Bot Development Kit - Botters gonna bot

Have you ever wanted to create a bot for a complex RPG game, but the amount of time and knowledge needed to get something working was just too much? What if there was a package containing a user-friendly game API with built-in navigation, allowing you to start experimenting with bot logic right away? This is where Bot Development Kit (BDK) comes in. BDK is not a functional bot, it is meant to be a foundation to create your own bot logic without worrying about maintaining game API and/or navigation. Allowing you, regardless of your skill level, to jump-start the creation of a custom bot. Over time, there will be different BDKs for different games. Today I want to announce one for Path of Exile.

I want to create and support a community of like-minded programmers who want to learn or expand their knowledge about making bots, share knowledge with others and grow together.

Disclaimer

BDK is not a functional bot, it is just an environment designed to provide a learning experience. There is a high risk of being banned so I strongly advise against using your main account.

Features

Bot Development Kit is available for my active patrons (https://www.patreon.com/bottersgonnabot), but if you want to try it out first, it will work for 14 days without a license.

built-in navigation/exploration
easy player movement (set destination/explore)
querying for entities
casting spells/abilities/auras
querying for attack-able monsters (distance/line-of-sight checks)
easy access to items (ground/backpack/equipment/stash/vendors/etc.)
various tools functions
read access to Path of Exile memory structures via custom Exile API
maintained for Path of Exile patches and new leagues
14 days trial to see how it works without becoming a patron

Download

All releases are available here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hhcapa11yhoovjb/AAAzmzp6HavkkIDc8wAPn7Fla?dl=0

Example

This is a video of one of the examples included in BDK (exploration and basic attacks) created in ~100 lines of code.

Setup

Download standalone client from official Path of Exile website https://www.pathofexile.com/
Create a temporary email account (I suggest using https://generator.email/ for super fast and easy temporary email account)
Download the latest BDK (download link is available on patron)
Start writing your bot 🙂

Troubleshooting

Here I will address commonly encountered issues and how to solve them.

NullReferenceException when starting sample project

This only seems to happen for the trial version when a debugger is attached. When you encounter this exception, please either continue the execution or ignore it in the future by checking this box and continuing:

Advanced setup (optional)

It is advised to run Path of Exile as a limited user, so the game cannot scan files it doesn't have access to (bot). In general, we need to create a new user with no access to the bot folder and we will be running the game as this limited access user. Because you are using a throw-away temporary account you may not need to do that; however, it is advised to follow this short setup for some potential protection from basic cheat detection. It may look long but will take a couple of minutes.

Create standard user

Add a new user

Make sure it is Standard User

Set access restrictions to the bot folder

Apply these properties to the extracted BDK folder.

Running PoE as a limited user

Copy start.bat from bot folder to PoE installation folder (next to PathOfExile_x64.exe)
Edit copied start.bat so it contains the correct PoE installation folder and a drive letter

Create a shortcut (on desktop) to the copied start.bat, and paste the following as a Target

C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:Anonymous /savecred f:\PoE_client\start.bat
Make sure to use correct user name and full path to the start.bat