[SmG Dragonrage]

Saw this on the =DG= forums. It was posted about a week ago.

I thought I’d raise the question of whether or not a Halo Pilot Bot is possible. For those of you who have no idea what that is, a ‘pilot bot’ is the old OSS/3OL term for an advanced Halo bot that can be configured to take over control of the user’s player character during a game. The existence of them was purely theoretical as far as OSS/3OL were concerned (back in the day), but recently I encountered what appeared to be a functional – if primitive – pilot bot being used in game.

I encountered it in the XG[US] Coldsnap server sometime last night, where its user was apparently conducting some kind of test with it. The user was very open about using the bot, and claimed that it was not cheating seeing as the bot could not yet be programmed to fire automatically on targets. Other features of this supposed bot included the ability to path-find to and pick up the flag in CTF, both on foot and in a warthog (other vehicles not confirmed). It could enter and operate a ‘hog if it was upright, but could not perform the ‘flip’ command. If on foot, it would automatically navigate to nearby vehicles and then continue its track. It could also be directed to a certain point on the map. As previously stated, the bot was not able to attack and would not react if it came under fire. The bot would temporarily cease controlling the player if the chat box was opened. Path-finding appeared to be genuine – the user repeated the same path several times with pinpoint accuracy (near impossible on coldsnap) and would not divert from that path if fired on. The server autoban did not appear to detect the bot, although its use caused extreme levels of lag for a server with 6 players all having ping under ~400 for much of the game.

I wanted to know if anyone else has had experience with this sort of utility, or if it’s even possible to do in Halo. The user claimed that they had already been approached by several major clans regarding the acquisition of the bot – he did not mention =DG=, but it stands to reason that someone in this clan may also have seen something. Let me know your thoughts on this – especially whether you believe it or not as I am still uncertain.

I don’t know where else to post this so I'm leaving it here. If anyone thinks it belongs elsewhere, move it.