Autobot4

Bot Name

Autobot4

Author

Jim Stephens

Extends

What's special about it?

This is mostly a cleaned up version of Autobot3 where I have tried to simplify the approach. This is really my first robot

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

https://www.robocoderepository.com/BotDetail.jsp?id=2616

How competitive is it?

Well, moderately competitive I guess - ranks about mid 80th overall.

How does it move?

It has 6 different movement patterns that range from zig/zag attack patterns and ramming to dodge strategies. It selects a movement pattern based on the weighted random choice and then adjusts the weights based on a win or loss in the round.

How does it fire?

It has a statisical gun and when the stats don't look all that good it uses a linear/circular gun instead.

How does it dodge bullets?

One of the movement patterns chooses a new direction and speed every time it sees the enemy fire - however the other movement patterns don't directly dodge bullets. I have a feeling that because it can change movement strategies during a fight it may screw up some statistical or pattern guns over the course of a battle.

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

No melee strategy other than try to fire at the closest target.

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

No real melee logic.

What does it save between rounds and matches?

It does save the weighting factors between rounds, but nothing between matches.

Where did you get the name?

AUTonomous roBOT - but more from the cartoon about Autobots and Decepticons.

Can I use your code?

I have not published the code yet since it could still use a lot of cleanup work.

What's next for your robot?

I would like to get it down to minibot size. Codesize for Autobot3 was 5500, Autobot4 is now down around 4k, but still a lot of work to do to clean this up. I will probably have to eliminate some of the less useful movement patterns to get the code size down to mini size.

Does it have any WhiteWhales?

Since the movement selection is a bit random it can win big or lose big against the same robot. I guess I will just have to wait to see how it all averages out. However it seems Fermat kicks my *$$ at this point and on the other hand it dominates Krabby 1.19.

What other robot(s) is it based on?

Snippetbot was the starting point.