Storing Data

Wolfman,
I would say, don't worry about the first round so much. I don't know much about megas, but I don't think that missing two shots due to a lack of data would do any noticeable damage to your score.

Probably true it's something to save for later, but there's good reason to put extra emphasis on those early ticks/rounds. There are a lot of mid-range bots that have a chance at taking a round from (e.g.) Diamond early on, even if Diamond will reliably crush them every round after round 5. That 1 round is big in percent score. Every shot counts! :-)

Between versions 1.7.2 and 1.7.4, Diamond gained .15% APS, 4.2 Glicko, 1 PL, and .06% Survival.

<Squinting Fry> Can't tell if agreeing or disagreeing with me... :-)

Totally agree that improving the accuracy of the first few shots is only a tiny (but measurable) improvement to Diamond's already state of the art gun. That it's measurable only lends credence to the notion that Wolfman is right to put some emphasis on performance in the first few rounds (not necessarily ticks) in his still early in development gun.