Version 12.1

This version is like a fresh breath of chaos. Oh, the mischief I'm causing. :P

One of the few altruistic bots: beating the strong and helping the weak ;-) But the overall result is ok, closing in on Dookious. If you can find a way to rule out those 98->75 scores you'll be close to #3 and way ahead of me.

I've been impressed with the improvements in GresSuffurd. It has inspired me in my efforts to improve XanderCat.

Nice work!

Looks like you still have a few bugs in your specialized modes though. A 26% score against GeomancyBS is almost as bad as 70% against Idem (a nano with Linear Targeting).

Indeed. There is still some room for further improvement if I can iron out those trouble areas without hurting performance elsewhere. I'm pretty sure it can be done.

Really nice work, congrats! I wonder if you've got Skilgannon thinking that maybe Bullet Shielding is the gateway to 91 APS - I know I'm thinking it. :-)

Indeed, seeing the diff between GeomancyBS and DrussGT has had me wondering about this for quite a while...

Wow... Should I just hold my congrats until you get to #1? =) Friggin' awesome!

Thank you. I really didn't expect to see such success with adding a new mode to XanderCat. But after a lot of work unsuccessfully trying to improve the main surfing drive, I have to say I'm most pleased with it. :)

I'm also surprised how much it helped. I also think there might be scope for the opportunity to open up a shadow enough to completely hide in it with regular surfing, rather than just have a separate mode. And to get the full magnitude of the improvement, I think this diff is more relevant, and even more impressive. Never mind 91APS, 92 could be a possible target.

One bad thing is that there is a lot more volatility in the score, based on whether or not the "scenario" (my terminology) correctly identifies which opponents to activate against. And the score difference can be huge. While in the past the Rumble score was pretty stable after about 2000 battles, I would say it now takes more like 6000 to 8000 battles. Watching the progression on version 12.2, after about 1200 or so battles the APS was around 86.85 (excitingly close to WaveSerpent), but now with 3800 battles it has dropped to 86.50, in danger of dropping below Dookious after such a solid first showing. I still don't think we can say whether or not it will level out above or below Dookious.

It should also be noted that the effectiveness of bullet shielding will be less if implemented by top surfers. The score boosts will be less against the vulnerable, and there is more opportunity to lose performance against the non-vulnerable.

I also have to take an extra step in future development. Due to the volatility, whenever I am working on anything but bullet shielding, I have to disable the bullet shielding mode to get more reliable testing results.

I know I am kind of focusing on the downsides here, but I think the upside is pretty obvious, thus I am commenting on the more subtle issues this new mode introduces.