Bot tactics

What it does

The Bot tactics package lets you give each bot of your party an ordered list of rules, like the gambits of Final Fantasy XII: "ally below 50% health: Flash Heal", "current target casting: Kick". The bot runs the first rule that fits and is possible right now; whatever your rules do not cover is left to its normal class AI. It needs the Playerbots package.

It also brings the in-game Party window: orders for the whole group, your roster, the bots' bags, gear, talents, spells, loot rules and quests, all with buttons instead of chat commands.

Open the party window

The launcher copies the Party (Bot Tactics) addon into the game when you start it. In the game:

• type /bt or /tactics,
• or click the round button under your player frame (drag it to move it),
• or bind a key: Key Bindings, section Party, "Open / close the party window".

/bt button hides or shows the round button, /bt reset puts the windows back in their default place.

Invite your bots first: the window manages the bots of yours that are in your group.

The window

On the left is the roster: In group lists the bots in your party, My bots the other characters of your account. Their buttons Log in and Invite bring an altbot into the game and into the group. Right-click a bot for To me (summon), Trade, Remove from group and Log out.

Along the top runs the orders strip. To: chooses who gets the orders (everyone, tanks, healers, damage, melee or ranged), then:

Below are the tabs of the selected bot: Tactics, Bags & trade, Loot & quests, Gear, Talents, Spellbook and Style.

Rules (the Tactics tab)

Each rule is one row: target, condition and action.

1. Select a bot on the left and open Tactics.
2. Choose In combat or Out of combat: each has its own list.
3. Click + Add rule, pick the target, the condition and the action. + condition adds a second condition; both must be true.
4. Drag rows or use the arrows to order them. The higher row wins.

Changes are saved on the server a second after you make them; Revert drops unsaved changes. The Tactics on checkbox switches the rules of this bot off, so it plays only its class AI.

The list always starts with "Dungeon & boss mechanics - always first" and ends with "Class AI - always last": your rules can never override boss mechanics, and the class AI acts when no rule fits. If a rule's action is impossible at the moment (out of range, on cooldown, no mana), the next row is checked. A rule that fires glows blue, and with "Show fired rules over party frames" its name appears over the party frame.

A list has 11 rule slots. Up to 5 presets per bot (+ preset) keep different rule sets; click one to make it active, double-click to rename it.

Targets, conditions and actions

Conditions check the rule's target (health, mana, effects, class, creature type, casting, distance, enemies nearby, fight length, moving, melee range, pet health) or the situation (tank's health, healer's mana, my health, my mana, my resource, an ability being ready, my stance or form, enemies in the fight). "Casting spell..." takes any spell id, so you can react to one specific enemy cast.

Actions are the bot's own spells, items from its bags (potions, elixirs, food and bandages, oils and poisons; a bot only uses what it carries), or special actions:

Examples

Rules are stored per bot and per leader: when you invite the bot again, it has your rules back.

Spellbook: orders and per-spell rules

The Spellbook tab lists the bot's spells. Pick a spell and:

• Cast now: one cast with top priority on the target you choose (you, your target, the tank's target...). It never overrides dungeon mechanics and expires after 12 seconds.
• How to use in combat: "As the class AI decides", "Only on:" a target, or "Never use". This steers the class AI itself, without writing a rule.
• + Tactics rule with this spell starts a new rule.

Style: role, behaviour and AI initiative

The Style tab sets what the class AI does:

• Role: tank, healer or damage. Switches the bot's whole combat strategy set.
• In combat and Out of combat switches: area attacks, save mana, stay behind the target, avoid AoE, whose target to attack, focus one target, watch threat, group buffs, pick up loot, gather herbs and ore, eat and drink, plus class options (blessings, auras, aspects, curses, totems, armor, demon...).
• Pet: stance and orders for the bot's pet.
• AI initiative: how much the bot does on its own on top of your rules.

Manual mode ("Only my rules") turns the class AI's choices off: the bot only does what your rules say. Mechanics, following, looting, eating and mounting stay automatic; potions and racials too, unless you also tick "Potions and racials too". The AI log on the Tactics tab shows the last actions of the class AI, your rules and the AI layer.

Bags, gear, talents and quests

Like an RPG

Like an RPG (in the Loot & quests tab) makes the bots follow what you do:

Reward chooses the quest reward a bot takes: the best for the bot, or the same as yours. Each option can be turned off for single bots.

Settings

In the launcher: Settings, group Tactics (applied after a server restart).

Mirroring ("Like an RPG") can be switched off for the whole server with Tactics.Mirror.Enable = 0, and Tactics.Mirror.Radius (default 30 yards) sets how close bots must be to join vendor and trainer visits. Both are in configs/modules/mod_lonelyice_tactics.conf.

Scripting in Lua

Everything the rules do is written in Lua: the targets, conditions, actions, the AI layer and the party window's server side. The scripts are in the plugin's folder, plugins/lonelyice.tactics/lua/tactics; the Tactics.ScriptDir config key can point to your own copy instead. lua/tactics/README.md describes the files and the wow API.

For example, a new condition is an entry in catalog.lua and a function in conditions.lua:

-- catalog.lua, in catalog.conditions
{ id = "moving", param = "none", lvl = 0,
  label = { en = "moving", ru = "движется" }, prefix = { en = "moving", ru = "движется" } },

-- conditions.lua
conditions.moving = {
    check = function(env, u, v) return u:isMoving() end,
}

After editing, reload the scripts without a restart, in the launcher console or in the game with a GM account (see Accounts and GM):

.tactics reload
.tactics status

reload prints "ok, version N" or the load error; status shows the script folder, the version and the error counters. If a script fails to load, the rules stay off and the bots play with their class AI until the next successful reload. The editor picks up new conditions, targets and actions by itself the next time the window opens.