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2:00 AM
Actually I might test this one first
Should I use the previous bot or your update? @PhiNotPi
 
Previous, I guess.
I rolled-back the edits, I think.
 
Mine were based on the previous ones anyway :P
 
What exactly does it do now?
 
Hmm it's stopping at the corners, that's not good
The change was to randomise so that any reflection/rotation of the search path is also possible
That doesn't stop people hardcoding against it, but should make it a little harder
But I seem to have messed up
 
good idea.
I haven't seen the sticking yet...
I saw it.
It just stands at a spot for a while.
 
2:05 AM
Yeah that shouldn't happen
... oh of course, I'm reading my own string when picking which pattern, but when we switch the other bot takes control
That's an easy fix
 
okay
 
I don't know what's going on so here's a bunch of puppies: s3-static-ak.buzzfed.com/static/campaign_images/web05/2012/8/1/…
@Calvin'sHobbies: Your challenge is a smashing success!
 
I know :D
 
^ possibly painfully aware?
 
Haha
 
2:10 AM
Just... wait... until... we... dominate... Groomba
 
must... dominate...
 
@Calvin'sHobbies: I must know: Are you familiar with the series Red vs. Blue?
 
or... else... all... was.. for... naught...
 
@PhiNotPi: Not for naught if you had fun! :)
 
@Calvin'sHobbies Your challenge strangely reminds me of American politics.
 
2:12 AM
Haha Democrat vs. Republican battle bots
 
Exactly
 
A bunch of meaningless dots running around and killing each other? Seems accurate.
 
@AlexA. Not at all actually. I know of the show, and knew it would be mentioned, but I really chose red and blue because they are always competing. e.g. fire and ice
or politics
you know
 
Okay that wasn't the problem. Clearly I can't rotation matrix.
 
okay
 
2:14 AM
(wasn't the only problem)
 
@Calvin'sHobbies: Makes sense. That's a much more intellectual rationale than "because a show about Halo."
 
Does the red team have any organized effort like this?
 
And I'm very eager to see how the SphiNotPi3000 dual bot works out.
 
@PhiNotPi: Have you checked the dedicated chat room for the challenge?
 
2
A: Red vs. Blue - Pixel Team Battlebots

WasmooRed Team - Seeker Commander var myself = 29354; //Adjust eNear to account for any friendly information, using Lazy Slayer format //Automatically add Lazy Slayer to list, even if out of range var mytNear = [{ id: 14732 }].concat(tNear); var myeNear = [].concat(eNear); var commandable = [];...

 
2:15 AM
Maybe they're strategizing there and Blue is strategizing here
 
@PhiNotPi Not as much I don't think
 
We need a name. Like GeminiBot 1 and GeminiBot A. Or PhiBot and PiBot. Or...
 
Thing 1 and Thing 2.
 
SphiNotPi3000 was a decent combo, maybe? :)
 
Spider and Spout
 
2:17 AM
Death Machine 3000
 
Harold the Omiscient
 
Spider and Phiper
 
SphiNotPi3000 it is then :P
 
No Harold? Your loss
 
How about Hammer and Anvil ?
 
2:20 AM
We could shorten it to SPHI
 
You need a name for each bot though.
 
I think it's awesome that you two are collaborating this closely to come up with a great solution. I'm sure SphiNotPi3000 will be an unstoppable juggernaut.
 
Zeus and Jupiter
 
Zoos & Joopitr
 
@PhiNotPi pseudonyms of the same guy.
 
2:22 AM
I know
 
@PhiNotPi/Sp3000 Is there a reason it seems to stop every few hundred moves for a short time?
 
I can't tell if it's a bug or if it's timing out
 
Yes, there is a reason. We don't know what the reason is yet.
 
It's lost in thought
 
2:23 AM
One and Won
 
If I revert back to pre-reflection/rotation (i.e. current version since I just reverted) then it's okay
 
Top and Bottom
 
ibb and obb :P
 
Jack and Jill
 
Fate and Destiny
 
2:25 AM
Phi1500 and Pi1500
 
(time to start voting?)
 
I've just been spouting smartass comments rather than helpful input.
^ Story of my life
 
@Sp3000 I don't think it's timing out. I'm looking at the debug messages when it's stopped and all the times are only 2 or 3 ms. There are no exceptions either.
 
Weird...
 
Things you see when in other chat rooms:
user image
3
 
2:28 AM
Genesis and Exodus
 
@rolfl: Was it something I said?
 
2 mins ago, by Alex A.
^ Story of my life
 
That's a short life.
 
On a geologic scale, yes
 
Well he's not wrong.
 
2:31 AM
@PhiNotPi Have you ever seen the path itself (i.e. current version/pre-rotation and reflection) hang?
 
yes
 
Alpha and Omega
 
Maybe it's not a problem with the rotation matrix. It arrives early and just chills.
 
Kicking up it's feet. Grabbing a beer.
 
It shouldn't be chilling that much though :P
(or at all, actually)
 
2:33 AM
Bots these days have no civil liberties.
 
Elijah and Elias
 
Batman and Robin
 
I think @TheBestOne is trying to distract the opposing team
 
Thing 1 and Thing 2
 
^Already mentioned that one
 
2:37 AM
They'll reak havoc on the reds
 
And now it sounds like we're fighting communists.
 
I don't really have anything else to add to the bots.
 
Or Doctor Suess
@AlexA. You're blue too.
 
I know
 
@Sp3000 Are you making progress?
 
2:41 AM
I tend to abstain from KOTH challenges, especially team based ones. I'm just not good at them. I'd hate to let down the Blues, who are so obviously dedicated.
 
I think it's to do with our "try to move towards the target square using the shortest possible method" idea
 
Have we had any other team based koth?
 
... but that should only apply to moving sideways when alone
 
I think I've seen one or two
Now I have to check
I could just be nuts
 
Your newest edit broke the bots.
 
2:45 AM
Yeah, I know. Trying to fix :(
 
I kinda want to say just don't bother with the rotations.
 
But hardcoding :(
 
Umm... here's an idea.
 
Matrices...rotations...you sure you guys are playing the same game?
 
2:48 AM
Also, you sure you guys haven't taken Linear Algebra?
 
On the very first round, store a random number to the fifth character. Then, when calculating the target square, add that offset to the move # when calculating the target square.
The track would be fixed, but the location on it wouldn't be.
 
I don't think adding an offset works, would it?
Oh to the move number
Right
Will try
 
And one bot will copy the offset from the other if that bot already picked the offset.
 
Yeah that's what I had, the first round random char and other bot copies
Why it didn't work out I have no idea
 
Okay.
 
2:51 AM
@Calvin'sHobbies: I think they're remaking Deep Blue, the chess computer, as a battle bot.
 
There's a good name for a bot
 
Other pair names: Bender and Flexo, Finn and Jake, Lilo and Stitch, Joey and Chandler
Deep Blue should obviously be reserved as a name for a bot on the red team.
Just wouldn't make sense otherwise.
My contribution to the blue team is inanity. You're welcome.
 
Calvin and Hobbes would be perfect
 
@Sp3000 Are you currently working on anything?
 
I just put it the offset I think it works fine
 
2:56 AM
Okay.
 
Sorry for keeping you up
 
No, I'm fine.
 
@PhiNotPi: It must be 11pm your time. That's dedication to the challenge.
 
Do you still want to add something or shall we have a few practice runs then post? :P
(and how should we handle the explanation?)
 
@AlexA. 10:58 actually
 
2:58 AM
Explanation?
That's helping the enemy! :)
 
k! No help it is!
 
Haha
 
We should probably write something.
 
"Something"
 
Maybe just the fact that we're a pair is fine
 
2:58 AM
I helped
 
And crosslink posts
 
Watch one post get +15 and the other +2
 
:P
 
You'll both get +1 from me
 
-1 from me
just kidding
 
3:00 AM
Shall we post and fix things up if we spot anything?
 
Do you have a demo you can show us chat room folks?
 
Yeah.
A demo?
 
I want to see your bot in action!
Moot if you're posting now though
 
Go to the challenge's dedicated sandbox question in meta.
 
Wat
Did not know that existed
 
3:02 AM
4
Q: Red vs. Blue - Pixel Team Battlebots [sandbox]

Calvin's HobbiesOfficial Post: Red vs. Blue - Pixel Team Battlebots This is the "staging area" for Red vs. Blue - Pixel Team Battlebots. It behaves exactly like the official question except answers are taken from this page. There is no edit limit here and the move time limit is 1s rather than 15ms. Stack Snipp...

 
Clearly oblivious. Thanks for the link!
 
Just ran 16 tests against the "dumb" sandbox opponents, and it won all of them.
 
k, posting
 
Nice!
 
@PhiNotPi Posted
 
3:05 AM
posted
 
Hm. Is it not working?
Ah there we go
 
Apparently that extra work in the title matters.
 
Red wins every time for me.
 
Have you updated and checked that both players are loading?
 
Autorun 10 says 2/6/2
 
3:08 AM
I just played a round and blue killed all of red.
 
With all 3 new players
 
Haha I just realized that my comment compliment on the challenge has more upvotes than the highest voted answer. Do I win the challenge?
 
@PhiNotPi Nevermind
 
Should I autorun a large number?
 
Yes
 
3:09 AM
50?
 
Wow. Jakube and Hit just did the same thing as your bots.
I'm enjoying Coward's reaction.
 
Autoran 4. Blue won all.
 
Running 50. Might be a while.
 
I think the only dangers are 1) when we're still solo and 2) there's enough red bots remaining (> 2) and they run away
 
Yeah.
We need more blue members to balance stuff, or else it's a race against time to capture everyone single-handedly.
 
3:12 AM
With a cycle length of 900 it can only really go around the board twice
 
Yeah.
I'm still impressed by the sideways movement.
 
:D
Nice
 
There's some room for tweaking in the exact ordering of the pref[]
 
50 run says 9/38/3
We seem to stay still when we're alone for some reason though
 
Hmm....
 
3:16 AM
In the first battle I ran you two got into a kind of infinite loop with Minos and DoubleDouble. I wish I had saved a gif.
 
Yeah, that happens sometimes.
 
All these are rare enough occurences that it doesn't matter too much :P
I'm still pretty happy with it hi fives Phi
 
hi fives Sp3000
 
I'm very impressed with your dedication and teamwork! Nice work, Phi and Sp!
 
Second run says 12/37/1
 
3:19 AM
Hah, I've been trying to run the script for a while now and I didn't understand why it wasn't working. Then I read the disclaimer about Chrome. As it turns out, doesn't work in Safari.
 
My 50 run is taking a while.
 
You guys cleaned up the competition! Excellent work!
 
9/39/2
 
Weird, I think I just saw us get killed while in formation
Can't tell if it was just me not paying attention properly
 
3:23 AM
^ Story of my life
The other story
 
This is so fun to watch unfold :D
4
The back and forth competition
What will Red do now?
 
I will post my bot soon.
 
They're going to have to work together as closely as we did, I guess.
 
Hmm I think we died cos we were getting ganged up on, because at the time Minos and Adam were both chasing us
 
I really just can't express just how impressed I am with everyone. Calvin for making this awesome challenge, Phi and Sp3000 for thoroughly strategizing, everyone for putting in really quality effort.
 
3:26 AM
Or, maybe it will be a numbers game. Red seems to have more momentum in terms of getting more people playing.
 
@PhiNotPi It wouldn't be that hard. There are two bots that will take orders currently.
 
I'm a blue... I can do little more than make annoying comments though. It's probably better for the team if I don't post a solution. u_u
 
It would be better for the team. (Notice I didn't say which one)
 
My bot would probably just run around and get in everyone's way on both teams.
 
@AlexA. Even if we have someone chasing us (our x/y are always there) and defending that'll be fine :P
Or even chasing us to stay safe and keep numbers even
(safe?)
 
3:30 AM
We could create a defense-bot.
Somebody to ward off a gang attack.
 
I'm not super familiar with JS. I could try to help with a defense bot...
 
I've never use JS in my life before. What better time to learn?
@PhiNotPi Or make the gang bigger :/
 
I didn't JS until PPCG either :P ... and the only JS I do is still this sort of thing
 
Man! The talent in this room is astounding! (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
 
@AlexA. This have been the longest JavaScript program I've ever written.
 
3:34 AM
I sometimes wish English was as simple as a programming language.
 
Woop everyone got stuck in the corner
 
Haha
 
I lost count.
 
We can't move right, but since moving down puts us further away we don't do that either
It's nice that Hit's a stalker
 
Peeping in windows and whatnot
 
3:37 AM
DoubleDouble is too
 
Wrong team though :P
 
: [
 
Maybe we need more members on our team to pair up.
 
@Calvin'sHobbies If only questions could take bounties you'd be rich by now
 
3:41 AM
He already is.
 
Well, I guess we don't have anything to do but wait and see what the other blue members do.
 
Richer
 
@Sp3000 I am hoping for gold medals possibly.
 
Ahaha I guess. Unless we want to fix up a few of the rare cases but I'm not too bothered
Oh it's 1024 moves per side so we only go around once... oh well
Need more moves to sweep up all the red dust particles :D
 
Is sort stable in chrome?
 
3:52 AM
@Geobits We've posted, and I think rather than a searchbot, tagging along/defense seems okay
 
Yeah, no need for a search bot. Amass the horde.
 
Any suggestions for me trying to start on a submission? I'm having a hard time finding a good place to start.
 
Test on the sandbox?
 
A suicide submission would be nice.
 
I meant in terms of writing the actual code.
@TheBestOne: Nice try. ;)
 
3:54 AM
The basic form is something along these lines:
 
I'm using jsfiddle
 
for(var i=0;i<eNear.length;i++){
  var enemy=eNear[i];
  //attack code here
}
//search code here
 
Does for(var enemy in eNear) work.
 
Oops.
 
3:57 AM
Search code can be moving towards the location of our swarm, which can be extracted from our Msg.
 
eNear.forEach(function(enemy) { /*do stuff*/ }) would though
 
This is easily the best way to get little kids learning Javascript. Why haven't schools done this earlier :D
 
One of your enemies has entered the room
 
@Calvin'sHobbies: Haha, "(Blue Chat?)" Basically it's this room.
 
Well, I'm probably going to go to be soon, Should I add a short description to my answer or not?
 
4:08 AM
@PhiNotPi: If it were me I would
It's late your time!
 
How does one capture a GIF?
 
...carefully...
 
We're pinned against the side and it's amusing to watch
 
Software
preferably a blanket
 
@TheBestOne: This is like smartass war.
Capture it with a net
 
4:09 AM
That's not soft.
 
Okay, capture a GIF with hardware, e.g. a net.
 
A butterfly net could be soft enough.
 
GIF is a format. How would you capture it?
 
Put your computer in a net?
 
Isn't it already?
 
4:13 AM
Google tells me that will do it
 
@Sp3000 Listen to this guy ^
 
@TheBestOne: That is rarely good advice.
 
Accounts. Accounts everywhere.
 
I guess you'd better become an... accountant
 
Ah well, it didn't matter too much cos nothing interesting happened afterwards
 
4:16 AM
@AlexA. You got me to download it :)
 
@TheBestOne: Haha that was literally just the first result on Google for "screen capture animated gif". For all I know it could be malware.
 
It works well.
 
Oh nice! Good to know!
 
@PhiNotPi We got into an infinite loop with Minos (top) and Wasmoo (left) :P
  R
   B
 R B

----
  R

 R B
   B
----
   R

R  B
   B
----
   R
   B
R  B
 
That's because in order to capture them, they must lose one.
 
4:24 AM
Ah k
 
And they prefer not to die at all costs.
 
I do not share that sentiment. Canon fodder.
 
Is Array.prototype.sort stable in chrome?
 
@randomra I didn't understand your method, but I'd be interested in psuedocode. I didn't ever end up solving it
 
@Sp3000 I added a description to my post.
 
4:36 AM
k :) I don't really have anything to say
Let's see how much of an upvote difference a short description gives :P
 
4:46 AM
If you spot any bugs, feel free to fix them within the next few hours. On the other hand, it works good enough as-is that some things just aren't worth adding.
 
Yeah, there's a lot of things that could be added for specific cases, but I'm not sure if I'm bothered :)
Pretty pleased with it
 
I'm going to go now, the hour latens in the Great North Woods. @Sp3000, @PhiNotPi: Excellent job again on your bots. If I have the time this weekend I'll try to add a warm body to the blue team. All glory to the blue team!
 
Completely turning the tables of the battle is good enough for me.
Well, it was fun to work with you.
Goodnight!
 
:) night, thanks for the fun
 
5:15 AM
@Calvin'sHobbies I think after this you should post vids of each progressively more and more submissions so people can see the swings and counterplots in action :P
Cos otherwise the bots that did well earlier don't appear as awesome by the end
 
@TheBestOne I think cjfaure is a bit younger, but he hasn't been around in ages.
 
 
3 hours later…
8:15 AM
... I don't have the courage to comment on this question
 
 
1 hour later…
9:29 AM
0
A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

MvGRendezvous palace optimization Introduction This comes from a well-liked question on the Math SE by RobAu and a more specific follow-up to that by Danikov. There is a palace which is a grid of n × n rooms, which we will index using two coordinates 0 ≤ x,y < n. The rooms are organized in a toru...

 
9:49 AM
@Sp3000 @PhiNotPi you two monkey freakers!
 
You're on the wrong team :P
 
I'll create a bot solely to destroy your pairing up
 
:(
 
@TheBestOne started on your bot ?
 
 
1 hour later…
11:12 AM
Later I'm going to write a fractal random map generation challenge in the sandbox. I've searched the site and I don't find duplicates, but I'm not sure. Anyone knows if that's done before?
 
Depends which fractal
 
11:30 AM
@Sp3000 I think you can do "Row, Column, Diagonal, Block" in ><> with 3 unique chars
 
Oh shoot, unique characters is the main scoring method
I thought it was the other way around
 
it was at the very beginning, but it was changed
 
Didn't notice the change :(
I can imagine 4, but I'm not sure about 3. Two would need to be o and ;, right?
Hmm more like 5 actually
 
p1+ is enough for almost any kind of code
 
Ah. Of course. :P
You can go do that if you want :) I'm not really bothered
 
11:38 AM
I'm not planning on doing it, it's too tedious
to generate the code
and not that interesting
the only tricky part is the "blk" printing
 
You'd need to put a backslash or similar, which would make things even longer :/
(I give up on formatting)
 
u need two \ in the 1st row, the second one put by the block code run because of the first \
at least that's one way
 
Why would you need two?
 
because with p1+ you can't put chars ahead of you
 
@Sp3000 Thanks! although mine would be a popularity contest, to see what algorithms people can make that make some realistic terrain... I've always found D-S to give too simple terrains
 
11:44 AM
@randomra You have a wraparound
 
nevermind, 1 is enough
opps, 0 is a problem
 
Actually I think p1- does work
@PhiNotPi Hey Phi, I got rotations/reflections working (stupid bug, I'm spoilt by Python - I forgot to swap two nums you need a temp variable)
I tried to fix a few bugs to do with when one of us is dead, but failed :(
 
Okay.
Sounds good.
 
@Sp3000 right, seems like it
 
btw I ran 1k and got 176/759/65, so now we'll just have to wait until red comes up with a counterplan and decimates us back again
 
11:52 AM
In the meantime, we meed to find a volunteer to be a helper-bot.
Somebody that will come and break up gridlocked fights.
 
Yeah :P I think the one saving grace about Minos is that it changes directions after a while and breaks it up for us :D
 
I think the pairing up is going quite well.
I was worried that the number of red bots would make it near impossible.
 
It might later, it might later...
 
Since the other bots on our team have access to our coordinates, they could calculate where we will pair up.
 
Well, unless they get processed after the first bot and before the second
But I guess they could count us as paired if we're close enough
 
12:05 PM
Who else is on the blue team but hasn't posted yet.
 
Geobits
Also Alex A.
 
12:31 PM
Here comes a blue team member right now.
I saw saw "two of us" running around on the map: two other blue players randomly paired up
It's Hit and Jakube
Here' an idea for a visual effect: as the game is played, the board changes color where a pixel has moved.
 

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