WinningCloseMatches

For starters, see the EndingGame page, as a lot of that has to do with getting every win you possibly can. Aside from that, I'd say energy management is a big thing - I've considered that if you are fighting an opponent that can't hit you, you should be able to out-survive him, even if you can't hit him, either. Just fire bullets that are .1 weaker than his, and after he's done missing you, you'll still have a bit more energy to chase him around with. Of course, in practice, this doesn't always work as well. But I am curious - the details matter, every match counts, what do people do to make sure to keep winning battles against roughly equal or even better foes? -- Kawigi

Well, when my energy level is higher than my opponent's but taking a shot would change that, I don't take the shot. That would make me go from winning to losing. They may hit me and change that balance, but I'm not going to hand it over for free. I've seen so many bots lose rounds to Ugluk because they were focused on shooting at him and not on their energy or winning the match. -- Martin

For my first real bot (Raptor) I will implement a modular "Energy Managment System", that will hopefully remedy such situations. Basically it's supposed to take care of shot power and the like. Helping to make decisions on certain occasions, etc. -- Torahteen?

Energy managment is not a sure fire way to win. UnderDark3 used to use it, and when I took it out, nothing happened. The point is that even in close matches, it may be better to use all of your energy rather that conserve it. --UnderDark

Well, IMO, a big problem with a lot of beginner bots is that they will fire until they completly drain themselves of energy. That is definetly not the way to win. -- Torahteen?

That depends. Surviving the round doesn't necessary mean you get more points than your opponent. Keep firing heavy shots has some advantages. If you get lucky, you get lots of points. If not, then you deplete yourself from energy quickly and deny your opponent his points. I've seen some battles where a bot wins 60-40 in survival, but loses in score. When I was an active robocoder (yeah, looooong time ago, in a galaxy far, far away :-p ), this was actually pretty common. 'Agressive' bots had an advantage over 'survival' bots because of the scoring system. I don't know wether this is still applicable for modernday Robocode bots, though. A sneaky way would be to keep track of your score and your opponent's and use that for your energy management. -- Dummy

Due to WaveSurfing (and some dodging-techniques) movement has become far more important than gunnery, as hitrates went down. The survival-part of the score therefor has become bigger. For two bots that can hardly hit eachother, the EndingGame is crucial to strive for an advantage. It is always better to collect the survivalbonus without killingbonus than no bonus at all. -- GrubbmGait