THIS FUNCTION). As of now this function will not store the information about VoiceTypes and FavoriteWeapons, they will be set as blank.

Since this is a very early build, most of the main actions are written in an easily accessible Log. Use the View -> Log menu item or press Ctrl+L to display it.

Details

Credits

Thanks to all the developers behind Java for this wonderful language, and behind NetBeans IDE for this great powerful free program.

Copyright

This software is copyright 2011, by DeathoX 8.
I am not responsible for any loss of data or any kind of damage resulting from the use of this software. This is an experimental build, and you are using it at you own risk. This software is freeware and does not have any kind of warranty.
You may NOT decompile this software or use it as a base for any other additional software.
You are NOT allowed to commercially exploit this software, i.e. put it on a CD or any other electronic medium that is sold for money without my explicit permission!
You MAY distribute this software through any electronic network (internet (web/ftp), FIDO, local BBS etc.), provided you include this file and leave the archive intact.
Unreal® Tournament (c)1999 Epic Megagames, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by GT Interactive Software, Inc. under license. Unreal Tournament and the Unreal Tournament logo are registered trademarks of Epic Megagames, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are properties of their respective owners.