Talk:Pattern Matching

Is there any (top) bot that still only uses pattern matching? I'm currently doing my first steps with that, but since I'm not a very trained coder, I can't really seem to fix all the bugs. Guess I need inspiration :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kenran (talk • contribs)

Not really among MegaBots. I think the closest is SilverSurfer, which uses a "Vectorial Pattern Matcher". There's a description of it at oldwiki:Musashi. There are PM-like elements in many VCS and DC guns, like using "distance last 8 ticks" or "time since velocity change" as attributes. Those kind of pick up movement patterns. But in general, nobody's really shown PM as a viable alternative to VCS/DC with GuessFactors at the high end. Now, MicroBots and NanoBots are a different story, since PM guns can be very powerful relative to Code Size. Even CunobelinDC, the top MiniBot, uses PM. --Voidious 21:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think it's a misclassification to call SilverSurfer's gun a "Pattern Matcher" any more than a DC gun . Checking Axe's original description, it looks like a DC/PIF which has a greater than average number of 'vector chance in last 1 tick' and 'vector change in last 80 ticks' dimensions, and not all of it's dimensions are based on the vectors either... therefore I think it's safe to say that SilverSurfer's gun is not a "Pattern Matcher" as we currently use the term. About viability of PM guns... they may not be as good as VCS or more general DC guns against the weaker bots, but as these results show, they're still viable against surfers apparently. --Rednaxela 00:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It occurred to me today that "Single Tick" (as in oldwiki:PatternMatching/SingleTick) is not really a form of Pattern Matching, but a form of firing angle projection. The Pattern Matching part is exactly the same. The difference is that instead of pulling a series of movements (PIF), a GuessFactor, or a Displacement Vector from your log, your "aiming" algorithm projects the enemy's movement for one tick, then keeps iterating over this aiming/projection. You could create a "Single Tick" version of any targeting algorithm...

Indeed, you could. I've thought about it before but never felt it was worth the high computational cost in most cases. It would be interesting to try though...

In the original wiki post it was referred to as

"Single Tick" PatternMatching

, with "Single Tick" being used in the sense of an adjective, so I wouldn't be surprised if Simonton had considered applying it to other algorithms too.