Shadow

Shadow
http://robocode.aclsi.pt/shadow_logo_anim4.gif
Author(s)	ABC
Extends	AdvancedRobot
Released	October 17, 2003 (v2.01)
Current Version	v3.84
Code License	Proprietary
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Description

Enemy circling flat movement, Tron's gun. My first ever competitive bot redone with "modern" technologies.

How does it move?

It circles the enemy in random runs, "DT like" wall avoidance.

How does it fire?

It uses Tron's gun. I call it a "forward pattern matcher".

How does it dodge bullets?

By using a hand-optimised random movement.
v2.31: Ever heard of Bullet-Time? :)

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

In melee battles it uses a modified anti-gravity "point chooser".

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

Same as Tron.

What does it save between rounds and matches?

Between matches: Nothing.
Between rounds: Everything.

Where did you get the name?

From it's colors. I made it dark, like a shadow. ;)

Can I use your code?

It is not open source. I'm a very sloppy coder (when I can ;)).

What's next for your robot?

Movement optimising, it still hits the walls too often. After that I'll work on the gun.

What other robot(s) is it based on?

Tron 2.02

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Version History

(2009-07-25) v3.84 released: New experimental melee movement inspired by Portia's success. It tries to surf HOT waves while still maintaining a good Anti-Gravity position. No idea about 1on1 code version. Team strategy should be completely broken too.
(2008-09-01) v3.83 released: Some team strategy changes, trying to avoid friendly fire. Lots of 1on1 movement changes since 3.82. Melee should be roughly the same, probably with some minor tweaks since the last update.
(2008-07-08) v3.82 released: Just checking if I changed anything important since 3.81f.
(2008-02-26) v3.81 released: Lots of changes, both movement and gun. Bad idea, I know, but I couldn't resist.
(2008-02-10) v3.79 released: The result of my gun tests + a few small tweaks.
(2008-01-13) v3.77 released: Testing some 1on1 gun changes. 3.73 movement (=3.66), for now.
(2007-12-04) v3.76 released: "Distributor of pain" release. Cool new melee gun experiment. How does it choose a target in melee? It doesn't. ;)
(2007-11-18) v3.75 released: Reverted the gun to 3.73. Lots of small movement changes, speed optimisations.
(2007-11-06) v3.74 released: Small change to the gun, even smaller to the movement. Untested.
(2007-11-01) v3.73 released: Further gun tweaks.
(2007-10-27) v3.72 released: Now using Simonton's BucketPRKdTree code, with some more small changes to the gun. Slightly worse in the TCFast but amazing performance in the long run (55% against Dookious!).
(2007-10-23) v3.71 released: Precision tweaks to the gun, 3.66 movement.
(2006-02-16) v3.66b released: I think I found around 5 rumble points in the gun, testing with my best movement yet.
(2006-02-11) v3.70 released: Major movement changes: now uses BlindMansStick based WallSmoothing instead of the old angle constraint method. Keeps to a closer distance (more agressively).
(2006-02-02) v3.69g released: Movement changes, risky business.
(2006-01-24) v3.69 released: Reverted back to 3.66 movement and gun (with a very small bugfix). Some changes to the melee gun.
(2006-01-21) v3.68 released: Major movement and gun tweaks, must get some sleep...
(2006-01-19) v3.67 released: Fixed a bug and tweaked the gun.
(2006-01-14) v3.66 released: Mixing old with new.
(2006-01-13) v3.65 released: Something slightly different with the gun. :)
(2006-01-12) v3.64 released: Some more gun tunning, my best gun ever? Nope, at least not for the rumble. I'll try something slightly different next.
(2006-01-11) v3.63 released: Testing some changes to the gun.
(2006-01-10) v3.62 released: Corrected some mistakes with the new tweak. Must look at the gun now, I made some crazy changes while on vacations! :)
(2006-01-09) v3.61 released: New movement tweak. After all this time it's very hard to follow my own code! Clean-up follows...
(2005-04-27) v3.59 released: Refactored melee movement, some logic flaws corrected in the process. Melee King! :)
(2005-04-19) v3.58 released: Revised melee gun. Should give Aleph 0.34 a run for it's money. ;)
(2005-04-17) v3.57.1 released: Back to 3.55.1 1on1 movement. Some melee movement tweaks.
(2005-04-04) v3.56 released: Experimenting with the movement, the gun will have to wait. Looks like I'm back, btw. :)
(2004-12-08) v3.55 released: Added acceleration and time-since-velocity-change segmentations to the gun.
(2004-12-04) v3.54 released: Increased aggressiveness, does it work in the rumble? Nope, testing the opposite in 3.54.1.
(2004-12-03) v3.53.4 released: Back to 3.53 movement. Small gun tweaks, should be slightly faster.
(2004-11-27) v3.52.3 released: According to my tests, this should be the best combination in terms of rumble ranking.
(2004-11-26) v3.53 released: Some changes to the movement. Optimised (mostly) against Ascendant 1.0.
(2004-11-21) v3.52 released: Trying to make sense of everything I tried in 3.51.x plus a new change in the surfing. Tested exclusively against top bots.
(2004-11-17) v3.51 released: Optimised long run performance, 64% survival against DT in some tests.
(2004-11-14) v3.49 released: Fixed a small bug in the movement code and made some adapting speed adjustments.
(2004-11-12) v3.48(.1) released: Seems to work better now. Corrected a last minute tweak with v3.48.1.
(2004-11-02) v3.47 released: Another atempt. Changed lots of stuff, reverted most of it, did a couple of tests, and packaged it. :)
(2004-11-02) v3.46 released: Lots of changes, again. Now closer to my own gun inverted, only with guessFactors.
(2004-10-31) v3.45 released: Rushed release, I don't remember what I changed.
(2004-10-30) v3.44 released: No bins, no segments. Closer to the idea (but slightly worse in my tests).
(2004-10-28) v3.43 released: Back to my new ways. Still a lot to experiment with.
(2004-10-26) v3.42.1 released: An experiment. v3.13's WaveStats class with current everything else.
(2004-10-25) v3.42 released: Some tweaks. This version wins by 58% against DT in 1k rounds (62% survival!), I hope it takes me back to the 2050+ ranking.
(2004-10-24) v3.41 released: Restructured for speed, still a lot of cleaning up to do. Now to see how far I can tweak it.
(2004-10-21) v3.37 released: Another experiment. Much faster, but still slow by PEZ standards... :)
(2004-10-20) v3.36 released: Small bugfix.
(2004-10-19) v3.35 released: Lots of changes, work in progress. This version is a (very) SlowBot, I'll optimise it for speed in the next version.
(2004-10-18) v3.34 released: Further tweaking.
(2004-10-16) v3.33 released: Tweaked the distance control, slightly more agressive. Data saving enabled.
(2004-10-15) v3.32 released: Corrected some small logical flaws.
(2004-10-14) v3.31 released: Finally found time for some tweaks, nothing major. Data saving disabled.
(2004-08-11) v3.25 released: Back to (almost) exactly the same movement setup as 3.13.
(2004-07-26) v3.21 released: Several tweaks later... Too many tweaks at the same time, lost 17 ranking points, now to find out where they went.
(2004-07-18) v3.13 released: 2066 points and rising! King of the Rumble! :)
(2004-07-16) v3.12 released: Fixed (and improved?) melee gun, slightly tweaked melee movement and some precision fine-tunning of the 1on1 movement.
(2004-06-24) v3.11 released: Improved movement, data saving re-activated.
(2004-05-31) v3.07 released: Small error (last minute tweak) in the movement code corrected.
(2004-05-29) v3.06 released: Back to the simpler (cumulative stats) 3.04 movement. Further gun tweaking.
(2004-05-24) v3.05 released: Testing rolling averages again, no aparent performance change in my tests, let's see about the rumble. Yet another 1on1 gun tweak, pretty much untested but seems to target random movers better.
(2004-05-24) v3.04.p recalled: The test with PEZ' gun scored ~10 points lower than with my own gun, I'm therefor happy with my recent gun development. Now I need to find 15 points in the movement. ;)
(2004-05-22) v3.04 released: 1on1 gun optimisation, small movement tweaks. No melee gun for now, it's next in my todo list.
(2004-05-16) v3.03 released: Back to my most recent wavesurfing classes, with some small movement tweaks. Found a couple of old gun tweaks that were decreasing it's performance. Fixed the TC and MC behavior support.
(2004-05-14) v3.02 released: Shadow 3.01 suffered from an identity crisis in melee, it's fixed now ;). Testing Tron's v3.03 wavesurfing classes, similar to Shadow's v2.49 method.
(2004-05-13) v3.01 released: Now using Tron's v3 structure and wavesurfing classes. Many small changes/optimisations. I hope I didn't break it too much... ;)
(2004-04-14) v2.49.1 released: 2.49 with data saving disabled, rating difference: +0
(2004-03-14) v2.49 released: Pure dodger experiment.
(2004-03-11) v2.48 released: Small gun bug fixed.
(2004-02-29) v2.47 released: Another weekend of changes/tweaks. Optimised to beat DT 2.71 over 1000 rounds.
(2004-02-24) v2.46 released: Last test before 2.51, very high adapting speed, shorter memory (rolling averages) and a data saving option in the properties file.
(2004-02-20) v2.45 released: Adapting speed increased again. I hope it works this time.
(2004-02-16) v2.44 released: Bugfixes and tweaks.
(2004-02-13) v2.43 released: Simple data saving added (hacked in).
(2004-02-10) v2.42 released: More testing...
(2004-02-08) v2.41 released: Just testing some changes/tweaks in the rumble, tests indicate decreased performance against DT (35 rounds), but, I hope, better against most others. Lost about 20 raking points, to be analysed...
(2004-01-23) v2.33 released: Bugfixed and optimised. Fixed a sporadic melee crash and tweaked 1vs1 movement using 1000 round battles against DT 2.41.
(2004-01-16) v2.31 released: New movement, adaptive is it's middle name. Kills everything over 1000 rounds, can it do the same in the rumble? I got my fingers crossed...;)

• I guess it's official now, Shadow 2.31 is king of the hill with 1950 ranking points, as well as melee and teams champion. Two years of Robocoding, and I never saw it coming... :)
  

(2004-01-08) v2.21 released: Experimental adaptive movement. Should take care of the "easy" problem bots and also, I hope, improve the performance against the top bots. Ranking 1874 :)
(2003-12-23) v2.15 released: Simplified movement (practice what you preach ;)). 2.11 had two slightly different movement parameter sets, chosen randomly before each round, now it's back to just one. Kills the latest BlestPain by a good margin. Ranking: 1842, seems to have worked. :)
(2003-12-10) ShadowTeam released: More work for Paul... ;)
(2003-12-05) v2.11 released: New melee movement. Consistently better than DT 2.22 in my tests, still lots of (small) details to optimise. 1v1 unchanged, got to work on that, 2.02 got exactly the same ranking as 2.01 despite my (1000 rounds) tests indicating a small improvement...
(2003-11-26) v2.11 almost ready: I want to thank Vuen for encouraging me to work on Shadow's melee strategy even though there are currently no active competitions. Acording to my tests v2.11 will be a very strong candidate to the melee crown, it currently outscores DT 2.11 even in long battles (5K rounds), and I believe it still has some room for improvements.
(2003-11-18) v2.02 packaged: After countless movement tweaks (going in circles, mainly), I decided to release v2.02. It now wins against BlestPain, FloodMini, and others, including 54/46 against v2.01. Unfortunatly the repository went offline the exact moment I decided to upload it, so a "real world" test will have to wait. :(

(2003-10-17) v2.01 released: Completely redone with curve flattening movement and my "pattern recognition" gun. Top 10 in the RoboRumble, I'm happy :)

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