Bots are computer controlled players, used to play Multiplayer game modes offline, or to bring matches with fewer players than needed up to capacity. The Day of Defeat series does not officially support bots, however, numerous downloadable add-ons provide this feature.
In Day of Defeat[]
Bots can be enabled by first setting up a dedicated server and then installing SturmBot or ShrikeBot or Sandbot or MarineBot.
- Sandbot
Support for other games and mods is in active development. The first public release of Sandbot was on 2nd May 2016. This is open source multiplayer bot based on HPB Bot by Jeffrey 'botman' Broome. It has been updated to fully support all features of the Steam version of Half-Life and compile with modern C/C++ compilers. Sandbot aims to provide bots for various GoldSource engine games and mods. It currently supports: Half-Life, Half-Life Opposing Force, (Deathmatch and Capture The Flag), Day of Defeat (Territorial Control), Gunman Chronicles: Natural Selection (Combat) and They Hunger.
- SturmBot
The creator of Strumbot Johan Linde sadly passed away in 2004. There is a fan site that holds the work of other fans to support the bot and provide updated waypoints, tutorials and downloads. For the windows based PC's the best way to get these files please visit this page to start playing in minutes via a Windows installer. It is very important you read all you can as these older bot programs do have manual edits if you change waypoint files, player amounts, other settings. To learn how to waypoint please visit this tutorial page for the most up-to-date guide by various authors who have way-pointed this bot.
- ShrikeBot
The ShrikeBot website is not maintained but is still active. It's often seen as a second choice to SturmBot but it does perform around the same.
Waypoint files are important to older "bot" programs. A good waypoint file requires a good author. There are quite a few still around. One of the most active is steam user "Martee" who not only makes waypoints for mappers (ask nicely) for both bot programs but also makes maps. Visit his website for ShrikeBot waypoints especially.
- MarineBot
MarineBot is the latest new bot kit for DoD 1.3, devised by Frank McNeil. Unfortunately because SturmBot and ShrikeBot is closed sourced makes it hard to import the waypoints to be reused for newer bot kits. So therefore MarineBot will not have as many waypoints at the moment. Check out the MarineBot website and be sure to follow the waypoint create guide in here.
In Day of Defeat: Source[]
RCBot2 is the only bot program that is mature enough and has good waypoint support. RCBot was originally made for Half-Life: Rocket Crowbar mod devised by Cheeseh. Today RCBot2 is currently maintained by [APG]RoboCop[CL]. It is however cumbersome to install as RCBot2 is a bot for 2 other steam games TF2 and HL2:DM, that makes installs tricky. Also, it is a MetaMod plug-in. That means you must run the bot in an "insecure" mode when you start it up. You will not get VAC banned starting in secure mode, you will see a message from VAC saying it cannot run.
Harder install Official method: - To install the official bot program that is also a bot for TF2 and HL2:DM (not recommended if just for Day of Defeat:Source) see here.
Easy to install just for Day of Defeat:Source: - To install if you just want RCBot2 for Day of Defeat:Source (recommended and far easier with more DoD:S features) please visit this page for an installer, read the page and readme in the download for access to a large custom dod:s custom map and waypoint download. Then bookmark this unofficial page for updates in the future for new waypoints and also this official page on the RCBot2 dod:s forum, plus this page for new dod:s waypoints.
Waypointing help: There isn't a lot in the way of way-pointing guides for dod:s, however it is easy to get a basic map done with this guide.
Static bots or “zombie” bots can also be enabled using a console command, “bot_zombie1” as static bots for achievement farm maps. More detailed instructions on this can be found elsewhere.