Movement

Oculus's movement fails. I can't download any of the movement challenges(All of the links are broken or the site is closed). I don't know how to be sure that it is improved. Are there key bots to test against?

I found a proof that my movement is a failure. Here is a battle result against Raiko.

dsekercioglu.OculusRaikoGun* 2437 (52%) 950 190 1151 147 0 0 19 16 0

jam.mini.Raiko 0.43 2214 (48%) 800 160 1111 143 0 0 16 19 0

You can try to download them from archive.org even when they are broken ;) Hope the links are archived.

Find the bot you think you're notably failing, enable some graphic debugging and watch some matches at different speeds. Go back to your code, wonder what the hell is going on. Repeat. That's how I fixed most of the bugs for my last release. Maybe It will work for you :P

I don't think that it is because of a bug. Every movement I make is really bad. My old bots were built on BasicGFSurfer so no bugs I think.

Hmmm, it's neural, right? Is there any case of success of neural surfing besides Darkcanuck's bots?

As I know Only Pris uses Neural Surfing. Even if this movement is one of the worst in top 100 it is my best movement=). I think that I should tune it more against mid-level guns so it would be better against general.

Looking at your results, I was quite curious about bullet shielders. It's the first time I actually understand this strategy, just watched a game. You get almost zero score against DrussGT, for example. It just sit there and block your bullets. I think I may safely assume those were all head-on shots. One thing I noticed is that DrussGT can't block Roborio, even though it was supposed to shoot head-on for the first shots, while there is no data. Does that mean that I'm not shooting head-on at all, right? That's weird...

One thing that is very important is that a BulletShielder needs to know the EXACT firing angles of your targeting. Even if there is a little deviation, it just don't work. That's why SimpleBot and Roborio should has no problem with shielders.

Yeah, what intrigues me is where this deviation actually come from, since there is a lot going under the hood, and why Oculus doesn't have such "problem". I know it makes perfect sense. It's just too obscure.

First, a BulletShielder would simulate a traditional HOT that is aimed from one tick before, not real fire position, as that position is your position when aiming (onScannedRobot). If it still hits, it would fallback to simulate a state-of-the-art HOT that is fired from real position, which means an advanced firer that predicts its own movement one tick forward on aiming.

However, if you are firing at real position, it is impossible for a BulletShielder to shield without moving. Therefore, for those who firing at real position, a shielder must move a little to be able to shield. And that's where the deviation comes from.

Therefore for a learning gun which fires from real position and is able to learn that tiny move, BulletShielders don't work.