CoolMovement

This is about keeping record on your enemy's gun cooling. Most bots fire immediately when their gun is cool. Using the gun cooling formula from the BeginnersFAQ and the API call getGunCoolingRate?() and the EnergyDrop trick you can thus figure out when the enemy will fire next bullet.

CoolMovement is about doing something interesting with this.

I think the inventor of this technique is Kawigi, but Jim could have been involved too. -- PEZ

Bots using

FloodHT
Tityus (At least versions 0.8.3 and a few versions up)

Comments, questions anyone?

It was all Kawigi, but I named it =^> -- jim

This is pure speculation, but I think DT (specifically 1.91) uses this tactic to balance the positive/negative parts of it's movement profile. By inverting the movement direction just before the enemy fires and then again after it has fired, you force the enemy to register a negative GuessFactor. -- ABC

That's what FloodHT and Tityus do too. -- PEZ

Ah, so this is what makes HT so hard to hit? :-) I fooled around with this before, but was never able to integrate it into a decent movement. Impressive that Kawigi was able to get it to work properly. - Jamougha

DT does not do the zig zag thing deliberatly - but some versions of DT were more likly to move just after it detects an opponent fire to give the option of reaching the maximum negative GuessFactor. However thinking about the time delay in recognising an enemy fire in recent discussions (2 ticks to detect, 1 tick to start doing anything about it) it may be better to predict and get a 3 tick jump - a distance of 24 - extending the maximum negative guess factor by half a bot. -- Paul

Very cool indeed. For the first time i've got significant negative spikes using it. Perhaps i can work on this to get a real flat movement. I have foud easy to flat my moving in positive GFs, but never could had a good response in the neg. parts. I even thoght it was impossible a good negative response. Now again there is a hope that i might get it perfectly flat. Cool. -- Axe

There's always that hope. Always. =) The technique Paul describes that DT in some incarnations have done is not CoolMovement though. Just to make that clear. -- PEZ

Yes. I meant Paul's trick. Brilliant (these kind of things that u ask yourself: "How couldn't i saw this?"). As usual for Paul. -- Axe

Although, CoolMovement is also brilliant. As Paul said, it can be used to improve his idea. -- Axe

Changing direction on fire brilliant? Nah! Plenty of bots do that. Of course Paul is brilliant and has found good mixes for it. Marshmallow is pretty good at it too =). But it is risky business. -- PEZ