Stop And Go
There are still many bots that use one of the simple targeting methods like Head-On Targeting, Linear Targeting or Circular Targeting.
Therefore there are people looking for an easy way to dodge the bullets fired by these methods, without the complexity of the very effective WaveSurfing or using Enemy Virtual Bullets.
Applications
For Head-On Targeting there already is the Musashi Trick, enabling anybody to score more than 90% against any HOT-bot.
For Linear Targeting and Circular Targeting there also exists a quite effective movement scheme, although not so commonly known, that is called Stop And Go.
A good implementation of such a movement could reach the performance level of WaveSurfing, see WaveSurfingChallenge2K6 against botB and botC.
Bots using this technique
- Ares
- Che
- Chicken
- Cigaret
- GrubbmGrb
- Gruwel
- Puzzle
- Scytodes
- Splinter
- Thorn
- Toorkild
- Vyper
- Waylander
- LittleBlackBook
Most bots near the top of the Micro-rumble use this technique.
How it works
The idea behind it is simple: If the enemy fires at you while you are standing still, start moving. If it fires when you are moving, stop. The Enemy Bullets will fly in front of you and behind you, but will rarely hit. There are two main flavours of this movement:
- Start moving when the enemy fires, but stop again before the next bullet is fired. See for example ms.Ares
- Start moving when the first bullet is fired, stop when the next bullet is fired, etc. See for example gh.GrubbmGrb
A short explanation how to check if an enemy fired can be found in the Robocode FAQ.
Note that any more advanced Targeting Method will chop this movement to little pieces, therefore it is not recommended to use Stop And Go as the only movement system available. This should be used when starting a battle and, if not successful, be replaced by a more generic overall movement, such as Random Movement, see also Multi-Mode.
