Phase 3 Announcements

[Arne]

New announcement topic for phase 3

[Arne]

Greetings!
We have released a new version of the starter pack.
You can download it here

New Powerup - EMP

• Fire an EMP Blast forward in a cone from your car!
• The EMP shoots forward from your car, proceeding forward in the lane you are in, as well as the lanes to your immediate left and right, for the rest of the map.
• The EMP will stop them in their tracks for the rest of the round, and then reduce their speed to 3.

New Mechanic - Damage

• You spoke, we listened!
• Collisions with map objects will now damage your vehicle!
• Each collision reduces your maximum attainable speed.
• You can reach a maximum speed of 0, and be unable to move if you take too much damage!
• Collisions with other players are not counted towards damage.
• Boosting will only boost you directly to your current maximum speed.

New Command - Fix

• “Fix” is a new command allowing you to fix damage to your car!
• Using it removes 2 damage points.
• Your car stands still for the round while repairs are being performed.

Enhancements

• Updated the way we generate Maps to add a perlin noise generator. This will add some more natural looking mud patches, and overall make the map feel more natural.
• Added score, damage, and states that occured this round to the player responses
• Updated CSV output to include the new features

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug where wall generation percentage was stated as 5 but was actually 1. It is now 5
• Fixed issue where colliding with a cyber truck did not cancel boost
• Fixed issue where cyber truck did not ignore players start block
• Fixed a bug where turning into a cyber truck does not trigger the collision

Thanks to everyone who helped with pull requests and reported issues!

Please let us know if you find anything odd in the *balancing of this config, we are open to tweak until *Tuesday 14 July 2020 @ 18h00. This deadline will solidify the final tweaks before the upcoming tournaments.

[marvijo]

Hi, thanks for the update, interesting stuff. I just need some clarity so we don’t have to analyze the code:

1. How long (rounds) does the EMP last?
2. Does the EMP work the next round after it’s cast, like a TWEET or immediately like OIL?
3. Can we jump EMP’s with lizards?
4. If one gets to a maximum speed of zero, does the game end immediately, or do they wait for the opponent to cross the finish line?
5. How much does damage contribute to the max speed? Does 1 damage constitute a speed limitation of 1?
6. Can cars be fixed to a positive damage? i.e. so the positive damage sponges future damag

[ThePhoenixGuy]

Hi @marvijo

1. Its effect is only lasts one round.
2. Same as Tweet / cybertruck - it occurs in the next round.
3. Lizarding / jumping has no effect on avoiding EMP’s. Even if you use lizard, you will still be affected by EMP as normal.
4. No. You will wait until ether someone crosses the finish line, or max rounds limit is reached. Remember you can use the Fix command, and thus shouldn’t get stuck at a maximum speed of zero.
5. Correct, 1 damage = 1 less speed bracket. Not exactly 1 less speed “value”, rather 1 less in the array of total speed values.
6. No. Your minimum Damage is 0, and will remain as such. Using a Fix Command that will overrun your current damage will simply reset your damage to 0. i.e. if you have 1 damage and you use fix ( -2 damage ), you will have 0 damage

Let us know if this clears it up or if there’s anything still unclear!

[Leon]

What is the speed of the car in the round after the fix command has been issued?

[Arne]

After the fix command has been issued, the car should return back to the same speed it was traveling before the command was issued.

[WillieTheron]

I have so much work here

But excited.

[KyleMc]

Greetings!
We have released a new version of the starter pack.
You can download it here

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug where EMPs don’t get picked up when in the middle of players path for that round
• Fixed bug where using a boost, lizard or oil powerup without having one causes the game-engine to crash

Thanks to everyone who helped with pull requests and reported issues!

Please let us know if you find anything odd in the *balancing of this config, we are open to tweak until *Tuesday 14 July 2020 @ 18h00. This deadline will solidify the final tweaks before the upcoming tournaments.

[marvijo]

Thanks for the new version. Is the map’s object generation fixed? i.e. vertical walls and consecutive mud objects

[demaniak]

Nothing mentioned on the release notes.

Looking at a comparison between 3.0 and 3.1 here, it does not look like it.

[KyleMc]

Hello @marvijo, we haven’t released new map generation yet. We are still iterating on it, based on internal reviews and feedback from the players.

[kobus-v-schoor]

Hi, I’d just like some clarification on something - will our submissions for the third phase be used for the finals? Or is there a separate submission for the finals with different rules? Sorry if this has been answered somewhere but I couldn’t tell from the tournament info page at https://challenge.entelect.co.za/tournaments

[pierre.roux]

Hi @kobus-v-schoor

Check the description on the tournament “Vrrrpa! Wanna dice chaana?”

• Final Deadline: 23:59 08 August 2020

We have been meaning to move that to the top of the page or somewhere easier to find. Anyway that is the last point in time to submit a bot for the entire 2020 challenge. We will use the same submissions for the “Carmageddon” finals, so you won’t be able to change your bot after that final deadline.

[LouisLotter]

I feel like we’re running out of time and there is still quite a few bugs and issues making it hard to develop our bots

[KyleMc]

New submission deadline for Tournament 3 - "Vrrrpa! Wanna dice chaana?"

We are moving the final submission date to the 22nd of August, 23:59 With the many features added in phase 3 we felt it necessary to give the community extra time to prepare their bots for the final deadline. We are thankful to the extremely helpful community for spotting edge cases to test for bugs, in order for us to run the finals on a clean code base. This will give contestants an additional 2 weeks (relative to the old date) to build up their bots, and make the ultimate AI to compete at C…

[KyleMc]

Hello everyone, the player portal has been updated with the latest game engine.

[LouisLotter]

awesome thanks a lot.

[KyleMc]

Greetings!
We have released a new version of the starter pack.
You can download it here

Release notes:

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug where player can accelerate beyond max allowed speed (based on damage) after using a boost
• Fixed bug where when boost expires player speed jumps to 9 regardless of damage
• Fixed bug where player collisions cause player starting blocks that round to get counted twice:
  • if player on top of powerup they would get another power up
  • if player on top of obstacle they would get damaged again
• Fixed bug where turning into a cyber truck did not trigger a collision with the cyber truck:
  • please note expected behavior is that player ends up behind cyber truck as per rules regarding colliding with a cyber truck
• Fixed bug where colliding with a cyber truck could potentially cause player damage to exceed cap (5)
• Fixed bug where if player moves to block where cyber then gets placed and fixes next round, player then collides with cyber truck. Now player will be unaffected by cybertruck
• Fixed buggy behavior of EMP power up:
  • EMP did not affect both players the same way
  • EMP did not stop player hit in their tracks as specified in rules
  • Please note the expected effect of being hit by an EMP is as below
    • player hit does not move that round
    • player hit has speed reduced to 3 if moving faster than 3 speed

Thanks to everyone who helped with pull requests and reported issues!

Please note we are still in an effective code freeze and thus any updates made are reserved for bugs that impede players ability to compete fairly against one another or use the mechanics as stated in the game rules.

All the best in the final stretch!!!

[kobus-v-schoor]

Thanks for the new release! Can we expect the map generation (percentages) to stay unchanged now that the code freeze is in effect?