Client java version

I'm using Java 8 for my rumbles. However, it seems that some bot stopped working on Java 8? etc. MoxieBot.

I'm also using Java 8 and its features for bot development. However, I compile my bot with Java 8, then transpile the bytecode to Java 6 compatible using retrolambda, as Java 8 compiled code will generally refuse to run on lower platform.

Cross porting from Java 8 seems to be excessive, if the rest of us are running Java 8. But let's see what others are running.

But why risk getting low scores when there are someone using Java6? I think anyone who participant in rumble should make the bot compatible with Java 6 until it is not officially supported by the literumble.

Maybe what we really need is a vote for moving the minimum requirement of running rumble from Java 6 to Java 8?

> what we really need is a vote

The problem with the Robocode community is that everyone talks making changes, but no one actually does anything.

Please don't be so harsh.

Our problem that we don't have large enough community. We can count active users in two hands. You cannot expect everyone to jump on the issues right away.

At least we can make reasonably complete bug reports and see if they can be addressed.

Apologies, Xor and Beaming.

No worries. I can take criticism when it is justified. You did a lot of wiki clean up work alone which was long overdue. I am not surprised that you felt that the rest of us do not care.

By the way, ncj.MoxieBot 1.0 is running OK on my machine. It sometimes freezes but it seems to be the fault of the internal logic.

But all my bots are getting 100% against MoxieBot on my computer, whereas there seems to be some 50% on the rumble, which makes me think that it doesn't work as expected on Java 8.

I do not think that above report indicates that MoxieBot is broken. Actually, the log indicates that the bot was working and was reporting sensible things. The part about

SYSTEM: ncj.MoxieBot 1.0 has died

is due to its logic: MoxieBot does not fire when there are no bullets in the air. If the other bot runs out of energy, then they both wait and robocode gives an energy penalty kick after certain "no fire" timeout. Eventually they both killed by penalty energy drain, which is reported as "has died".

I played MoxieBot in the GUI it gives similar log entry while it is moving and firing.

In the log above, there are 25 lines of "Hit by a wave that was not being correctly tracked", indicating MoxieBot losing energy. That would be consistent with MoxieBot stalling and MyFirstRobot getting a 100% hitrate on it. MyFirstRobot fires 1.0 power bullets, which cause 4.0 damage, and 100 / 4 = 25 hits to kill = 25 log messages.

I also made a video of MoxieBot vs. TrackFire on that computer. It stalls for 2 rounds, but works on the other 8. It doesn't seem so bad when not minimized.

I wonder if the bug is that MoxieBot loses its radar lock and cannot regain it, which wouldn't be that hard of a fix...

Yep. This is what I see as well. It seems to be a bug in the MoxieBot logic. Not in the robocode.

By the way ThreadDeath is also there. Looks like I need to try java7 or earlier and see if ThreadDeath related losses are there.

I also checked the historical robocode 1.8.3, MoxieBot has the same buggy behaviour.