Ok, all of you other guys that are working on some huge, kick-butt, next-generation, never-yet-seen-the-light-of-my-computer robot that's going to end SandboxDT's reign already have made pages for them, so I thought it was about time to make the page for FloodHT. It will actually probably be done enough for a first release (0.8 or so, I was going to release an earlier version, but I just got carried away with guns the other night). So, without further rambling, I'll get to the cool graphic (can't let my bot be outdone by PhoeniX) and then I'll hype you up for a couple pages:
The movement that you will see in FloodHT is more of a curve-expanding movement, attempting to flatten its curve by putting plenty of emphasis on the far positive and far negative range. I've managed to do this somewhat using a technique I call "cool movement" internally (ummm... because I thought it was a cool idea).
Jim and I assigned the acronym "OCM" (for "Operation Cool Movement") to the "cool movement". The advantage of OCM from the stand-point of curve control is that it allows me to more easily tweak my movement to create spikes on the negative side of the curve as well as the positive side. In a little fun experiment, I found FloodMini had an extremely hard time hitting OCM movement tweaked to create only a negative spike. When analyzing FloodMini's internal stats, it seemed that he was fully aware of the spike, and somehow still took awhile to hit it. This could possibly be a bug I suppose in FloodMini for which I will search later, but I then tried the same movement against SandboxDT, who also didn't like it very much (I say that because I won around 40 out of 100 rounds with it, and when he won, his bonus was never higher than about 10. Not very scientific, but I was just messing around anyways). Of course, by itself, if that's all I ever do, it can also be quite predictable to other kinds of robots, and Teancum ate it alive.
So you want to know how OCM works? How it does what it does? Haha! I'm not going to tell you. Maybe I will later if I come up with something better or I have a good reason to (like I'm co-authoring a bot with you or something). It's really only a trick, nothing more. When you see FloodHT, you'll know when he's doing it, because you'll see it and you'll be like, "That's not what I remember the other Flood robots doing!" But you won't have a clue why it works. Haha!
But seriously, you'll note that I said over-using OCM can be predictable, but using it in moderation makes you crazy-hard to hit. FloodHT will combine the traditional FloodMovement with OCM to create a broad, strong curve, so that whatever peaks exist for statistical targeters to shoot at will be visited as rarely as possible. I also intend to have the curve tweaked to have a 'dip' in the middle, to make FloodHT particularly invulnerable to stupidly simple bots that use HeadOnTargeting (like FloodMicro) as well as bots who use AveragedBearingOffsetTargeting.
For a teaser, see /Profile
Pattern-matchers, beware. Flood movement, in various tweaks, has been hard enough to hit for most pattern-matchers, but it was sometimes pathetically easy to guess when they would change direction. While most curve-flattening techniques have robots moving in the same direction for way too long, this one doesn't have that weakness - not that it never moves in one direction for very long, just that doesn't do it often enough to make it vulnerable.
The first release will probably let a few go free, but don't assume you'll always be lucky.
I'm running tests, here's a list that the first release might let win sometimes. This is primarily just 50 rounds without any saved data:
There may be a few more. With some tuning and debugging, and maybe some experimentation, I may be able to reduce that list by about half.
Well, I'd hate to scar you for life by making you download my robot. And I'd also hate you to quit Robocode because you don't think you'll ever be a match for my robot. If it makes you feel any better, I never thought I'd beat MogBot 1-on-1, and now I've done it with 3 nanos, 1 micro, and 3 minis (I think). I'm just finally beating him with a MegaBot. But if you really do have FloodHTPhobia?, I recommend you do one of three things:
Be the first to download your copy!
http://www.robocoderepository.com/BotDetail.jsp?id=1552
![[Home]](/images/RoboWiki.png)