Emotional Attachments in Bots

So called "emotional attachments" are a way for the multiplayer bots/characters to relate to each other and take sides with their loved ones and friends in FFA game mode, too, instead of attacking everything in sight like a mindless zombie.

The problem is there has been great confusion as to how this all works. Due to a few key custom-made player models having this implemented with an error (and people habitually copying the faulty files), the result has been that many of today's newly released player models have non-working relationships implemented.

So let's look into how it works a little bit. Open up your JKB (bot personality) file. In it you'll find a section like the following:

EmotionalAttachments
{
Padme Amidala 3
General Kenobi 3
Yoda 2
Plo Koon 2
}

Notice that the bracket header says "EmotionalAttachments", not "EmotionalAttachment"! This single spelling error causes the entire relationships setup to fail, so pay attention to it in your JKB file. Make sure the header is plural.

Inside the brackets we have two values, separated by a tab on each line.

The first contains the user readable "name" of the character's BOT file (found in the "scripts" folder). This value can contain spaces, and it doesn't need to be wrapped in quotation marks in the JKB file like it is in the BOT file, but it must match what is in the user readable "name" setting of the other character's BOT file for it to work.

The second value is a number from 1-3, representing the strength of the character's attachment to the other characters. The higher the stronger the attachment. Obviously 3 stands for loved ones and friends, 2 for acquaintances, and 1 for members of the same faction. You can probably tell by this that the example I've used above is from Anakin's personality file.

Due to the default game's limitation, we can only have up to four character emotional attachments, so make them count. The four closest allies to your character should take place here, and to be practical, make sure that player models for those characters actually exist in the modding community.

If you got all these details right, and match the bots' personality files, your allied character bots won't attack each other -- unless they hurt each other and interpret that as betrayal from the other character. Set it right and have fun watching your bots relate movie-like in FFA.