Fixing bugs ... reduces score?

So I fixed several bugs I found in AgentSmith when I added a load of debug output to my bot ... and I discovered my TCRM score reduced by 2% over 30 seasons. Sigh. Do you prefer bug free robots or higher scores? :)

We had an extensive discussion about this at one point. In the end I think most of us felt a bug free robot was better then a slightly better scoring buggy robot. Since it made it easier to improve its score later, etc.

I think Voidious mentioned he figured out why the bug caused a score improvement and reintegrated it into the robot in a controlled way.

I think you have what are called Performance Enhancing Bugs.

Basically, if you care about the short-term performance of AgentSmith, leave it in. But, it's usually better in the long run, especially this early in development, to keep it as bug-free as you can.

What I do is try to figure out what effect the bug was having, and understand why it caused better results. Then I try to add that effect back in a 'legitimate' way.

An example is when I gained score by removing the variable-bot-width, which accounted for the extra area the bot covers in a wave if it is moving while the wave crosses. I later added in precise-intersection code, which gained me more score, despite (theoretically) doing roughly the same thing as what had cost me score previously. I chalked it down to my previous method not being accurate enough.

If this was a bug in a GF gun that helped you only against wave-surfers, I'm not particularly surprised. After all, you were using something that they weren't designed to dodge.

That first one is pretty normal, I do that in my bots because of the physics involved:

1. the bullet moves
2. collisions are tested
3. the bot moves
4. we see where everything is.

So our wave should be a tick ahead of the bullet because when the collisions happen that's where the bullet is. You could also do it by having the enemy back one tick.

I found there was some gain in calculating precise, simulated GF-1 and GF1 instead of just using asin(8/bVel), so that I never shoot outside of where the enemy could be given the setup of the situation, eg walls, heading is not perpendicular, etc. Also, to do a better representation of the bot-size as the wave passes over, check out Waves/Precise Intersection.