Combat

Background Information

What's special about it?

It mixes Old Skool techniques I like with a few "modern" techniques with better than expected results.

Strategy

How does it move?

Old Skool anti-gravity movement boosted with precise prediction/wall avoidance.

It delays wall avoidance until the last possible tick. Not as strong as wall smoothing in 1v1, but it is cool to see the bot making aggressive turns when near walls.

How does it fire?

Guess factor targeting with dynamic clustering segmented data. But I stripped that direction attribute away. 1 is always clockwise and -1 is always counter-clockwise. Direction is accounted indirectly as a dynamic clustering signed lateral velocity classifier. Feels less artificial that way and confuses some wave surfing implementations.

How does it dodge bullets?

Old Skool shrapnel dodging. Anti-gravity enemy virtual bullets generated with dynamic clustering segmented data. Works well in melee/team and it is cool to watch. Working better than expected in 1v1.

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

It doesn´t, but it will some day.

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

Swarm targeting.

What does it save between rounds and matches?

Between matches: Nothing.

Between rounds: Wave data.

Additional Information

Where did you get the name?

From the Atari 2600 game Combat.

Can I use your code?

Not open-source.

What's next for your robot?

• Cool algorithms

• A k-d tree to optimize dynamic clustering. It is skipping turns to the point of being disabled in teamrumble.
• Energy management with dynamic clustering segmented data for hit rate estimation. Should be cool to watch.
• Precise prediction/max escape angle calculation. Shooting walls is not cool to watch.
• Improved precise prediction/wall avoidance. It is shaking (turning left and right) when moving near walls. Not cool to watch.
• Precise prediction/anti-gravity movement to calculate when to stop. It is vibrating (moving ahead and back) instead of stopping. Not cool to watch.
• Bomb sheltering evaluation to erase enemy virtual bullets.

• Rating improvement

• Go to surfing for 1v1.
• Anti-surfer gun for 1v1.
• Curve flattening for 1v1.

What other robot(s) is it based on?

The code is 100% original. But I took most of the ideas from RoboWiki.