heySo you have heard of the Player Bots mod for SRB2Kart? Wait, you haven't? Then go see it here!
...ahem, so where was I? Oh, right. So you have heard of the Player Bots mod for-wait, what do you mean you already did-alright enough tomfoolery because it is finally time for:
If you bothered to read above (or if you didn't because you already know what's this for), the PlayerBots mod is quite interesting and lets you play around certain maps with...bots of course (though they are a bit like Mario Kart 64 but it is the best we got until V2 happens one day). However, it does require a bit of explanation to know how to use; specially for using more than 3 bots or using any bots without splitscreen, and the catch happened to be that the mod author didn't have a concise guide about that part. And that's why you see me here, please take a seat
Hold your horses, here's a heads up about some information you might want to know before
This mod seems to use some extra things placed in the maps WAD included, which means that maps need to be adapted to support this mod (I might do a guide about how to make your maps support this...but this would be if after figured out what the macaronis is going on here).
Since the addon is currently a beta, there's actually a limited amount of tracks avaliable that have the bots behaving properly. And before you try going smarty pants and picking an uncompatible map, know that you'll cause the bots to have an existential crisis...like this
Now while this could end up being ironed out by further updates and of course, community submissions that add support for more vanilla maps and even custom maps (since the only thing that would need to be updated are only the maps themselves), at the moment here's a list of the supported race maps in the first beta of Player Bots:
- Green Hills
- Dark Race
- Northern District
- Darkvile Garden
- Daytona Speedway
- Egg Zeppelin
- Sonic Speedway
- Hill Top
- Misty Maze
- SMK Mario Circuit 2
- Aim Forward = Up
- Aim Backwards = Down
- Turn Left/Right =
take a guess - Accelerate = Accept (yes)
- Drift = Back (no)
How to start karting with bots n o w
Well...first things first you have to download both addons from that page (the PlayerBots WAD and the Maps PK3), and then you should be hungry for some immediate karting. The easiest/fastest way to play with bots is through the following instructions that are illustrated for mutual convenience, which should get you playing with 1 to 3 bots (albeit with splitscreen...y'know, like just like in Top Gear
).- Load both Playerbots and Playerbots Maps addons ingame (you already know how to do that, don't you
)
- Load whatever character addons you want (optional, though bonuschars.kart comes with the game in case you want to add some extra old spice into your karting experience)
- Go to Multiplayer and set your local players setting to anything between 2 and 4 (though you'll probably want 4, so that you play with 3 bots)
- Of course, set the other local players to whatever characters and colors you want (and names); illustrated in case of emergency with penguin raids
- Start an Offline game (Online also works :P) and pick the Playerbot Menu Zone (and before you ask "How can I tell which map is that" outside of the name and the fact it should be right on the side of the random slot...well look at that by yourself)
- In the new menu, you can set the Game Speed you want, and then go to the Player Setup option and then click in the local player slots that are being used for dummies (if you are going to play online, make sure to not turn someone that is a real player into a bot lol)
- Pick a map from the Start Game option in the menu. You'll notice that not all base maps are selectable from here, but for now just don't think about it and slam the pedal to the metal.
- r a c e
- After a race end countdown finishes, you will be automatically sent to another map. If you want to change a map, you can do so through the playerbot level menu or straight through the game's own change level option (though make sure that you pick a compatible map)
How to do 4+ bots/no Splitscreen Kart magic
If you know well about opening multiple instances of the game or have used foxBot AI before, then you can pretty much get the gist of it through these a bit unclear instructions
Simply start a online/lan multiplayer game after loading your addons, and then alt-tab to launch another instance of the game but that uses a different port than 5029 (which is default) - for example:
Once you put the local players in that extra instance, connect to your own game by typing localhost in the IP address bar, set the players to join and just do the Playerbot Setup but with the players that entered from your other instance. You can use more than 1 extra instance for more bots; to max out all 16 player slots with splitscreen, you would only need 3 extra instances with 4 local players each one. To do that without splitscreen on your instance, it would have to be 4.
If the instruction above didn't feel too clear or you have absolutely no idea where to begin with, then let me put it in...[checks notes]...whatever language I speak but that sounds coherent to anybody else, and with that I mean that you just need to read below for the step-by-step about how to add extra sauce to your karting time. (these also were meant to be illustrated but found out there's only 10 attachments allowed per guide so uhhh please pay attention)
The instructions for 4+ bots/no Splitscreen Kart: Friendly Edition!
- First you need to get a simple thing called "opening the game but with a different port so that it doesn't explode", which you can do through the easy peasy CMD window...don't worry, I prepared a mini-guide (though just to clarify, these instructions are for Windows since I have no idea about this stuff with anything else; also I was going to make a mini guide as well for doing that but with a batch file but its late here lol).
- You have to open the Command Console and have it go to your SRB2Kart path...and if you don't know how to do that, then you can press the Windows Key and the R key at the same time (Win+R) which should bring up a window that asks you to type in something...just type "cmd" (without quotes) and slap the Enter key.
- That should summon the almighty cmd window, a black window with...text. At this point you have to go to your Kart folder from here but the simplest way if you haven't ever done this is to type "cd " (without quotes but with a space after the "cd"), find your Kart folder in Explorer, and then drag and drop it into the window. If you did it right, it should show a path text right along it, and hitting key should...get you there I guess.
- At this point you just need to type "srb2kart.exe -port 50XX" (or "srb2kart-moe.exe -port 50XX" if you are using the Moe Mansion build), but replace XX with any number (except 5029 since that's the default). This is what you need to know to open an instance with a different port, which you will have to do.
- Now that you have the knowledge of opening an instance with a different port...you can follow the instructions at the beginning about how to get started with bots (except you'd use Internet/LAN option instead of Offline, and if you want to have splitscreen on your screen or not is up to you by the local players you set)...until you get to the Player Setup step.
- If you are playing in fullscreen, you gotta Alt-Tab out, open another instance through the method described above (so that it uses a different port) and don't add any addons, set the local players to how many bots you want to enter, and type "localhost" at the IPV4 address bar. That should get you to your own hosted server (and addons will auto-load, so at this point you can go on changing your local players characters and stuff here)
- Don't forget to make the local players in that extra instance be set as Playing instead of Spectating before you go back to your first instance
- When you are back to your first instance, you should be able to set the extra players that just joined through the other instance as bots (if they don't show up in the setup screen, just change the map to Playerbot Level Zone again and they should have joined), and then go k a r t except with more bots/no splitscreen. You can also open yet another instance and repeat the same instructions so that there are more local players (which you'll turn into bots with your Playerbot-inator) in your game.
) or want to see me make more pickle-fresh guides then let me know about it through your reviews and 5-star this bad boye (or if you need some extra missile-guided assistance, summon me through the Discussion tab because that's what it exists for). Also...I really do hope that this does end up helping people about using these fun Kart bots (at minimum play with 3 bots in splitscreen; it is still surreal to do for the first time and so on), and I put on some of a...personal flair (you know, expression
) which I don't know if it may feel weird for some but wanted to have some fun writing this and also if I could get a chuckle outta someone. But I guess I'll see about that when I hear someone throwing a pitchfork with a sausage on it through my window (because delivery trucks and bikes are sold out, didn't you know?).
have fun
