FhqwhgadsMicro

A micro version of Fhqwhgads, the hardest-to-spell robot in the current Robocode community (it took PEZ about a week and a half to get it right, and Jim still can't spell it).

• Version 1.0 - first version. Beats every other micro I know about at least most of the time except Spark.
  • Opens the ER at 14th place, 1st place among MicroBots in 1-on-1. Too bad I didn't get this all finished before the MiniBotChallenge...
  • Wins the RobocodeLittleLeague micro 1-on-1 division by a little in tournament 20030913, and by a wider margin in tournament 20031004. As of the second of those tournaments, it holds the micro 1-on-1 score record. Consistently comes in dead last in micro melee.

What's special about it?

You can count the number of MicroBots using GuessFactorTargeting on one hand I'll bet. Add this one to it. Its gun is probably one of the best there is for a MicroBot, and it sports a reasonably unpredictable random movement.

Great, I want to try it. Where can I download it?

https://www.robocoderepository.com/BotDetail.jsp?id=1673

How competitive is it?

Among MicroBots, I think it's one of the best. Spark gives it some real problems, but other than that, I think it's up there with all the top micros.

How does it move?

Random distances in either direction, roughly perpendicular to the enemy. Tries to stay at about a medium distance.

How does it fire?

GuessFactorTargeting using some of the concepts from VirtualBullets/VirtualBulletsBot and segmenting the statistics on distance, lateral velocity and lateral acceleration.

How does it dodge bullets?

It doesn't, it just sort of hopes it's unpredictable enough to not get hit too often.

How does the melee strategy differ from one-on-one strategy?

It was designed with only the OneOnOne aspect in mind.

How does it select a target to attack/avoid in melee?

Selection is not in its vocabulary (but Fhqwhgads is?)

What does it save between rounds and matches?

Between rounds it saves its stat buffer and other arbitrary variables. Between matches it saves jack.

Where did you get the name?

See the page on Fhqwhgads

Can I use your code?

I suppose so, as long as you conform to the KawigiPublicLicense (KPL).

What's next for your robot?

When I figure out how to improve its movement, I'll probably sacrifice colors and some other things for it.

Does it have any WhiteWhales?

Not really, the next one will probably be Spark, though. The variations in bullet power probably throw of its movement.

What other robot(s) is it based on?

Fhqwhgads, also some inspiration from NekoNinja I guess.

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Comments, questions, feedback:

Funny thing happened in testing...

 kawigi.f.FhqwhgadsMicro 1.0: Exception: java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException?: -1
 java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException?: -1
     at kawigi.f.FhqwhgadsMicro$MicroBulletEvent?.test(FhqwhgadsMicro.java:135)
     at robocode.peer.robot.EventManager?.processEvents(EventManager?.java:653)
     at robocode.peer.RobotPeer?.tick(RobotPeer?.java:1024)
     at robocode.peer.RobotPeer?.turnRadar(RobotPeer?.java:1086)
     at robocode.Robot.turnRadarRight?(Robot.java:1001)
     at kawigi.f.FhqwhgadsMicro.run(FhqwhgadsMicro.java:37)
     at robocode.peer.RobotPeer?.run(RobotPeer?.java:616)
     at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:536)

-- Kuuran

Yep, F-Micro does no bounds checking. That's why it's last in melee, it will just about always crash if there are multiple bots to see. -- Kawigi

This was OneOnOne. -- Kuuran

I didn't say it never happens in OneOnOne, just that the same problem is why it's last in melee. Although it seems to happen rarely in one-on-one battles, it seems that when it does it might disable F-Micro for the rest of the battle. Did you observe that? The next version will probably have room to have this fixed. -- Kawigi

Yeah, it decided he's still in his Condition.test() for the rest of it. If you calculate your GFs a little more carefully you shouldn't need boundary checks, should you? -- Kuuran

If I scan a little more carefully I shouldn't, there's something of a buffer in there for error beyond the bounds. I suspect the problem is when he skips scans right before the wave would have hit you (or reasonably close, it's probably more likely to happen when the wave travel time is shorter). Since he's using the same radar as the nano-pattern-matchers, he skips 7 scans at a time sometimes. I'll probably fix it by using some Math.min(30, Math.max(0, lkdj;ldjkkl;ddjl;k)); action. -- Kawigi