Click here for larger image
Posted on 12/20/2001 5:14:19 AM PST by Dominic Harr
Robot Wars - Java Style
By Mat Nelson
Robocode is a new twist on programming games such as CoreWars, RobotWars, and Robot Battle. It's like Logo, but with tanks, guns, and explosions instead of penup and pendown... and it's all in Java(tm).
The framework is simple: Robocode exposes a set of APIs you can call to interact with the game. In short, you write a Java class extending robocode.Robot... then by calling methods in the superclass, your actions take effect in the onscreen battlefield.
Here's a complete, super-simple robot:
import robocode.*;
/**
* Devastator: A not-all-that-devastating robot
*/
public class Devastator extends AdvancedRobot {
/**
* run - called by the game
*/
public void run() {
while (true) {
turnGunRight(360);
ahead(200);
turnGunLeft(360);
back(200);
}
}
/**
* onScannedRobot - What to do when you see an enemy...
*/
public void onScannedRobot(ScannedRobotEvent e) {
fire(3);
}
}
Easy to learn but difficult to master, Robocode gives you complete freedom to code as you wish. Whether that be an EnemyAnalyzer running in its own thread to track enemy positions, a neural network, a predictive firing algorithm, a reusable wall-avoidance object, an abstracted set of classes to deal with the physics of the game -- whatever it is, the choice is yours.
The only thing Robocode requires is that you tell it what you want to do. Deciding what to do, and how you come to that decision, is completely up to you.
There are already hundreds of robots to test your skills against at websites linked from http://robocode.alphaworks.ibm.com/links/Links.html -- and you can safely run them in Robocode with its built in SecurityManager.
Upcoming Robocode features include: Team support with messaging, walls and objects in the battlefield, terrain, tutorials and objectives to complete... plus whatever else you help us dream up.
Robocode is available at: http://robocode.alphaworks.ibm.com/
The current API you can use to interact with the game can be seen at: http://robocode.alphaworks.ibm.com/docs/robocode/index.html
Please let's not turn this into a language wars thread. This is about a cool game idea.
Man, do we need to get a life, or what?
My wife is going to hate this, I suspect.
Nice, rude comment. Haven't had your second cup of coffee yet?
It's 8 a.m., I'm barely awake. I am not a morning person, can't hardly see before 9. I just copied/pasted the story.
But thanks for your help anyway.
Please go to your room & learn some HTML < /jokin'>
I've been doing web work for about 8 years. I just didn't check that closely before pasting it.
The actual link used a relative filename -- "a href="/img/articles/2001/12/17/Robots.jpg" target=newFrame". You do know enough about HTML to know what *that* does, don't you?
With 2 kids, I'd *pay* for some time alone in my room to read . . .
Ten - fifteen years ago they had a text based c-robots game. Thousands of hours were spent playing that. One of the guys at IBM (I think) had developed a GUI tcl/tk based game similar to this one.
I remember one of the c based games had objects within the field of play that could be used to hide behind. It was always tricky trying to decide how "smart" to make your robot. Many times while the smart robot was deciding what to do, the dumb robot would blow it away.
Some of the more successful robots, IIRC, were A)corner-sitters - they just head for the nearest corner and blast the field, and B)the sideline robots - they just run back and forth down the side of the field and shoot.
I seem to remember a robot named Rabbit. It didn't shoot anything, just runs around the field so you can test your robots ability to shoot it.
Lots of fun to play with.
Fascinating, thank you.
I'm thinking of starting with something that spins and shoots, just to try it out.
Smiles.....attention to detail is so important, even in simple programming languages, isn't it? For a major graphic in your post, just replace the relative filename with the actual link. Double check in preview mode, and post. Really not that hard.
Double-checking early in the morning isn't hard for you?
Believe me, being thorough this early is *very* hard for me. I'll make plenty of spelling errors, too.
For one thing, I went to see Lord of the Rings last night -- a 3 hour movie. Didn't get home till past midnight.
Awesome flick tho! I *highly* reccommend it!
And just because I'm visiting the site and firing up my IDE does not mean that I like the idea. Not one little bit. I'll just code a few of these little time wasters to prove that they're time wasters. Yeah, that's it. And if they are not quite the time wasters I think they'll be, I'll code a few more to see at what point they become time wasters. Just to prove a point, mind you. :)
[/ability to lie off]
Of course, we understand.
Boy do I understand!
Actually, I have to start work when my customers do, and they don't cut me much slack when it comes to getting things right, regardless of the hour. ;-)
I plan on seeing LOTR as soon as the geek love-fest thins out a bit and I have three hours to spare.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.