[Home]PEZ

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Fanatic Robocoder and also the RoboWiki host. If you think some page should be renamed, holler my way, since I can change the name and all the links to it in one simple edit.

January 6 2003 - I've been Robocoding for a year now. And still have the hunger for creating competetive and/or different techniques. I've often thought of myself as most creative in the Movement deparment, and it's certainly where the bulk of my robocode hours have been spent. However looking at the MiniBot top-10 I see that I am also quite successful as a minibot creator and also can create good enough targeting. 4 of the mini top-5 are using my Tityus gun! (tweaked, in the case of Raiko)

My Robots:

Please help me complete the list if I have forgotten any bot. -- PEZ

Of these CassiusClay, Pugilist and Aristocles are the ones that can be consdiered active. Though I myself is a bit inactive at Robocoding at the moment. I'm playing Halo 2 now. Trying to get good at it. Not much luck yet. Follow my progress here: http://www.bungie.net/Stats/PlayerStats.aspx?player=PEZIUS

My e-mail address is: pez@pezius.com


Has PEZ or his ideas and contributions to Robocode inspired you? Make a comment at /Inspiration.

Randomness

Read WhyCommentsAreBad.

Fire questions and comments at me please

Where are u, man? Rumble is missing u! -- Axe

I'm suffering from Robocode apathy. Thinking about it this is a condition I have been in for long. I only bothered to tweak my bots rather than start out with fresh ideas. But maybe you'll see me update a bot again soon. I'm thinking about giving WaveSurfing a more serious try. -- PEZ

WaveSurfing surely deserves that effort. I think that i have now a reasonable system, that famous "bug", afterall was really a bunch of little bugs. I think that it is probably what is happening with yours too... -- Axe


Why "PEZ"? -- Jonathan

Glad you asked! Long time ago (some 20 years actually) I was playing pinball on one of the first machines where you could enter your "name" if you placed among the top 10 scores on the machine. Which I did, much to my suprise. I had to quickly find out a name that fitted in the 3-character space. Since my real name is Peter Strömberg and I had a PEZ dispencer on the machines glass waiting for me to finish the game I made the choice and have stuck to it since. I've never been particularly good at pinball, but some arcade games have cought my interest enough to make me go for it. Among my biggest achievements is a world record in Virtua Fighter (1) and the 20th or so fastest time in Sega Rally 2. I am the proud keeper of the Swedish record in the latter and I think my best time remains the 4th fastest in Europe. (The top times are set by Japanese players. SR2 was very big in Japan.) A Swedish Championship was held 1999 / 2000 where I placed 2nd.

You can still find SR2 machines scattered around the world "painted" with PEZ high scores. Mostly in the Stockholm of course, but some in the UK, and also in Mexico and France and some other places. So you see I have reasons to stick to my screen name. =)

Ego browsing for traces of my Virtua Fighter career (which was actually before the world wide web was world wide) I found this document which I kept updated on Usenet for a while:

-- PEZ

Nice to know. It's funny that I seem to be good at racing games too, even though I have never played them much. -- Jonathan


PEZ, thanks for hosting the temporary RoboRumble@Home server for so long. I hope you find the rest and time to come up with something awesome to participate in the suddenly swirling MeleeRumble?. -- GrubbmGait

Something awesome? In melee? Moi? =) -- PEZ


PEZ, add a link on the main page (http://robowiki.net/cgi-bin/robowiki?Robo_Home) to the new OpenSource robocode page at http://robocode.sourceforge.net/ -- MN?

Why don't you? -- Kawigi

Because the main page is read only. -- Alcatraz

Strange, I can't remember when I did that. I've unlocked it now anyway. -- PEZ

Interesting. Speaking of read-only pages, I think the stuff about the wiki crash is a bit outdated now. -- Kawigi

Around december or so there were continuus attacks that added hidden links to the main page, so you made the 'Robo Home' page readonly and a 'Home' page that could be altered. -- GrubbmGait

Yeah. Now that you mention it. =) I'm getting old. Anyway, let's try with a writable home page. -- PEZ


So, your big on Halo 2 now, Ive been playing that for a while and just saw a thing about your sight on Halo.Bungie.org We should play some time, GT: DaPheonixReborn? -- Jokester

Way cool. I play it a lot. Though I'm not very good at it. What level are you? I'll send you a friends request tonight. -- PEZ

Well now that its summer my time is mostly split between work (which I only have 3 days a week) robocode, and Halo. I am fluctuating between a 24 and a 28 in team slayer, but dont play much else. We should definitely play though. -- Jokester

Hey. I forgot to try add you to my friends list yesterday. Too much fun on XBL. We were sniping for hours. I'm slowly getting better at it. Level 24-28 huh? Dude you'll find me slow and crappy. I'm level 15 in TS at the moment, but I'll probably drop back to 14 if I play a few more games. TS is a good playlist since most people play it and the skill level speaks some kind of truth. Can't be sad about Team Preview which is crowded with gods with low levels. I ranked down from level 12 to 7 yesterday as the result of a streak of bad luck in matching. I got the quitters all the time and the other team got the gods. =) Send me (PEZIUS) a friends request please if I keep forgetting. -- PEZ

Ya, I know what you mean. Just before I got my 29 I had a streak of 8 quitters and suiciders which really messed up my level. I dont mind much about level, its just fun to play. Maybe my clan could go up against the Bobs some time ;). -- Jokester

Good idea. Just use the http://h2wiki.halowiki.net/wiki/Clan_of_Bobs/Battle_the_Bobs page and we'll have it set up. We have some real talent in our clan so we might give you a run for the glory. Though I must admit we don't have much of team work gong yet. We're one of the biggest clans on XBL and it's hard keeping everything in order then. Not that our clan is about competition since it's more of a statement than anything else. -- PEZ

Hey dude I just saw you beat me to it and challenged us on that page. Way cool! -- PEZ

Cool you could join in some gaming yesterday. Mark and I lost our double team challenge by 25 to 23... It was a surprise to me we could keep the match that tight, but it still feels bad losing! =) -- PEZ

Thats rough. But close games are usually the best. I was a bit off and on yesterday, I had to do some odd jobs and cooking in there. Maybe another day we could spend a bit more time. Ive been playing a ton of MLG games lately, so it should be fun to play some of that with you. Most of the games yesterday were snipers, which is fun, but I am definitely not the best at it. -- Jokester

Neither am I, but we are crazy about sniper games. The thing wrong with MLG is that they don't have radar. Radar is good. It gives the game new dimensions. But we can play it anyway if it keeps you happy. =) -- PEZ

I personally dont mind much, but I do feel no radar improves your perception and awareness. I feel it starts to bring out some of the best of Halo, that it is chess with guns, and you can start predicting where your enemy is even without seeing them on radar. There have been innumerable times that I will be walking along and, just out of intuition, throw a grenade, only to have 2 enemies walk onto the explosion. I also enjoy the chance to assassinate the entire opposing team ;) and the shock of your own assassination when you think its safe. But I am perfectly fine playing it with radar if you wish, I also would like to reccomend putting on extra damage in some of your games, it totally throws off your expectations, the same goes for extra damage+damage resistance. -- Jokester


Quoted from another wiki (Halo related); " Hey PEZ, I was just reading your page and saw that you used to do a bit of robocoding. I also for a bit robocoded but my bots weren't nearly as succssful as yours. They where pretty terrible. But thats pretty awesome. --Celticswarm 18:39, 28 Jun 2005 (CEST)

"a bit of robocoding". That must surely be the understatement of this millennium yet! I was a Robocodoholic dude. Much worse than I am addicted to Halo 2 today. H2 might be played with your head, but Robocode takes that to the extreme. I walked around with colored pens and paper always and drew Robocode ideas wherever I was. I am positively the person on earth who has spent the most hours on Robocode. Yes, it's awesome. My bots are all open source by the way so you can peek at them and maybe steal an idea or two. Lots of people have done that. It's why I keep them open source to begin with. I'm also the father of the RoboWiki which started a knowledge sharing trend in the field that is yet persistant. -- PEZ 20:27, 28 Jun 2005 (CEST)

Do I know any of your Bots by the way? I guess they are not in the RoboRumble@Home yet? I'm curious. -- PEZ 20:31, 28 Jun 2005 (CEST)

No wouldn't know any of my bots, but I have probly played against yours before :). I had a in high school one of my of my class mates found robocodes website and then we started to have weekly competitions in class. First few weeks went by pretty good competition. Then after a few weeks some of the people wanted to win a bit too much so they download the top bots from the robocode repository. Then pretty much everyone in the class was doing that just using someone elses bots. I never did though I just tried to figure out what was going on by looking at bots but in the end I ended up winning then forfeitting the last tournament. --Celticswarm 20:54, 28 Jun 2005 (CEST)

I can tell ya more about that later if you wish to hear... . --Celticswarm 20:59, 28 Jun 2005 (CEST) "

Well the more is that most everyone else in my class, when I say class I mean the 3 differnt programming classes, went online to the robocode repository to get use the top bots in the compitetion among which was a bot I saw mentioned above called Tityus. Basicly the weekly robotcode competition turned into a 'let's see who can find the best bots on the net and not actually program our own bots and not learn anything at all from this experience' competition. So naturally I decided that I didn't like this at all so I got the idea to learn things on my own so I unjared the jar file and started looking through the files that run robocode. I learned a lot looking through those files. When we had the competitions we alwaysed used the same computer to host the competion we would put all of our bots on a disk and put them on the one computer. Well I started making bots of sorts just to have fun and I would program them to do what thier name implied. The one I entered into the final competion I named "GhostlyImage?". Basically no one could hit "GhostlyImage?". I kept my bot opened sourced so when it was tearing apart other peoples bots they looked at it and couldn't figure out why my bot was doing so well when they could obviously tell that it wasn't one from the repository. Well here's how things went down I changed the robocode a tad bit so that whenever "GhostlyImage?" was scanned it would the other bot would get false information as to where it was located. Whenever it was scanned would display in the bot that scanned it's terminal window the phrase "You Have Been Phantomized". After I won which was a very short time after it started I let them know what I had done and stepped down. Most of the kids in the class thought that it was pretty funny, and in know time they had the real winner of the tournament. And just for time frame reference this was probably about two years ago. Not sure if it was the same bot that you had mentioned above the tityus but I'm pretty sure thats one of them that someone used. I think that one would basicly drive around the opponent and have gun pointed in the center of its circle shooting the enemy if that sounds correct at all. Anyway thats all I got. --CelticSwarm

With WaveSurfing we've found a non-cheat way to do what your bot did. Assuming the guns produced in that tourney were somewhat simple. I know of no other bot named Tityus except mine. Two years ago it might have been quite competetive. Still is in the MiniBot category actually. -- PEZ

Well, it still is partly because of work done since 2 years ago :-) -- Kawigi

Yeah, but isn't everything like that? It's one of the wonders of Robocode, how pieces are pieced to other pieces making things possible now which where "impossible" some year ago. -- ~~~~

That's true, of course, I'm just pointing out that it's not the same version that is still competitive ;-) And speaking of making things possible, I was thinking about just that topic for a different reason when I added the Raiko page to the list of GoodWikiPages - I was talking to Tobe about what he's missed in Robocode since he left. Some bots really are still competitive, though, that have been around for a long time (SandboxLump is a good example, particularly in melee, but also in 1-on-1). -- Kawigi

Hi u mighty highlander (u all, better)! Anything special going on in your(s) mind(s)? Here land down under (brazil, not au) i'm starting to put on my "inventor hat" (like PEZ uses to say), and hopefully I'll have something realy cool to show, otherwise... I'll have niente, nada. Nothing "devastator", but funny, I hope... For now let's say that i'm going in throw pathes where better men had failed. Ta, Ta, Ta :) ... Good to "see" u all! -- Axe

Sounds interesting Axe. I've got plenty of plans but not doing anything about them as it is now. Perhaps later. --Pulsar

Good to hear from you Axe. I also have a couple of untested ideas, but for now I'm dedicating my time to my newly born daughter. :) -- ABC

Hy u all! Good to know, ABC, congratulations! Maybe someday u can arrange with PEZ an enconter with his son (Virgo, if i recall correctly), and start a new Robocode Dinasty :). Btw, the name of the princess? -- Axe

Thanks. Joana is her name, maybe 10 years from now you'll see a jbc.* bot. ;) -- ABC

Viggo. His name is Viggo. Just like Viggo Mortensen. -- PEZ


Hi, Pez. I'm new to Robocode and have a few general thoughts. First, might I say this is an excellent site. However, it's difficult to determine who in the Robocode world is still actively interested. Any thoughts on this?

Second, I was thinking it would be nice if someone put together a whole package of different robot sets that could be considered different levels of difficulty. Has anyone ever done this? This would be of benefit to those new to Robocode, especially considering how small the Robocode community probably is. Without a thriving community, Robocode really needs to be more single-player friendly.

I know the Robocode Repository has robots categorized into beginner, intermediate, and advanced, but those categories are self-assigned by posters, which is hardly ideal. Being spanked by a "just a simple dumb bot" or similar from the beginner category is not very encouraging to those new to the game, nor is it useful to someone who is looking for beginner bots to test with. Furthermore, there is a BIIIG gap between the level of the sample bots and the level of most competition bots, making it difficult for anyone at the intermediate level. I am considering building such a robot package myself, using a random selection of robots from one of the posted competitions, and categorizing a few of them based on competition results. I'm hardly the Robocode expert to be doing this though.

Another thought -- a message forum would be far superior to just adding comments at the bottom of wiki pages. Have you considered setting up or letting somenoe else set up a message forum that the wiki could link to for discussions? I would be willing to set this up if there is any community left who would actually use it.

My final thought is that it would be nice if the Members page explained that a user account and password are not required to participate on this site. Took me awhile before I realized I could just edit and participate essentially anonymously.

Thanks again for hosting this site! - Skotty (12/18/2006)

Good to see you, PEZ. =) By the way, Simonton has also topped the MicroBot and NanoBot rankings, though not by the same margin as the MiniBots... -- Voidious

Yeah, I know. I included micros and nanos when I said minis there. It's so cool that a PM gun can be that strong. -- PEZ

Is there a problem with RoboWiki? I can't seem to save RoboRumble/ReportedProblems03042007 when i save it. It just all goes away back to 'To Infinity and Beyond!' --Starrynte

It's an anti-WikiSpam? mechanism that silently doesn't do updates if there are too many external links in one update. It could probably be removed now that we have the Consciousness check, but as of now it's still in there. As I also have admin wiki access, I can archive it for you... -- Voidious


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