Prowler

The only bot made so far by Phobos.

Experimental platform for my targeting method, which seems rather promising.

Where can I download it?

http://www.robocoderepository.com/BotDetail.jsp?id=1649

How competitive is it?

Version 0.5:
Not that sure; movement is a great Achilles Heel, but targeting is getting to be rather good. Might possibly make it into the top 100 if pitted against others. Then again, maybe not :-D

How does it move?

Version 0.5:
At the moment - A slightly modified version of code snippet stolen from TimCat?; just to have SOME movement.

How does it fire?

Version 0.5:
An original method mostly designed from scratch, but with some stolen ideas incorporated.
After each firing of a bullet, Prowler stores the enemy's location and then checks this against his location at the time the bullet hits or misses. The range (actually, the range as a ratio of the enemy's EscapeRadius) and heading between the two points are stored in segmented histograms. When choosing a point to fire at, a randomized (in accordance with the histogram distributions) range and heading are applied to the enemy's current location. The histograms are cleared between rounds, just to confuse bots that attempt to learn the enemy's firing pattern (seems to give pretty good results overall).

How does it dodge bullets?

Version 0.5:
Doesn't dodge at all; just moves around randomly.

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

Version 0.5:
No difference; in fact, this version is one-on-one only, although many bits of the code assume otherwise :-)

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

Version 0.5:
It doesn't, as per last answer.

What does it save between rounds and matches?

Version 0.5:
Doesn't save anything at all; histograms are cleared between rounds and not saved on disk.

Where did you get the name?

It's the first song on the first album released by Iron Maiden. Rock on!

Can I use your code?

Sure, why not? I 'borrow', you 'borrow'. Everyone happy, yes?

What's next for your robot?

Better movement, I guess. Maybe the targeting could use some work as well. So much to do, so little time!

What other robot(s) is it based on?

Version 0.5:
Not really based on anything, but some code is stolen from TimCat?, the Floods, and Rapture