Alden Bates' Weblog

I had two questions answered yesterday:

Q: Why don't some of the bots turn up randomly in Instant Action games and some do?

This turned out to be easy to fix: the .upl files in the system directory hold the definitions for bot characters. Getting them to turn up in instant action games turned out to be matter of finding the appropriate .upl file, and editing the part of the bot's definition from (for example) menu="MALCOLM" to menu="".

Edit: also, setting BotUse=1 is essential!

Q: How come, after installing the last patch, I had a bunch of Onslaught levels marked "(Bonus vehicles)" but they were no different when I played them?

That turned out to be because I had to install the UT 2004 ECE Content Pack, which comes with three new vehicles (including the Cicada, shown right), six characters (finally the Necris turn up again...) and four new Onslaught maps (Dear Epic, please put out some more Assault maps, kthxbai). I also installed the lasted game patch.

They should also fix some of the bot behaviour. Things like... ooo, bots forgetting that it's alt-fire on the link gun to heal vehicles and nodes... bots getting stuck places and/or running their vehicles into walls and staying there for the whole match... Or hanging around one node brcause there aren't any vehicles there instead of jumping to another node...

Also, I can't be the only one which finds it annoying that the male "nightmare" characters (Mr. Crow and so on) have half their taunts delievered in the default merc male voice.