Reapbot (Reaper Bot reboot)

We are rebooting the classic Reaper Bot from the original source and fixing the community-reported issues first. The goal is a stable, fair, and readable baseline that we can extend in small, testable steps.

Active code (do not edit legacy)

All active, working code lives in mre/ only: https://github.com/saworbit/mre/tree/master/mre Everything under archive/ is legacy reference material. Do not edit or build from archive/.

Status

28+ community issues addressed + expanded navigation features - see CHANGELOG.md for details.

Fixed

• Crashes: SP edict overflow, MP route recursion, scoreboard overflow
• Movement: Jumpy strafing, water flashing, stuck in place, lift/door handling
• Hazards: Lava/slime avoidance, explosive self-damage, LG water discharge
• Fairness: Target selection, vacuum pickup, camping, skill-based aim jitter, observer targeting
• Powerups: Line-of-sight required for pickups (prevents through-wall grabs)
• Physics: Explosion knockback, backpack spawning
• Compatibility: sv_aim warning spam
• Aiming: Predictive lead capping

New Features

• High skill levels unlocked (skill 0-10, was 0-3) - skill 4+ = "god mode" bots
• Impulse 100 quick-add bot (standard convention from Frogbot)
• Velocity-based 3D swimming (oxygen-aware surfacing and pitch steering)
• Feeler steering + breadcrumbs (escape scans and dropped BotPath waypoints)
• Navigation learning (link types, usage weighting, danger/decay, rocket jumps)
• Silent Specters (stealth unstuck rollouts; jump noise minimized, enemy-aware penalty)
• Cursed Nodes (adaptive stuck-learning mesh with decay, biases rollouts + routing)
• Phantom Apprenticeship (spectral episodes with rollout validation, soft A* bias, decay; no teleport shortcuts or golden locks)
• Vortex Navmesh + Apex HPA* (incremental dynamic navmesh seeded from spawns/items, phantom-validated edges, cursed/glory-biased costs, hierarchical clustering for large maps; no pre-bake)
• Vortex Telechains (teleporter warp detection and one-way quantum edges; chain-safe, hazard-aware, low-cost path fusion)
• Apex Lifts (lift sampling with wait-cost biasing and HPA* portal weighting for timed platforms)
• Ripple Oracles + Maelstrom MCTS (UCT-style causal interactable prediction; fuses button/plat/door cascades as ripple edges)
• Grenade Vortex (GJ/GLJ): Grenade jumps and bounce-jumps integrated into Quantum Leaps with ammo-aware priors, purpose-tuned arcs, and phantom auto-tuning
• Mirage Minds (persona-driven humanization with entropy, micro-goals, heatmap denial, and feint pauses)
• Teacher Mode debug impulses (102 show / 103 hide bot learning nodes, 104 dump spectral episodes)
• Speed Demon update (bunny hopping on straight runs and reflex projectile dodging)
• Predator Update: Strategic intelligence upgrade
  • Sound Navigation: Bots hear combat, item pickups, water splashes, and footsteps (with occlusion) and investigate
  • Curiosity: Bots shoot shootable buttons/doors/walls to discover secrets
• Smooth Steering: 3-frame angle averaging prevents jitter from pathfinder/whisker oscillation
• Sixth Sense: 360-degree awareness for items within 300 units (no facing check needed)
• High-Value Item Focus: Direct drive to powerups when close (<200 units) prevents strafing past
• Proactive Lookahead: 1-tick movement sim nudges bots away from dead-ends
• Mastermind Update: Proactive tactical combat
  • Pre-Fire: Bots shoot rockets at corners where you just disappeared
  • The Trap: Low-health bots stop running and ambush chasers with SSG/RL
  • Displacement: Bots knock enemies into lava/slime using splash damage
• Darwin Update: Adaptive self-learning through reinforcement
  • Natural Selection: Bots mark death locations as dangerous (avoided) and kill locations as glorious (attractive)
  • Weapon Specialization: Bots develop personal weapon preferences based on success/failure history
  • Stuck Learning: Navigation failures mark problematic nodes as difficult
  • Decay System: Danger fades fast (courage) while glory fades slow (nostalgia)

Investigated (Likely Fixed / Not Found)

• "Bot frags not shown" - MSG_UPDATEFRAGS sent correctly, likely fixed by 0-index fix
• "Extra SNG ammo" - bots use same ammo as players
• "Firing faster" - bots use identical attack timings
• "Respawn splash sound" - spawn uses correct teleport sounds
• "Floating after respawn" - spawn already uses MOVETYPE_STEP

Non-Issues (Engine/Content)

• Score display at intermission - standard Quake behavior
• Scoreboard colors - engine limitation, modern ports handle correctly
• MultiSkin unreliable - code works, requires player.mdl with 16 skins

Build

.\ci\build_mre.ps1

This compiles mre/, writes progs.dat into ci/mre/progs.dat, and deploys the same copy to launch/quake-spasm/mre/progs.dat so the runtime directory stays in-sync with the build. Manual build (fteqcc) + deploy:

cd c:\reaperai\mre
..\tools\fteqcc_win64\fteqcc64.exe -O3 -Tq1 -DQS_V6 progs.src
copy c:\reaperai\progs.dat c:\reaperai\launch\quake-spasm\mre\progs.dat /Y

Note: progs.dat currently exceeds the 32k global limit, so an enhanced QCVM/engine is required at runtime.

Run

cd launch\quake-spasm
launch_reapbot_v2.bat 8 dm4

Manual command with logging:

quakespasm-sdl12.exe -game mre -condebug +developer 1 -listen 8 +maxplayers 8 +deathmatch 1 +map dm4

If QuakeSpasm reports progs.dat has wrong version number (7 should be 6), run via the bundled FTEQW engine instead:

cd c:\reaperai\launch\fteqw_win64
fteqw64.exe -basedir c:\reaperai\launch\quake-spasm -game mre -condebug +developer 1 -listen 8 +maxplayers 8 +deathmatch 1 +map dm4

Test

# Full stability regression tests (~4 minutes)
.\ci\test_stability.bat

# Quick tests (~2 minutes)
.\ci\test_stability.bat --quick

Command to run stability regression tests: .\ci\test_stability.bat (add --quick for shorter runs).

Automated tests check for: edict overflow, runaway loops, route recursion, scoreboard overflow.

Docs

• ARCHITECTURE_CURRENT.md - Control flow and call graph
• REAPER_BOT_REBOOT_SPEC.md - Design and implementation spec (aligned)
• mre/README.md - Quick start and testing checklist
• mre/COMMUNITY_ISSUES.md - Issue tracker
• mre/CHANGELOG.md - Detailed changes
• mre/SOURCES.md - Research sources
• KNOWN_ISSUES.md - Current regressions (bots clipping, logging gaps) and reproduction notes

Shadow Puppets (Predictive Rollouts)

The reboot now includes predictive rollout systems for navigation and combat:

• Navigation Shadow Puppets: short-horizon beam search to avoid hazards and dead-ends.
• Combat Crucible: dual-rollout combat oracle that selects a first action using beam search.

Runtime cvars (see DEVELOPMENT.md for full details):

• shadow_debug (0/1) master debug
• shadow_nav_* and shadow_combat_* tuning knobs

Mirage Minds (Persona Layer)

• sv_mirage (0/1) master enable
• mirage_debug (0/1) developer logs

Vortex Navmesh (Dynamic Learning Mesh)

• Incremental mesh: flood-fill from spawns/items builds nodes and edges over time (no pre-bake).
• Phantom episodes validate edges; cursed nodes add cost; glory usage attracts paths.
• Apex HPA* clusters the mesh on larger maps for faster queries.
• Mesh only takes over when a direct line to the goal is blocked; normal BotPath routing remains the baseline.

Vortex Telechains (Teleport Fusion)

• Detects large teleporter warps and fuses one-way "quantum" edges between entry/exit nodes.
• Chaining is permitted with loop limits; hazard exits are cursed, powerups boost usage.
• Tele edges are low-cost in Vortex A* and low-cost portals in Apex HPA*.

Apex Lifts (Timed Platforms)

• Lift nodes are sampled from world geometry and tagged in Vortex.
• A* adds a wait penalty based on lift cycle timing and bot skill (impatience).
• Apex HPA* marks lift portals for cheaper abstraction of multi-hop lift paths.

Ripple Oracles (Causal Interactables)

• When goals are blocked, Ripple probes nearby interactables (buttons/doors/plats).
• MCTS rollouts simulate shoot/touch/wait cascades and fuse one-way ripple edges.
• Vortex pathing can redirect to the interactable position before resuming the goal.

Grenade Vortex (GJ/GLJ Leaps)

• Extends Quantum Leaps with grenade jumps (GJ) and bounce-aware GLJ actions.
• MCTS rollouts sample RJ/GJ/GLJ based on ammo, health, and purpose (lava/vault/high).
• Phantom episodes auto-tune GJ horiz/vert coeffs and GLJ launch angles.