Intermediate Scripting: From Planning to Execution

Preamble

In this guide you'll learn how to:

Mentally frame a botting activity, to think critically about how to solve a complex problem.
Design a plan for a state machine, considering several conditions that the bot can expect.
Optimise code to prevent duplication, by practicing "Clean Code" and the "Single Responsibility Principle".
Create a robust script with reasonable error handling, as a result of considering each "state".

Scenario

We are going to create an Agility script that clicks on obstacles and picks up Marks of Grace and works on several courses with minimal changes.

We'll use a plugin called "Rooftop Agility Improved", this plugin will only highlight the next clickable obstacle and Marks of Grace.

When there is a Mark of Grace on the same roof as you, it will stop highlighting the next obstacle, therefore the bot will only see the Mark of Grace.

Presumably when neither is present -> the bot is lost, either by falling off or somehow clicking out of range (remember this).

States

Tip

Think what states the bot could be in while it runs.

State 1: Obstacle AND Mark of Grace Detected

Condition: The Mark of Grace has spawned on the next roof.
Action: The bot will click the Obstacle to cross over.
- (Do not click the Mark of Grace yet, or the pathing will break)

State 2: Obstacle Only Detected

Condition: Standard course progression; no Marks of Grace nearby.
Action: The bot will click the Obstacle.

State 3: Mark of Grace Only Detected

Condition: You have landed on a roof with a Mark of Grace.
- The plugin has intentionally hidden the next obstacle's highlight.
Action: The bot will click the Mark of Grace to pick it up.

State 4: Nothing Detected

Condition: The bot has fallen off the course, misclicked, or the plugin failed to render.
Action: The bot is "lost" and will try to walk back to the course's reset/start tile.

High-Level Pseudocode Plan

Now that we understand the environment and the states our bot needs to handle, we can create a clear, high level plan.

Because Agility is a heavily animation-dependent skill (with varying traversal times depending on the obstacle),
we cannot rely on static wait() timers. Instead, we need a dynamic state-tracking mechanism.

We will use the game's XP drops to track state: every time a player successfully completes an agility obstacle,
their Total XP increases. By reading this XP change, the script knows when an action is complete and when to look for the next obstacle.

Here is the logical flow of our cycle() loop:

REPEAT EVERY CYCLE:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1. [GET STATE] 
   current_xp = get_minimap_xp()

2. [EVALUATE ENVIRONMENT]
   IF (Obstacle is NOT on screen):
       IF (Mark of Grace is on screen):
           Action: Pick up Mark of Grace
           Wait: Until Obstacle reappears
       ELSE:
           Action: Walk to Course Start
       EXIT CYCLE (Start over)

3. [EXECUTE MAIN ACTION]
   Action: Click Obstacle (Repeat until Red Click)
   
4. [VERIFY PROGRESS]
   Wait: Until (current_xp > old_xp) OR (Timeout reached)

5. [HUMANIZATION]
   Action: 1% chance to sleep for 2-5 minutes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Implementation Breakdown

Clicking Obstacles (Moving Objects)

Since obstacles can be moving when we attempt to click them, it is possible the bot will misclick.
We will need to repeatedly attempt to click the obstacle until it triggers a red interaction cross (x).
Red clicks happen when you successfully click an interactable object meaning you will do a special action like opening a UI or teleporting.
Yellow clicks occur when you walk or click a non-interactable game object.

    // Interact with the detected obstacle
    // Clicking continuously until the red cross (x) animation is detected
    try {
      MovingObject.clickMovingObjectByColourObjUntilRedClick(OBSTACLE_COLOUR, this);
    } catch (Exception e) {
      logger.error("Mouse movement interrupted while clicking moving object: {}", e.getMessage());
      stop();
      DiscordNotification.send(
          "Mouse movement interrupted while clicking moving object: " + e.getMessage());
    }

You can utilise the recent MovingObject actions utility to achieve this.
The above snippet shows how to treat an error:

If the bot continued rather than stopping, it would likely click hundreds of times without being able to progress.
Logging errors to the console provides traceability, allowing you to see why it failed rather than the fact that it just failed.
Using the DiscordNotification class, you can send yourself a notification immediately to check out why the bot failed.

Tip

You should try recovering the situation upon exceptions like this. Call stop() to stop the script if recovering the situation fails.

Clicking Marks of Grace

We can separate the ACT of clicking the Mark of Grace and the DECISION of when to click it.
Lets worry about how to click the Mark of Grace first.
Marks of Grace are ground items. The plugin highlights the whole tile.
If we pick a random point from the tile to click -> the bot may click just outside of the Mark of Grace item whilst still clicking the tile.
We solve this by squeezing the click distribution towards the centre of the tile. This is achieved with the tightness parameter.

  private boolean clickMarkOfGraceIfPresent() {
    BufferedImage gameView = controller().zones().getGameView();
    // You'll see that there's an extra parameter on the point selector
    // This is "tightness", how closely grouped the click should be
    // 15.0 or more works best for ground items, best to look down from a higher camera angle
    Point clickLocation = PointSelector.getRandomPointByColourObj(gameView, MARK_COLOUR, 15, 15.0);

    if (clickLocation != null) {
      try {
        controller().mouse().moveTo(clickLocation, "medium");
        controller().mouse().leftClick();
        return true;
      } catch (Exception e) {
        logger.error("Mouse failed while moving to mark of grace {}", e.getMessage());
        stop();
        DiscordNotification.send(
          "Mouse movement interrupted while clicking Mark of Grace: " + e.getMessage());
      }
    }
    return false;
  }

This is almost identical to clicking a normal ChromaObj, just with that added tightness parameter overload.

Waiting for XP to Change (State Tracking)

You can extract the integer value of your Total XP from the screen using ChromaScape's Optical Character Recognition (OCR) functionality.
In this specific case you can call Minimap.getXp(this); to get it without any further setup.

Because agility obstacles have drastically different animation lengths (a zip-line takes much longer than a small jump),
we cannot use a fixed waitMillis() timer. Instead, we capture the Total XP before clicking the obstacle,
and then hold the script in a waiting loop until that XP value increments.

We must account for failure. What if the game lags? If the OCR misreads? Or the character gets stuck?
If we use a blind while(XP hasn't changed) loop, the bot could hang until it logs out. To prevent this, we introduce a timeout limit.

  @Override
  protected void cycle() {
    int previousXp = Minimap.getXp(this);

    DoAction();

    waitUntilXpChange(previousXp);
  }

  private void waitUntilXpChange(int previousXp) {
    LocalDateTime endTime = LocalDateTime.now().plusSeconds(TIMEOUT_XP_CHANGE);
    // Ensure we do not hang if the initial OCR read failed and returned an empty string
    try {
      while (previousXp == Minimap.getXp(this) && LocalDateTime.now().isBefore(endTime)) {
        waitMillis(300);
      }
    } catch (Exception e) {
      logger.error(e);
      stop();
      DiscordNotification.send("Bot couldn't read XP bar, stopping");
    }
  }

What if the Obstacle isn't visible...

With Marks of Grace we talked about splitting the Action from the Decision. This should also be true for Obstacles.
Create a function that simply checks if the obstacle is visible and returns a boolean based on the outcome.

  private boolean isObstacleVisible() {
    BufferedImage gameView = controller().zones().getGameView();
    return !ColourContours.getChromaObjsInColour(gameView, OBSTACLE_COLOUR).isEmpty();
  }

This will help us navigate the events we talked about at the start.

Similarly, lets create a method that makes the bot wait until an obstacle is visible.
This will help when we click a Mark of Grace and need to wait until it's picked up.

private void waitForObstacleToAppear() {
    LocalDateTime endTime = LocalDateTime.now().plusSeconds(TIMEOUT_OBSTACLE_APPEAR);
    while (!isObstacleVisible() && LocalDateTime.now().isBefore(endTime)) {
      waitMillis(300);
    }
  }

The implementation closely mirrors waitUntilXpChange().

Recovery Logic (Lost State)

Remember states 3 and 4, when the bot saw nothing and when it only saw a Mark of Grace?
Firstly, we need to ensure that there aren't any obstacles visible, after which we can branch into two possibilities.

If there is a Mark of Grace & no obstacle: we are on the same rooftop as the Mark and should pick it up.
If nothing is visible: we are lost and need to walk to the reset tile.

After everything, we will return to the start of cycle() to reset everything as a clean slate rather than trying to click an obstacle immediately.

Tip

The reason we're checking all the edge cases before we click the obstacle is so we can "Fail fast" and program "Defensively".

  @Override
  protected void cycle() {
    // code above...

    // No obstacle?
    if (!isObstacleVisible()) {
      // Click Mark of Grace if it's visible
      // If not, try walking back to the reset tile
      if (clickMarkOfGraceIfPresent()) {
        waitForObstacleToAppear();
      } else {
        recoverToResetTile();
      }
      return;
    }

    // rest of cycle...
  }
  
  /**
   * Manages the scenario when nothing is visible.
   * Firstly, confirms that it's really lost, if so -> uses the walker to path back to the reset tile.
   * Finally, waits for the player's animation to settle after reaching the true tile.
   */
  private void recoverToResetTile() {
    // Double check we are actually lost to protect against lag or rendering delays
    waitRandomMillis(600, 800);
    if (!isObstacleVisible()) {
      try {
        logger.info("We are lost. Walking to reset tile.");
        controller().walker().pathTo(RESET_TILE, true);
        // wait for camera to stabilise and walking animation to finish at true tile.
        waitRandomMillis(4000, 6000);
      } catch (Exception e) {
        logger.error("Walker error {}", e.getMessage());
        stop();
      }
    }
  }

Putting It All Together: The Final cycle()

This is the final cycle() subroutine, which almost mirrors the pseudocode we wrote earlier. You may also see the full DemoAgilityScript.

  @Override
  protected void cycle() {
    // Log the current XP before clicking obstacle for comparison later
    // The idea is to click the obstacle then wait for XP change then loop
    int previousXp = -1;
    try {
      // Read XP
      previousXp = Minimap.getXp(this);
      // Make sure it's read properly
      if (previousXp == -1) {
        stop();
        DiscordNotification.send("Xp could not be read.");
      }
    } catch (IOException e) {
      logger.error(e);
      stop();
      DiscordNotification.send(
          "Bot couldn't read XP bar because of OCR font library load, stopping and logging :(");
    }

    // Check the state of the course
    if (!isObstacleVisible()) {
      if (clickMarkOfGraceIfPresent()) {
        waitForObstacleToAppear();
      } else {
        recoverToResetTile();
      }
      return;
    }

    // Interact with the detected obstacle
    // Clicking continuously until the Red X animation is detected
    try {
      MovingObject.clickMovingObjectByColourObjUntilRedClick(OBSTACLE_COLOUR, this);
    } catch (Exception e) {
      logger.error("Mouse movement interrupted while clicking moving object: {}", e.getMessage());
      stop();
      DiscordNotification.send(
          "Mouse movement interrupted while clicking moving object: " + e.getMessage());
    }

    // Wait for the action to complete via XP update
    waitUntilXpChange(previousXp);

    // Humanizing sleep to mimic natural player behavior
    // And to prevent overloading moving object logic
    waitRandomMillis(650, 800);

    // 1% chance to take a break between 2 and 5 minutes after clicking an obstacle
    if (random.nextInt(100) < 1) {
      logger.info("Taking a break...");
      waitRandomMillis(120000, 300000);
    }
  }

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Intermediate Scripting: From Planning to Execution

Table of Contents

Preamble

Scenario

States

State 1: Obstacle AND Mark of Grace Detected

State 2: Obstacle Only Detected

State 3: Mark of Grace Only Detected

State 4: Nothing Detected

High-Level Pseudocode Plan

Implementation Breakdown

Clicking Obstacles (Moving Objects)

Clicking Marks of Grace

Waiting for XP to Change (State Tracking)

What if the Obstacle isn't visible...

Recovery Logic (Lost State)

Putting It All Together: The Final cycle()

Further Reading

Bibliography

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