Any chance we can increase the tick rate?

Entelect Challenge 2024 Technical Support
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Hey there, I was wondering if there’s a chance that we can increase the tick rate, perhaps to something like 250ms? 150ms isn’t a lot to work with (given that we also lose some time to overhead like sending/receiving updates & commands), and it somewhat limits the options in terms of strategies (I think) - especially for languages on the slower side. Would be keen to hear your thoughts

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My 2c: I’d be for it.
It would make things more beginner-friendly, which I believe is one of the goals.
Also it would make the challenge more about creativity/algorithms than hardcore low level optimization.

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Ask and you shall receive. :grin: We have discussed and agree with you. We are more interested in seeing participants write “intelligent” bots with interesting strategies, than in bots that have been finely tuned for optimal performance on cpu and memory resources.

We will increase the tick rate in another release soon but it might not make it into the next release which will hopefully go out within the next couple of days.

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Thanks @deefstes , that’s great news :raised_hands:

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I’m not a 100% certain of this, however I suspect that at the moment that the tick timer doesn’t exclude the engine’s own processing time from the tick rate. That could mean that if the engine takes a long time to process a tick, that the bots lose some processing time. Anecdotally, I’ve noticed that towards the end of the game (when the maps start getting a bit hectic with complex geometries) that my bots start “slipping” (sending commands too late), even though by their own accounts they stayed within the tick rate (by some margin, between 30-60ms).

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I think since bots who issue commands first have their own advantages,
Im okay with increasing the tickrate,

Though I have to say this:
“finely tuned for optimal performance on cpu and memory resources”

I think this is one of the most critical aspects to a good AI.

I see a lot of software thats bloated simply because we have the computer processing power.
The result?

Our browsers run 3GB - 4GB simply because people clutter it.

Now dont get me wrong, Im in favor of beginner friendly.
But part of my own fun has always been “Lets optimize this to make it faster, so Ic an squeeze out more cycles.”