Bot Battle!! (Kinda) - Extremely Variable Difficulty

[Roastie]

Difficulty: Anywhere from Easy to Impossible; this can be equally won by a very simple bot, or an insanely complex one.

Goals & Scoring:
- Build a land based bot to find and retrieve a cola can prop.
- 100 points for successfully reaching the can.
- 200 points for also returning the can to a drop off location.
- 60 points bonus for each minute (rounded down) under 30 minutes your bot takes to find the can.
- Up to 100 points bonus for bot complexity, as decided by a judge using a score out of 5. 0/5 = 0. 1/5 = 20. Etc. WILL ONLY APPLY WITH FUNCTIONALITY YOUR BOT ACTUALLY USES TO COMPLETE THE TASK.
- Up to 1000 bonus points for difficulty of access to the target prop. As with bot complexity bonus, decided by judge on a 5 point scale. Unbreakable and frozen props may be used to make access more difficult if the entrant so chooses.

Rules:
- Your bot MUST be land based. It cannot go more than 16 units (inches) from the ground in normal operation.
- Your bot CANNOT be no-collided in any way, excluding between actual parts of your bot.
- NO teleportation of any kind is allowed.
- NO usage of any addon excluding Wire is allowed. Common prop packs allowed.
- The position of the cola can prop must NOT be within line of sight and/or 10000 units (inches) of the drop off location if access difficulty is rated 2 or below by a judge.
- Each entrant's bot must be tested individually, and kept track of without interfering in it's performance by an agreed judge.
- Moving the cola can prop after it's location has been decided is NOT allowed. The prop must not be frozen in place.
- Use of more than one separate bot is not allowed. The only exception to this rule is if the bots are controlled by only one set of wiring.
- All wires, gates, and props must be visible.
- No human interaction with the bot is permitted, excluding starting it.
- And no waypoints permitted; excluding a locater beacon at the drop off zone.







If only I could participate... ... I'll leave the time limit for producing bots up to debate.

[3dfactor]

Interesting thing you got here started, I might even participate Thou I need to know more. Could we have the possible obstacle schemes? A schematic map of possible obstacles? Does obstacles include things like water, rough surfaces, piles of junk and other stuff? What size will be the battle area? Can there be a dead end obstacles (labyrinth)?
I'm thinking of all those things because if we are really gonna make bots that "thinks" how to avoid obstacles, we need to know what possible obstacles our bot is about to meet.

[Roastie]

Since your bot must be land based, water is an obsticle - just not as much as a brick wall is because you can just go right through it without too much trouble.

This is very open. You can choose whatever map you like - set up obstacles if you like for a higher score. Or you could do it another way and create the fastest bot you possibly can to rack up the time bonus.

All we need is an agreed neutral judge to count up people's scores to determine who actually wins. If your bot/situation follows the rules, you're good to go.


For example. Player 1 has built an incredible bot that uses a CPU to find it's way around with complex behavior. Player 2 has just built a tiny speeder bot that grabs the prop and gets back, full speed.

Player 1 gets points for bot complexity and access difficulty of the prop.

But player 2 gets points too for speed.

The odds for Player 1 and 2 to win are fairly equal, depending on how well their bot performed while being tested.

Now, Player 3 combined a smart bot with speed. A long obstacle course included to boost access difficulty. If his bot does well, he gets complexity, difficulty, and time bonuses. No where near as much as players 1 and 2, but the total score will be approximately in the same range.


I've made a slight modification to the scoring btw; to prevent anyone cheating by making an unnecessarily complex bot by giving it functionality it doesn't need for the task at hand.

[Generic Default]

Well, I have about 40 robots, all are meant for killing. Why would you need to retrieve something when you can kill a player? Or better yet, kill a player and retrieve the body.....

[Roastie]

Because killing is just too easy.

[Kill coDer]

One question, how do we 'give' you the bot, do we record it in action or give an adv dupe save?

Also, can we use a target finder to find the can?

[Roastie]

Originally Posted by Kill coDer

One question, how do we 'give' you the bot, do we record it in action or give an adv dupe save?

Also, can we use a target finder to find the can?

Besides the rules, there aren't any restrictions.

I was thinking that the testing could be done on a private server... obviously won't happen, so an empty public server with wire will do. If you can host a listen server however...

[Rhino_Aus]

Good idea, ill see what i can do tomorrow.

[Rhino_Aus]

Sorry for DP but this is worth it.

I have ***UPDATED*** my entry!

"T3h CanCollectzor Mk. 4"

The Mk4 Version has:
- less chips (only 6 Expression gates)
- Better Coded
- "Cleaner" Wiring
- Improved Times

It goes along the quick in - quick out theory, and is able to retrieve the can and get to the drop off point in under 5 minutes with a can 10,000 units away from start and drop off point 10,000 units away from start and 20,000 units away from can.

AND NO, THIS DOES NOT MEAN IT SIMPLY USES A 10,000 RANGE GRABBER THEN SPINS 180 DEGREES

At this point in time I will not release how it works, because others may copy.

I approximate that it will gain between 1900 to 2100+ points
- 100 for getting to can
- 200 for returning it
- 1600 to 1800 for a fast time (1-3 minutes, maybe less)
- Very few points for complexity or difficulty However, 3 different expression gates may impress someone O.o

If you want me to post screen shots, I will.


***ALSO***

Moving the cola can prop after it's location has been decided is NOT allowed.

Is it okay if the bot bumps the can?

[Pyro-Fire]

a can, 10,000 units away.

the target, 10,000 units away from the start, 20,000 units away from the can.

i could do that in about 10 seconds.

i'll give this a shot, and i'll see what i can do.