SittingDuck

SittingDuck
Author(s)	Mathew Nelson, Flemming Larsen
Extends	AdvancedRobot
Targeting	none
Movement	none
Code License	Eclipse Public License v1.0

Background Information

What's special about it?

It always bugged me a little to see that the bot got not the attention that he deserves. The original description said:

A Sample Bot that justs sits still doing nothing except being yellow for the entire battle. It's not very interesting, but it can be useful for testing purposes and filling in blank spots in tournaments. It also demonstrates persistence by counting how many times it has done nothing.

Well, if you judge Sitting Duck with competition standards this might be right, but this is clearly not the sphere where he shines. Sitting Duck is one of the valuable bots, that can show you what is wrong with your gun, radar or movement and has plenty of challenges to offer. I'm sure almost every RoboCoder has some funny stories how Sitting Duck make laugh of his shiny new sophisticated gun, or his movement was orbiting everything but Sitting Duck. It is quite rewarding that whenever you change your gun, movement, radar or whatever - give it a couple of rounds against Sitting Duck to be sure nothing is broken. If you change the "Can i beat Sitting Duck?" to "Can my gun hit Sitting Duck 100%" you will find yourself confronted with very interesting questions. How about the last view shots that you fire on Sitting Duck? Don't ask me - you said you can hit 100% :).

Maybe the value for 1vs1 movement is limited but if it comes to melee, Sitting duck makes an excellent opponent. Can your movement avoid collisions 100%? Can you navigate across 9 Sitting ducks to reach the safest point on the battle field? Is your bot clearing this important corner with just one Duck sitting there or is he make a run for it?

There are way more challenges that Sitting Duck has to offer and it is up to you to discover it.

As you can see Sitting Duck is everything but uninteresting and that makes him very special. Mostly the truth lies in simple things and Sitting Duck shows this very well.

You want to share you Sitting Duck story? Well Discussion has plenty of room i guess.

How competitive is it?

To our all surprise it can be devastating to some bots. You don't believe it?

Well, if you look here 1v1 General Rumble and also here Melee General Rumble you will change your thinking.

Strategy

How does it move?

I'm sure you might guess it.

How does it fire?

It is a very peaceful bot and would never shoot at anybody.

How does the melee strategy differ from one-on-one strategy?

In 1v1 it dodges bullets by being quiet and sneaky.

In melee it dodges bullets with an aggressive "do nothing" tactic.

How does it select a target to attack/avoid in melee?

I guess it doesn't care.

What does it save between rounds and matches?

Saves how much it has done nothing.

Additional Information

Where did you get the name?

I leave it to you, to guess it.

Can I use your code?

Yes, it's released under the Eclipse Public License v1.0.