It still will work. I just didn't know what would happen since I try to access the data in the first round. So I used try catch to default on failure to retrieve info.
It treats coins (including those held by other bots) like other protons if it ends up right next to something it can consume strong nuclear force takes over and it instantly moves to that spot and drops all velocity.
Based on the game rules written in the original question, on the first round, every bot is supposed to be on the arena: "The arena's side length is calculated with 4 + botCount. When placing bots in the beginning of the game, random places are chosen. The system ensures that no bots start in the same space, or next to each other."
Having looked at this challenge with my morning eyes (although I'm not very well rested) it looks as though there are still some problems for anyone who wants to compete in this challenge.
I'm not really sure what to expect - will the controller end the simulation in 10,000 moves, or 5 minutes? I feel that the post is written more or less from the top down, but some of the basic instruments (my bot will do this, my bot will not fail to win for this reason) are not clearly stated in the OP. I think this is why another user complained this should be worked out before posting, but the post has attracted a lot of attention and it really should be finished now.
Also, are bots allowed to poll the controller for any personal information (such as their location, or the number of coins they have?) Anyone could code a good way to keep track of states, but that may not be the best option.
@RedwolfPrograms My first comments this morning were to clarify the challenge, not the situation of the challenge. I do not have a bot posted, so you do not have my bot. I will await a finished version of the controller before posting, because it might not be worth my time otherwise (I have a very generic algorithm written, but I want to understand JavaScript, and that would require some time).
By "list of bots includes you bot" I meant that the second parameter for the function included the bot that was requesting the list of other bots, if that makes sense
In about 30 minutes (After breakfast), I'll get to work on debugging the controller.
I put the updated version in github under controller2.js in the link on the KoTH page
Also I would suggest that you create a scope and keep everything inside it, if you keep them global, bots could still change them. Right now all of your important variables look to be global.
It could be a problem I think. Maybe someone else will have an innocent idea to make a "coinLocations" variable for something, and interesting stuff happens. (Or not so innocent idea, cf. the various DarkBots, HypnoBots et al. that always appear at KotHs :—).)
Like I said, predicting where it will go would be key (if possible). Get it into the corner so that you're diagonal from it, then it's a 50/50 (or better) chance
I had an idea for adding a little more "smart" to a hunter: Bait bots that are only slightly stronger than yours, then collect a coin when they get close and hope you can chase them down
I could create 5 protector bots and 1 main bot to work as a team to make the main bot as strong as possible on start. Allowing bot teaming opens an unlimited world of possibilities which probably won't be nice.
Well, if I can load something from internet, it can contain any code. I could pretend that I'm loading a math library from http://something.something/something.js and that URL could be set to return a different code on 1000th request.
@N.P. Does that make this line of code illegal? var s = document.createElement('script'); s.src = 'http://something.com/js.js';document.head.appendChild(s);
@RedwolfPrograms You could store each bot in a dictionary after each movement where the coordinates are the keys, then check for any key whose value is a list with more than one element
Actually, I already had an array. As it looped through the bots, it added the location to the array. But if it was already there, it knew it was in the same space as another bot. But it didn't know the name of the bot that had previously put it's coordinates in the array. I just made a new array with the names of the bots in the same index as the location in the first, if that makes sense.
I'm just concerned that if it's not implemented properly you might end up with something like the following:
Bot1 (size 20) moves into square Bot2 (size 24) moves into square, eating Bot1 and changing size to 31 Bot3 (size 30) moves into square, is eaten by Bot2 since the order was applied improperly
Whereas if they all move into the square on the same turn, Bot3 should win
No, after it calculates all the stuff for the same sapce, it puts the bot names in an array. Then, it continues through the array. If it finds another bot with the same coordinates, it just adds its name to the array of names. After all the bots have been checked, it does the calculations for the winner.
function getValidPosition() {
let pos = 0
while (pos == 0) {
let x = randInt(0, arenaSize-1)
let y = randInt(0, arenaSize-1)
for (let i = 0; i < botPos.length; i++) {
let thisX = botPos[i][0]
let thisY = botPos[i][1]
if (abs(thisX-x) > 1 || abs(thisY-y) > 1) {
pos = [x, y]
}
}
}
return pos
}
ack
Hold on
function getValidPosition() {
let pos = 0
while (pos == 0) {
let x = randInt(0, arenaSize-1)
let y = randInt(0, arenaSize-1)
let allowed = true
for (let i = 0; i < botPos.length; i++) {
let thisX = botPos[i][0]
let thisY = botPos[i][1]
if (abs(thisX-x) <= 1 && abs(thisY-y) <= 1) {
allowed = false
}
}
if (allowed) {
pos = [x, y]
}
}
return pos
}
