Hi, so the current engine still has bugs. I’ve now coded my bot to be aware of them, because of the way my bot works if it is aware of it, it will use it to its advantage.
Is this considered unfair / an exploit or is everything in the game engine as is fair game ??
Thanks
Well, speaking as somebody that will probably be on the receiving end of these exploits, I would say it’s fair, since the engine was available to everybody equally - i.e anybody could do what you did, so…if they did not…that is their loss imho
It’s not like you are (for example) exploiting some memory exploit at the JVM level, right?
Just to add to this @LouisLotter - it sounds to me that all you did was implement an accurate state and operation set.
Which is what one needs to do…
Nope no system exploits, just wanted to make sure it’s not considered an exploit if you use existing “bugs” to your advantage. And I’m talking about engine rule bugs not low level stuff.
Yeah, Engine Bugs should be great as long as you do not do things that directly mess with your enemy:
Like:
Access info that does not exist outside your bot file
Mess with Disk I/O to the extent that it messes with other player’s resources
But if the rules says X and the harness reacts y then theres no harm.
Exactly like @WillieTheron said, bugs are fair game. We basically draw the line at the gathering info that is outside your bot’s folder, or influencing the opponent bot through anything other than game commands.
Well now that everything is said and done, I’m very curios - would you maybe like to expand on what you spotted @LouisLotter ?
Ag, It didn’t pan out to be as strong as I thought it could be but my bot does pull it off every now and then…
You have to predict where your opponent will be next turn and drop a cybertruck so they will be on top of it. Then you emp them.
They will then hit the cybertruck and not be able to do anything about it.
problem is you are using two turns to do this and can miss with the cybertruck
Aaaah ok.
Yeah, tricky to pull of successfully, and in a way that does not leave your own bot worse of.
My own weapon usage is strictly opportunistic - basically, if there is nothing else that can be done to improve the bot’s situation, then we look to weapons.
Every attempt I made at making better/smarter/more use of weapons just resulted in poop bots.
So yeah.
Would really love to start seeing some tournament output, so that I can see how that panned out for me!
I noticed that JP
JP da Conceicao also uses the Truck followed by EMP combo 
Me? I would never use such underhand tactics… 
Well…contrary to my feeble meat brain based belief… the results speak for themselves.
If the two of you(i.e. @LouisLotter and @japes) are both using it, it seems to be working pretty well! 
My bot is mostly well-behaved - I save the cyber truck for sections where I can use it to block off the last open lane and force the opponent to either crash or use one of their lizards.