What's new with Insane-Bot?

Version 1.3d Released! (April 16 , 2004)

Version 1.3d fixes all known issues with the April '04 patch. IB now requires Decal 2.6.1.2 or later to run.

You can get Insane-Bot 1.3d here. There are FAQ and Configuration pages that provide some information on how to get your Insane-Bot up and running. Thanks to Davidge these pages have now received some much-needed updates. More updates are on the way -- for current information and assistance you can always visit the message boards at forums.insanity-inc.org.

If your Insane-Bot is not casting spells or is crashing at login make sure you have all current Critical Updates from Windows Update installed. Insane-Bot is closely tied to several Windows components (e.g. Script engines, XML parsing, etc.) and if you don't have the most recent versions of these components it will fail to operate correctly.

Version 1.3c Released! (Feb 11 , 2004)

Version 1.3c fixes all known issues with the January '04 patch. IB now requires Decal 2.6.1.0 or later to run.

Version 1.3b (BETA) Released! (Feb 4 , 2004)

Version 1.3b is a beta release to fix issues with the January patch. This version should be stable for almost all users, but there are a few bugs we are still working on tracking down. A final release will be available once we've finished ironing out the many issues cause by the changes to AC in January.

In addition to compatibility fixes, this version introduces a very basic in-game UI for Insane-Bot. More UI work is in progress, so expect to see this improve in the future.

Insane-Bot UI

Version 1.3a Released! (Dec 19 , 2003)

Insane-Bot 1.3a is now out. With the December changes in AC and the update to Decal to fix them this is a required update. Previous versions will not function. Work on the all-new .Net V2.0 continues, and V1.x updates will still be farther between -- mainly when required for critical bugs and feature changes in AC.

What's new and changed in 1.3a?

In addition to fixing Insane-Bot for the December patch and taking care of a couple bugs found in 1.3, this update introduces several new features that should greatly reduce the amount of editing required in the config files to get a standard allegiance bot up and running. A new simple config sample has been provided, courtesy of Ardham, that makes use of the new features.

Support for December '03 Patch.
Decal version 2.6.0.2 or later is required.
If bad GUIDs were passed for armor banes, or if a player left the area during armor buffing the Bot could get into a bad state.
Default commands are now supported by implementing a command with the name "*". Note that a command with this name will disable "Hints" speech for any users with a security level matching the command -- The "Hints" speech is only provided when no command match is found. An "*" command will always match anything not matched by any other command for the specified security levels. Default commands could be used to create different "I don't' understand what you said" messages for different access levels.
Switching wands/orbs using EquipByName and EquipByGUID are now more reliable in laggy conditions.
In some cases the Bot was not correctly detecting cast completion for wand or orb spells (e.g. Brilliance). This could result in multiple casts of the spells, or in the spells not being cast at all.
Component burn costs for nested commands were not being correctly propagated to the parent command.
Range checking when casting on weapons, shields, and armor was often incorrect. The range to the user who is holding/wearing/wielding the items is now correctly checked in all cases.
New properties have been added to items for use in item rules: Mana and ManaMax.
Previously the Match attribute would only match against the first "captured" parameter of the command. A new MatchSel attribute option has been added to allow more flexibility. Valid values are 1, 2, or 3. If not provided he default is 1 (preserving existing functionality). Setting this attribute to 2 or 3 causes Match to compare against the respective parameter of the command.
The Bot and User objects each have two new properties available for replacements: Patron and Monarch
Three new special values have been defined for security rules. The Name attribute may now be set to "+Monarch+", "+Patron+", or +BotName+".
Type 3 (static) replacements may now be used in command names. An example of this is in the updated simple config -- the replacements for primary and secondary portal summon words are used to define the commands resulting in their only needing to be changed in one location.

What's new and changed in 1.3?

Mekle got an itch to poke at the 1.x code again, and it's thawed a bit, resulting in several bug fixes and a few really cool new features.

Bot now supports switching wands and orbs, as well as casting wand/orb spells on users. Give your Insane-Bot the ability to use it's Focusing Stone and cast Brilliance!
Insane-Bot can now cast spells on armor while it's still being worn by the user!
New Cancel options have been added that allow users to cancel commands (both active and pending).
The Bot will now no longer cast duplicate spells on a user within a 10 minute period.
Spell casting and mana recovery have been overhauled to improve speed and efficiency.
And lots more! (See the Dev Notes below)

XML Examples Coming Soon

Our XML Guru is still working on the updated example file for Insane-Bot 1.3. Updated configuration examples should be available later this weekend.

On Command Canceling

As a side effect of the new automatic command canceling option users may see commands abort in unexpected ways. A good example of this is the full skill buffs like "Full Axe". These commands start by casting item buffs on the currently wielded weapon. In previous releases if that weapon could not be targeted (due either to the user not having one wielded or having an unbuffable weapon wielded) the command would continue casting the remainder of the non-item targeted spells with no complaint. With the new Auto-cancel this failure will cause the entire command to abort.

To return the Bot to previous behavior will require changes to the config XML. The new duplicate spell checking allows using nested commands to easily restore the previous behavior. To do this you would change the "Full Axe" command to call several nested commands (e.g. Buff Weapon, Axe, etc.), rather than calling a spell array with all the desired spells. Previously this would have cause duplicate spells to be cast on the user, but the new duplicate checking will catch any duplicate spells in the nested commands and skip them. Because this would make the BuffWeapon a nested command and invalid target would only result in canceling that portion of the overall Full Axe command -- the remaining portions would still be processed.

More details will be available when we have updated sample configs.

Notes from the Devs

Insane-Bot now requires Decal 2.6.0.1 (or later)
More tweaks to Mana recovery to improve efficiency -- bots should stop less often to recover mana now.
Extra "Debug Spew" that was present in the 1.2Beta release has been removed.
Spellcasting got another overhaul to improve speed. This included major cuts in processing time required to set up spells for casting, reducing precast time by more than 95%.
Tweaked Weapon/Shield buffing to take advantage of the new functionality in Asheron's Call that allows mages to cast item spells on a person and have them apply to the correct wielded item (weapon or shield). This eliminates the incorrect range calculations for casting on items.
New Replacements:
CancelReason -- Lists the reason a command was canceled.
PositionInLine -- The position in the current queue of your first pending command.
New CommandType -- 6 (Targeted Spells)
This CommandType allows spells to be targeted at specific items, and is used in the new Armor buffing commands (allows the Bot to buff your armor while you are wearing it). A set of sells can be cast on a list of item GUIDs. See the sample XML for examples of how this command type can be used.
A new Insane-Bot Client has been developed to make using this type of commands simple.
Visit the Insane-Bot Client page for more information.
New InternalIDs for CommandType 1:
    InternalID = 2 -- Cancel current running command (Admin level cancel)
    InternalID = 6 -- Cancel all current running commands for the user who requested the cancel
    InternalID = 7 -- Cancel all pending commands for the requestor
    InternalID = 8 -- Equip an Orb/Wand by name
    InternalID = 9 -- Equip and Orb/Wand by GUID
    InternalID = 10 -- Cast orb/wand spell on requestor
    InternalID = 11 -- UseItemByNameOn
    InternalID = 12 -- UseItemByGUIDOn
    InternalID = 13 -- SortItemByNameTo
    InternalID = 14 -- GiveItemByName (Gimme!)
Examples of commands that use these InternalIDs are in the sample XML.
New console command: /Bot GetHexID. Returns the GUID of the selected object or person as a Hex value.
Fixed Use action in ItemRules to work correctly (Allows Mana Charges to be used on items, etc.)
Added Duplicate Spell tracking on a per-user basis. Spells cast on the user in the last 10 minutes will not be cast again if another command would cast the same spell.
Added duplicate command checking. If a user requests the same command several times in rapid succession it will only be added to the queue once.
Added "SuppressDupes" attribute for Commands. Defaults to True. If this is set to False the command that has this attribute will skip duplicate command and spell checks.
The Bot will now auto-cancel commands in two circumstances:
The command tries to cast spells on an invalid target (e.g. no weapon wielded).
The target user is an incompatible PK State (e.g. User is PKLite or PK and Bot is NPK).
An Automatic cancel also sets a flag ($BadTarget or $PKState) to indicate why the command was canceled.