Kitten

Info

What's special about it?: It's our first nanobot!; I like to think our system of switching direction 80% of the time is a slightly unique way of picking a direction, keeping it slightly random, but also allowing it to move away from the walls most of the time, but it's likely been done before.; I'm also trying something new with the PM gun. Normally, it has a depth, and each time it can't find a pattern, it drops the search depth by one. But, just for fun, I drop it by 2, hoping it will lead to less skipped turns. But in all my tests it seemed like it made no difference at all.

Great, I want to try it. Where can I download it?: Version 1.3: http://robocode-archive.strangeautomata.com/robots/spinnercat.Kitten_1.6.jar; Version 1.4: http://robocode-archive.strangeautomata.com/robots/spinnercat.Kitten_1.6.jar; Version 1.5: http://robocode-archive.strangeautomata.com/robots/spinnercat.Kitten_1.6.jar

How competitive is it?: Pretty good, version 1.4 was 18th in nano rumble.; Version 1.5: 13th in nano rumble.

How does it move?: Basically random. Moves when it fires. When it moves, it turns mostly perpendicular to its enemy, and moves either forwards or backwards. 80% of the time it will move the same direction as before, and 20% of the time it will switch (This helps it to not get stuck on the walls, as once the direction is flipped, it has an 80% chance of moving away). It is supposed to be as random as possible and still be a decent dodging strategy.

How does it fire?: Uses SymbolicPatternMatching like most nanos, credits to Assertive by Robar

How does it dodge bullets?: Every time it fires, it moves a random distance.

How does the melee strategy differ from One-on-one strategy?: It actually has a strategy in 1v1!

Where did you get the name?: I was thinking of "little cat" which naturally becomes kitten!

What's next for your robot?: ~~Some bullet power management would probably be useful.~~ Switched to 2.5 power, which helped it a bit, I doubt i'll find the code space to have real power management.

Can I use your code?: Of course, RWPCL. Just don't use the whole thing and claim it as your own.; And if you find an innovative way of reducing the code, I would love to hear!