When the bot is complete..

Now that the bot is complete you will want to add it to the NPC spawn tab. Pretty easy, but here is the code used for this tutorial anyways:

list.Set( "NPC", "simple_nextbot", {

                Name = "Simple bot",

                Class = "simple_nextbot",

                Category = "NextBot"

} )

When you use this just replace both "simple_nextbot" with the file name of the bot and the rest is pretty easy to figure out yourself.

Challenges

You now have a basic bot running around the map and that's pretty much it. Here are some things you can try on your own to spice it up:

Search for more then just players

Play sounds when its wandering around.

Only search for enemies that are in front of it, not all around.

Make it hide if the enemy is holding a shotgun.

Stop chasing the enemy when it's really close and do a melee attack.

The full code

AddCSLuaFile()

ENT.Base                                             = "base_nextbot"

ENT.Spawnable                = true

function ENT:Initialize()

                self:SetModel( "models/hunter.mdl" )

                self.LoseTargetDist         = 2000   -- How far the enemy has to be before we lose them

                self.SearchRadius            = 1000   -- How far to search for enemies

end

----------------------------------------------------

-- ENT:Get/SetEnemy()

-- Simple functions used in keeping our enemy saved

----------------------------------------------------

function ENT:SetEnemy( ent )

                self.Enemy = ent

end

function ENT:GetEnemy()

                return self.Enemy

end

----------------------------------------------------

-- ENT:HaveEnemy()

-- Returns true if we have a enemy

----------------------------------------------------

function ENT:HaveEnemy()

                -- If our current enemy is valid

                if ( self:GetEnemy() and IsValid( self:GetEnemy() ) ) then

                                -- If the enemy is too far

                                if ( self:GetRangeTo( self:GetEnemy():GetPos() ) > self.LoseTargetDist ) then

                                                -- If the enemy is lost then call FindEnemy() to look for a new one

                                                -- FindEnemy() will return true if an enemy is found, making this function return true

                                                return self:FindEnemy()

                                -- If the enemy is dead( we have to check if its a player before we use Alive() )

                                elseif ( self:GetEnemy():IsPlayer() and !self:GetEnemy():Alive() ) then

                                                return self:FindEnemy()                               -- Return false if the search finds nothing

                                end

                                -- The enemy is neither too far nor too dead so we can return true

                                return true

                else

                                -- The enemy isn't valid so lets look for a new one

                                return self:FindEnemy()

                end

end

----------------------------------------------------

-- ENT:FindEnemy()

-- Returns true and sets our enemy if we find one

----------------------------------------------------

function ENT:FindEnemy()

                -- Search around us for entities

                -- This can be done any way you want eg. ents.FindInCone() to replicate eyesight

                local _ents = ents.FindInSphere( self:GetPos(), self.SearchRadius )

                -- Here we loop through every entity the above search finds and see if it's the one we want

                for k, v in pairs( _ents ) do

                                if ( v:IsPlayer() ) then

                                                -- We found one so lets set it as our enemy and return true

                                                self:SetEnemy( v )

                                                return true

                                end

                end