B O T  -  H A N D L E R

Description

Third public beta of my Bot Handler program, the purpose of this Java application is to easily manage and randomize the properties of the 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 handle quickly the properties of the bots.


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.


The main addition brought by this update is the support for the XBots mutator, a very useful UT mod that allows you to extend your bot list from 32 to either 192 or 320 (depending from the version of the mutator) bots to be chosen from when using Randomize Bots. Using the Generate XBots list button in the Advanced tab you will be able to fill all these bots' properties in a short time.
Other differences are the implementation of file overwrite dialogs (finally!), some new custom content added to the BotHandlerSettingsExtra file, a couple of new menu functions and some improvements to wildcards (fixed some bugs with %aL, %c(L) and %dN(L), added %bN and %RN).
Check the Change Log for a more or less complete list of the changes from the previous version.


Overall this version is quite solid, some bits and pieces are still missing but it does its job.
Enjoy

Installation

Unzip BotHandlerV073, 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.

If you have Java installed but the program is not starting up make sure that the BotHandlerSettings.utbh file is located in the same folder as the BotHandler.jar file.


If you are running it from an Ubuntu installation be aware that starting the JRE from the normal explorer interface (Nautilus) will cause the Java root directory to be set to your Home folder, so you would need to place the BotHandlerSettings.utbh file into your Home folder for this program to run.
To overcome this you can open a Terminal, browse to the directory where you unzipped Bot Handler and then run the program using the command:
   java -jar "BotHandler.jar"

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 Tab -> Generate)
- Load it from a previously saved Bot list (File -> Load)
- Import it from you Unreal Tournament install (File -> Import user.ini File, then select the user.ini file located in your Unreal Tournament System folder).

The names of the bots will then appear in the list on the left side of the window.
You can then modify the properties of the bots, either from modifying the desired parameter in the Properties Tab or by changing the parameters in the Generator Tab and using the Generate button again.



The Generator will get its values from the BotHandlerSettings.utbh file (loaded only once at the start of the program, not updated in real time) placed in the folder of the program. You can open the file with a text editor and modify the values (I especially recommend adding some names to each skin), but be careful to preserve the file structure or the program may not work correctly.

In the settings file there are only the properties for the default skins, weapons and voices (including the Bonus Pack ones), but I included the BotHandler entries for some popular custom models/skins/voicepacks in the BotHandlerSettingsExtra.utbh file. Open the latter in a text editor and copy-paste the entries for the content you have installed in UT into the BotHandlerSettings.utbh file to make them available into the program.


The buttons with the name of the parameter in the Generator Tab can be toggled, to specify wheter the relative property should be modified or not. When you start up the program all the options are active by default.

Other than the toggle buttons there are also several spinners, labeled "Chance", which define 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 Chance of 0.2 for the Accuracy means that about one out of five bots will get an Accuracy stat different than 0).
The Min and Max spinners define instead the limits of the possible random values for the relative property.
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.

When using a Specified name in the Generator or you are modifying from the Properties tab you can a wildcard in the name string to have it replaced with a varying value. The wildcards are %aL, %bN, %c(T), %dN(T), %i, %rN, %RN. Open the BotHandlerSettings.utbh file with a text editor for a more detailed explanation of their use. If you are modifying the names through Properties Tab you will have to process the names, using the relative menu item under Edit, to activate the wildcards.



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.
Remember that Save and Save As are intented to write on empty files and will overwrite the whole file. USE ONLY EXPORT TO USER.INI FILE when you want to write the bot list into your Unreal Tournament, since this is the only function that will preserve the content of the rest of the user.ini file.
I will reinstate this for clarity, if you want to export the current list of bots available into the Bot Handler program to your Unreal Tournament install you will have to use the "Export to user.ini File" menu item and then select the user.ini file in your Unreal Tournament System folder to update it with the new values.



If you have the XBots mutator installed in your Unreal Tournament game, you can fill its lists using the Generate XBots List button in the Advanced tab after choosing the version you are using (055 has 5 extra bot lists, while 9b has 9), and then selecting the XBotsLists.ini file located in your Unreal Tournament System folder.
To avoid name duplication the generator will take into consideration the 32 bots currently loaded into the Bot Handler (or generate some random ones if there is none loaded), so I recommend to either import your user.ini file or export the current 32 bots afterwards so that you will not have identical names for different bots.

Since XBots lists contain lots of bots (320 in the 9b version) I recommend to set the Max Generator Loops to a high value, like 256. This will make the generating process slower, but will drastically lessen the chance of name duplication.
I also recommend adding lots of new names to the BotHandlerSettings file, otherwise the heavily randomized names made up with wildcards will be used very often and produce unpredictable results.


Being this still a beta, 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

Change Log

- Added XBots list generation support, both versions 055 (192 bots) and 9b (320 bots) are supported
- Added File Overwrite warnings for the "Save", "Save As" and "Export to User.ini File" menu items
- Made sure that Save uses only the file previously choosen with the Save As menu item
- Program limits specified in the Settings file are now taken in consideration
- Added a "Set Spinner values" window where you can change all the spinner values at once
- Slightly improved Generator performance
- Trimmed filesize removing unused resources
- Added custom content: completed OldModels Unreal skins (added RealCTF, Hidden Unreali and Skaarj Trooper skins), Rumiko, Battle Sister, BKAS, BKAS Female, Desert Agent, Desert Ops Voice, Eldar Guardian, ESR Weapon, Genestealer, Impossible Bot JRM, Impossible Bot Voice, Wraith Guard II
- Improved %dN(T) wildcard, you can now use other wildcards with parenthesis (such as %c(T) or another %dN(T)) inside it
- Added %RN, fixed width random number, and %bN, random binary number, wildcards for name generation
- Added some wildcard-based names to the BotHandlerSettings file to prevent name duplication when generating XBots lists

- Fixed being able to use the "Save", "Save As" and "Export to User.ini File" menu items to overwrite files when the bot list was empty
- Fixed lockup when using %aL wildcard with the wrong letter specified (now gets replaced by "ERROR")
- Fixed Null Pointer Exception when using %c(T) and %dN(T) without adding the final ")" (now gets replaced by "ERROR")
- Fixed null name when using some wildcards (always replaced by " " now, to preserve its vertical size in the BH List)
- Fixed incorrect skin package for some OldModels skins (Male 2 skins, Male 3 skins, Female 1 Drace and Gib skin)

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.