Suez

This is my (Tango's) bot for the LongThinLeague.

26/10/03 - v0.2 released - codesized reduced, now a MiniBot.

What's special about it?

It's the first (as far as i know) bot to be able to fight effectively (well, fight at least) when it's enemy is outside radar range.

Suez can now beat DT in 1-on-1 on a 5000x400 battlefield! :-D

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

https://www.robocoderepository.com/BotDetail.jsp?id=1805

How competitive is it?

Not very, but considering it's the only one specifically designed for it's class, it might do ok. I need to combine to data gathering with a good movement and gun.

How does it move?

AntiGravityMovement

How does it fire?

RandomTargeting when it knows where the enemy is.

How does it dodge bullets?

It doesn't. I might use ShrapnelDodging when i get around to it.

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

It doesn't. This is only meant to be a melee bot, but it actually does better on 1-vs-1 becuase there is less chance of it being in radar range of anyone else, and it only works well when it is invisible.

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

Just attacks the nearest bot. I will make it keep a target longer, and be more selective, later.

What does it save between rounds and matches?

Nothing.

Where did you get the name?

It's designed for the LongThinLeague, and the Suez canal is long and thin. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I may well change the name by the time it is finished. Consider this a working name.

Can I use your code?

You wouldn't want to.

What's next for your robot?

A good gun, good movement, and some tweaking.

Does it have any WhiteWhales?

Not really, but anyone that doesn't sit still when it can't see you will be harder to beat.

What other robot(s) is it based on?

The movement comes from the tutorial AntiGravityBot? bot.

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Comments, questions, feedback:

I was playing with an idea for such a bot, too, and this is what it does on a long-thin battlefield against DT:

1st: kawigi.lt.Launcher	12054	2850	570	7416	1147	70	0	57	43	0
2nd: pe.SandboxDT 2.11	4252	2150	430	1349	257	66	0	44	57	0

Pretty funny, basically a sort of 'bug' resulting from Paul never considering this type of battle. -- Kawigi

When DT is out of range it acts like sitting duck, so any bot that can stay out of range, and still fight, is going to thrash it. I think Paul will fix this in the next release, so i am hoping to finish suez before that happens, so i can at least have a short time of being able to beat DT. Basically, i just need to add good movement and gun, and i'll be set. :-) Your bot beats DT by a bigger margin than mine, but i expect you already have a good gun/movement in there. Are you willing to reveal your methods? I think there is only one way of doing it, so we are probably doing the same thing. I'm not going to say what i'm doing until i release it though, just in case there are people who haven't thought of it. (it's obvious once you watch it fight, of course) -- Tango

I think I'm using the gun from dummy.BlindFighters?. J/k - but the strength is that I always just keep shooting and having my bullets cover a lot of ground on the battle field, and if I hit him, I know where he is. For bots that freeze when they don't see any opponents, this works very well. In other words, there was no good movement or gun involved. Just less than a 50% chance DT would ever see me, and a roughly 100% chance of shutting him out if he didn't see me. -- Kawigi

Thats about how mine works (although with a slightly more methodical searching gun), if DT doesn't see me i can thrash it, if it does, it can thrash me. Judging by the survival scores DT sees me about 65% of the time. Prehaps i should test on 5000x5000, it might help my ego. ;-) -- Tango

Then you're less likely to find him without being seen. Launcher also goes to the closer end of the field, which means he stars out going away from DT most of the time. -- Kawigi

If he's sitting still i'll always find and kill him eventually without being seen. Suez just goes up and down in the centre of the field firing left and right, waiting for something to hit. At the moment, the problem i have is surviving in melee long enough to get out of range. -- Tango

Ok, i'm getting there. Suez now has AntiGravityMovement when it know where an enemy is. I intend to add some kind of gun, probably just LinearTargeting for now, this evening, and then release it. The current version gets 4th place in my test LongThinLeague battles. The score gap between 3rd and 4th is currently very big, so i hope to at least reduce that gap, if not get into 3rd place (DT is currently 3rd...). I should have plenty of time next week to do some coding, because it's half term. :) -- Tango

Well, it's this evening, and i haven't released it. Oh well. I have added RandomTargeting, and it seems to be working ok. I just need to do some tweaking, and i will release it, so we are probably looking at tomorrow. -- Tango