Starting your own LiteRumble

Excellent. I can just host participants on a Dropbox text file. Thanks for the info!

By the way, a favorite thing I do when introducing my kids to Robocode is to have a pair of them (driver and gunner) pilot sample.Interactive at a moderate simulation speed against some sample bots until they get used to it. Then they face DrussGT. Thought you'd want to know that you've caused some laughter and groans of frustration from some prospective high school coders!

Brilliant. I've always found the sample.Interactive very difficult to control, I don't think I'd stand a chance against DrussGT =) I bet if I set the bullet colour to something more similar to the background it would make it even harder for interactive users >:-D

That's always the kicker is that they have a very very hard time adapting to a top of the line bot like DrussGT or Diamond. I've had students say it's like the bot is reading their mind. Then I drop the bomb that the bot can't see bullets, while the students can. It's a great and impactful "Math is POWERFUL" moment!

Of course, set the sim speed low enough and get a patient non-wasteful gunner, and they will trash DrussGT because they can dance juuust aside of each bullet. But as long as I set the sim speed such to keep them on their toes, it's a rough but educational ride. Fun for spectators too!

I have some ideas about dealing with interactive users - closer range, not letting energy levels get below the enemy, varying colours of dark blue and grey bullets - perhaps that should be something I work on next. I've neglected Robocode and I've been working on more pure ML/AI problems instead, but this is something more in the behavioural side which AFAIK hasn't been done yet.

Yeah, get close enough so that no matter how they move they will have a very hard time dodging your bullets.

Awww, high school students have all the fun. XD

I was thinking of a fairly simple "SuperInteractive" which does regular wave-surfing, but also allows you to click on enemy bullets, which it will then dodge. Targeting, I feel, would be stronger without any human intervention.