View source for User talk:Tmservo

These two versions of Linio, are different. jcz.linio.Linio 1.0,https://www.dropbox.com/s/m4yq1gsf6f67cmh/jcz.linio.Linio_1.0.jar jcz.linio.Linio 1.0.H,https://github.com/L1ni0/rcb-bin/raw/master/jcz.linio.Linio_1.0.H.jar

In this conversation, users discuss the secrets to making a good robot in Robocode. Various users contribute their thoughts, insights, and advice on the topic. Key points include:

1. Understanding the rules of the game, Java technology, and competition mechanics.
2. Learning from other robocoders and studying existing strategies.
3. Hard work, passion, attention to detail, and not trying to reinvent the wheel.
4. Implementing known best practices, fixing bugs, and continuous tweaking and tuning.
5. Making assumptions about enemy behavior can be a double-edged sword, as some assumptions can be exploited.
6. GuessFactors, a common targeting method, make assumptions about enemy movement, but their effectiveness depends on various factors.

Overall, the users suggest learning from others, following best practices, and carefully considering assumptions when developing a competitive Robocode robot.

what is it please tell me

The secret is to copy other peoples code, since clearly there is no other way to make anything that competes.

- Understanding of the rules of the game, which means Robocode physics and scoring system.

- Understanding of the Java technology, including deep knowledge of Robocode API.

- Understanding of competition mechanics, like game theory.

Looking what other robocoders are doing helps a lot. Most strategies are a combination of the 3 elements above, but starting from where others are now is more efficient than trying to reinvent the wheel and figuring out everything by yourself.

How do you now where others are now? Browse this wiki, there is A LOT of information here. Reverse engineering code from the top bots also helps, but only after you are familiar with most of the concepts.

MN's response is far more helpful than mine, you should take that advice. I learned about robocode relatively recently and I found that reading basically the entire wiki helped a lot.

To quote Skilgannon (slightly out of context):

"I'm good at producing a top scoring bot, I'm not arguing that, but I'm better at optimising code so it runs quickly/small and then just using a feature 10x more than anybody else ever has before. Examples are the 100+ buffers in DrussGT, surf-absolutely-everybody in Neuromancer, multiple-choice pattern matching in Toorkild. We'd already had multiple buffers, melee surfing, micro pattern matching, non-micro multiple-choice pattern matching, so nothing I did was really new, I just squeezed every last drop of performance out that it had to give. I guess my real claim to fame is variable-distance Stop-And-Go, the rest is my interpretation of the wealth of knowledge already available on the wiki =) I guess the moral of the story is to think big!"

There is a lot more to DrussGT than simply a bunch of buffers.

I think multiple buffers are the weakest part of DrussGT. Replacing the bins with k-NN search in movement would make it even stronger.

State of the art go-to surfing, anti-pattern matching, flattener, surf 2 waves, wall smoothing, super strong dynamic clustering gun, data decay, anti-surfer gun, genetic tuning, precise MEA, gun heat waves, super survivalist energy management, bullet shadows...

Agreed, there's a lot more to Skilgannon's success than a willingess to "go big" and squeeze harder. It's tough to go bigger or squeeze harder without your system breaking down. But we humans are narrative-oriented and Skilgannon's a humble guy, so he comes up with a humble narrative. ;)

That quote seems like an example of Survivorship Bias to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Just because Skilgannon is the champ doesn't mean his memory of the approach he took is the best approach (or even above average).

Kicking myself for missing the chance to link to a much cooler post about Survivorship Bias. :-)

Hi! I think, that Tomcat is pretty good robot, so i can publish my humble opinion:)

First of all, Skilgannon, imho, is the best robocoder ever, i remember how easy he retake first place in PL, when Tomcat try to get it. And it's impossible for me to understand:) He just from another planet and cannot be understood by regular humans:) So don't try to beat him, until beat other regular humans:)

Secret of others top bots is pretty simple: passion, hard work and attention to details. And don't try reinvent the wheel, until beat other regular humans:) With Tomcat (initially Jdev, later UltraMarine, later Primarch) i spent two years trying to reinvent the wheel and in result fail with it. Then in two months i just implement all known best practises and take 50th place. And after four or five months i take 3rd place. If you will look at Tomcat's history, then find out, that most of changes was small tweaks and bugfixes.

I can give few technical advices:

1. Start with implementing of all known best practises
2. Fix all bugs in implementation
3. Watch at your bot in battle - it is only way to catch many types of bugs
4. Visualize your bot's data
5. Move by small steps
6. Use strong build and test precess with VCS, automatically versioning, batch battles execution etc. So you can say "Bot of version V from revision R with changes Cs, has following results: RES"

And about reinventing the wheel: i think that Tomcat is little reinventer and he still top bot because with PIF-gun and pretty unique movement logs system he is very strong against weak bots, and pretty unpredictable for strong bots. But i'm not master of robocode, so here i may be wrong

So be passionate, work hard and you will find success:) I pleases, that robocode cummunity is still active and here still appears new robocoders

Good luck!

P.S: as usual, sorry for my english

Hey, there're no secret at all: Make It Work (implement best practises) Make It Right (fix bugs) Make It Fast (tweak & tune):)

In a nutshell.

First thanks to all for the praise I've recieved on the thread =) I don't think I'm superhuman, but I know that I do approach problems from a different perspective than most people.

I don't think I've discussed much is about the process I go through when I make gains. These are typically from three things:

1. Adding a new behaviour that has already been shown to improve performance, or creating a new behaviour that might improve performance and then testing it to death over lots of battles to see if it actually helped.
2. Fixing bugs. Enough said.
3. Speeding up code to make the skipped turn behaviour more predictable, and add spare CPU/memory capacity for future features

So absolutely, I agree with what JDev has said here: make it work, make it right, make it fast.

One other thing that I have to recommend is to not make ANY assumptions about enemy or bot behaviour. If you do make an assumption, do a bunch of tessts and check that the data supports your assumption. And once your feature is implemented, see if there is any way you can get rid of the assumption and thus take advantage of the cases where it isn't true.

About making assumptions of opponents, it can be done, but not in the way many people do it. That's where game theory kicks in.

The best assumption you can make is that opponents are also trying to outperform you. You are not the only one trying to climb the ranking. That said, any assumption you make might be used against you. The higher the ranking of a competitor, the stronger this statement becomes.

Most attempts at exploiting opponents weaknesses also open yourself to weaknesses. Skillgannon's approach of not making assumptions is all about not exposing yourself to weaknesses.

A good example is most bots trying to crush anyone behaving like SittingDuck. The best targeting against SittingDuck is Head-On Targeting. But Head-On Targeting is shamefully predictable. Many bots still do it. Look what happened when EnergyDome exploited that.

High ranking bots make all sorts of assumptions really. Guessfactors that are so commonly used as a way to predict the opponant's movement, contain some (loose) assumptions about how the opponant's movement at least vaguely related to where you fired from. Most targeting systems also make the assumption that the opponant acts symmetrically when going backwards versus forwards. Those two assumptions can be quite easily broken, but they're not easily exploitable because breaking them would not make you more unpredictable to those using the incorrect assumptions, it would merely make you more predictable to those who *don't* make the assumptions.

One just has to distinguish between assumptions which are sufficiently safe, and are not sufficiently safe.

I actually don't feel like GFs make any major assumptions besides clockwise vs counter-clockwise being treated the same. And it would take some actual effort to make that assumption false. The firing angle you use is relative to where you are firing from, regardless of how the enemy moves. And that's the output you need from a targeting algorithm, not the exact location of an enemy.

which is better DiamondWhoosh or DookiCape

which is better DiamondFist or DookLighting

Was that Random Movement version a experiment to see how good the the wave surfing is

No, it was mostly to test which bots a flattener would be of help against.

Which is faster for Rednaxela's kd-tree Bucket size 24 or Bucket size 50

24 is probably faster. Though it's largely irrelevant since it's probably going to be faster than anything else in either configuration anyway.

To be honest, I don't really care.

There's an Exploit on PiRocks page that needs fixing

The number of RoboRumble Participants dropped from over 1100 to 196. Can anybody fix this please?

Because RoboWiki Forcibly logged me off and wouldn't let me log in until this day Did anyone else have that same problem

From Oct 19th to 24th, the server had an out of disk space condition. That was causing failed logins among other things. That's fixed now.

This explains my troubles as well. The wiki was complaining about cookies not set and did not let me in.

Do we have a secondary channel to notify admins if something of similar nature will come up again?

For my part, I can be contacted at áĺêẍ@śťṙḁṅḡĕãúťǒṃẚṱấ,ćőṃ (remove accents, they're an anti-spam measure). As they posted on Contacts, Voidious and Skilgannon who have the same level of admin access as I do can be contacted at voidious and jkflying respectively on ḡḿẚḭḽ

Rules
1: You must be a beginner with some coding experience
2: You cannot copy a bot
3: Bot must be GNU GPL any version
4: Participants must sign up now by replying to this thread
5: The winner is the person who creates the best robot
6: Benchmark robots are all 12 wiki. prefix robots including BasicGFSurfer
7: The best robot is the best scoring robot against all 12 wiki. prefix robots
8: 1v1 for all 12 wiki. prefix robots

Tmservo, your categories are not defined and thus make sense only in your head.

Who is qualified as beginner? What is the metric? Is it a time devoted to robocode or success of a typical bot from an author?

Which 12 wiki bots are you referring to? What if some one add one more wiki bot?

Is this competition 1on1 or melee?

The part about "stolen" and "permission" seems to be redundant. What if someone use one of the top bots distributed with permissive license? Are they good to participate?

Please don't think that I want you to leave. I am complaining. I would like the questions (in their current form) to stop. But I'd also like a new member of the community. The following are my suggestions for how to ask questions on the robowiki:

1) Make sure your question is closely related to Robocode. It can be about algorithms that are not specific to Robocode, but it should be about the algorithms as applied to Robocode.

2) Make sure you punctuate your questions. It's not hard. Furthermore, it makes them easier to read.

3) Make sure you pay attention to the answers you receive. Read them before replying.

4) Make sure you thank people for helping you. We are all busy and have other things to do.

5) Make sure you have some understanding of the subject about which you are asking. If you don't, answering your questions isn't worth our time.

6) Make sure you search for an answer to the question before asking it. Use the search box in the left and/or google unless you know the information isn't easily available.

I'm glad you are interested in what I found to be the best way to learn programming, but I think that following the above guidelines will help you to learn.

Do you have any questions? Ask away.

Yep, I'm a jerk.

Punctuation error: "If you don't answering your questions isn't worth our time." Comma should be added after don't

Actually, I think the comma is optional on a short introductory phrase, such as the one I used. I'll include it anyways. More importantly(,) I ended a sentence with a preposition and said that the search box was on the right... It's better now.

Actually, it appears that I'm wrong and the comma is required for introductory clauses. Introductory phrases need commas depending on the length of the phrase.

As am I.

"Make sure your question is closely related to [Robocode]. It can be about algorithms that are not specific to [Robocode], but [it] should be about the algorithms as applied to [Robocode]."

Good advice, and kind of you to take the time to post this.

Hi Tmservo, Welcome to the RoboWiki. Are you Human?

(is Skilgannon's 'new Bot' designing itself now? )

) Cheers

i think i may have used too many dual accounts using my 2 mail.com accounts so i might no longer be chatting on robowiki.net

http://literumble.appspot.com/Rankings?game=roborumble

Tmservo,

literumble needs your CPU cycles and not update. There is only one person who is currently donating CPU cycles to battle runs, no wonder there are almost no updates. [1]

P.S. Tmservo, it is hard to read a mind of a person. Please, add description/words to your posts, not just links or pictures.

i meant update via RoboRumble client and i need A Robocode 1.8.2.0 because i Updated to 1.8.3.0 a long time ago P.S what version do you use beaming

I use 1.8.2.0 since it the latest from which rumble accept stats.

I would prefer 1.7.3.0 since it seems to have a faster graphics in comparison to newer versions and I like to use for my internal program/debug/observe cycle.

what versions are compatible with roborumble

If you go to the rumble statistic page you will see: Allowed Robocode versions: ['1.8.1.0', '1.8.2.0']

The reason only 1.8.1.0 and 1.8.2.0 are allowed is because they both have a bug which affects the scores, giving top bots a slightly lower score. If we want to switch to new versions we will have to delete all data and start fresh, because new versions fix the bug.

I think it is better to allow newer version to participate and to regenerate stats. It might boost number of contributors.

Robocode is hard enough to start. Not everyone will have enough patience to see that it requires older version for rumble. Besides it is better to debug/prototype a bot with the same version of robocode and rumble.

Suggestion about switching to newer versions.

If literumble kept separate average scores for each version on each pairing, it could support multiple versions at the same time.

And, maybe, using the version of the last upload on each pairing as the main version. Contributors could gradually upgrade their clients without need to reset the whole database.

Unused old version stats could be deleted after some time to free space.

which is better

These "which is better" questions for seemingly random bots aren't good questions. Besides, if you want to know I suggest you just check the comparison page on the roborumble server instead of making a thread here. If you have a question about a bot that's fine, but "which is better" is not a very useful question and you can get your answer on your own like from the link above.

why is FoilistMicro worse than EpeeistMicro

Generally, Dynamic Clustering is better than traditional GFT. However, DC also requires more codesize. I had to cut the gun down to three dimensions, instead of EpeeistMicro's five segments. I also had to cut back the movement mode selection, energy management, and anti-ram behavior.

which is better

I use gftargetingbot. dcbot has some wierd glitches on my client.

Sorry about my poor capitalization there. Adding on, GFTargetingBot is (I think) simpler.

how does one java file become multiple class files

You're probably referring to what happens when one defines nested/inner/anonymous classes inside another class's java source file.

how do i post source code

Just copy the code you want to post, and then paste it in between "syntaxhighlight" tags on whatever page you want to post.

what is the best robot that you can make without using more than ten lines of codes

Perhaps if you included reasons in more of your questions, you would get more responses. As it is, you seem to be asking rather arbitrary questions to which the answers seem irrelevant.

Who knows? Not all bots are open source, and I agree with straw that this is not really relevant.

Given that new line characters in Java are optional, this robot is better than DrussGT. Also, I think that the "no free lunch theorem" rather limits what can be postulated of said hypothetical robot. But seriously, I'm finding your questions rather annoying. Could you please try using punctuation, multiple sentences, and acknowledging that you understand what we tell you?

Also, questions like "How do I make an X-tree?" don't really belong here. This isn't a general programming forum, and if you can't understand it by using google, you probably need to spend more time increasing your coding skills rather than asking what the best ______ in robocode is. I know we try to be welcoming on the robowiki, and people were very patient with me, but I think it seems like you need to learn more programming before you should worry about most of the questions you are asking. In fact, I'd say learning more programming would make it so you would never ask this question.

I don't mean to scare you away, but some of your questions seem to indicate that you need to learn more about programming. If you have questions about why the GF tutorial does certain things, then please ask them. If you're wondering how to write a priority R tree, then I don't think we'll have the time to help you.

Adding on, try not to be demanding in your questions... "Somebody answer this" or "Why won't anybody post a reply" are not really relevant. Responses usually take hours or even days to come. Be patient. This is also in the wiki postings thread.

And me being 10 minutes after AW is a coincidence.

And I HAD no programming skills earlier. I'm currently still a Robocode Noob and learning java.

how do i make a X-tree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-tree

Is that even robocode?

which bot is the best bot that doesn't use dynamic clustering

Most top bots use DC in their movement.

As for guns, Tomcat is the best bot without DC but does not use GF. XanderCat is the best bot with a GF gun but has multiple guns to go with it(it's not completely GF). The best bot with a single GF gun that I know of is WaveSerpent(Gilgalad has 2 GF guns).

By the way... you could have easily found out yourself. Look at the bots wiki pages.