When can we upload our bots for Operation Firestorm?
you can upload it now
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Where can we upload bots for Operation Firestorm? The link https://challenge.entelect.co.za/portal/main/uploads looks like uploads for the main event.
That’s the same place where we uploaded for the first round.
I must say it would be nice to have a guide explaining this for people doing this for the first time.
With a few FAQ documented example:
1.Where do i upload my bot:
2.Is there a way i can confirm that the bot I uploaded is going to be used for the next round:
3.I have uploaded 2 bots now , which one is going to be used for the competition
4.What happens when bots fail to run on tournament day but it worked during match upload testing.
ect…
Hi all,
I see there is some confusion regarding the uploads. Let me try to clarify some points.
When you upload a bot, you upload it for the main challenge. The tournaments throughout the year aren’t separate competitions, but rather just milestones for big changes in the game rules. This also gives people incentive to keep working on their bots throughout the year rather than working for a week at the start and then forgetting about it.
We don’t let people submit for a specific tournament, mainly because they are not required to take part in the first two tournaments in order to take part in the main challenge. Don’t look at it as that you are entering for the Operation Firestorm tournament, look at it as that you are entering for the main challenge just in time take part in the next phase of the build-up for the challenge.
With that said, there is only one place where bots are uploaded and that is on the player portal under the main challenge page. We will always take the last bot you uploaded that built and successfully ran the reference match. If you look at your submission history, the topmost one with all three green bars will be chosen. For example in the image below, out of the three latest submissions, submission 19 will be picked because it was uploaded after submission 18 and submission 20 failed its reference match.
As for whether or not your bot will run on tournament day. That is why we run the reference match each time you upload so that we are (and you can be) sure that your bot is able to run on our environment and doesn’t have any critical errors. Please note that after each tournament the game rules are upgraded which means that if your bot doesn’t read the input files in a way that allows for change, it could cause unexpected behavior.
If anything is still not clear, feel free to inquire further.
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The gamestate JSON de-serialization has changed with the addition of the Tesla towers, that means that the match simulation will fail for bots that have not been uploaded since the addition of the towers, while showing green under match status.
Something should be done to warn people that have not submitted for this round.
Thank you so much Edwin, this does clear up quite a bit.
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– Invalid question – thanks @Leon for pointing out that there isn’t enough energy to fire. –
Hi Pierre (@pierre.roux ),
I have found a potential problem…
When my bot plays against an almost identical version of itself and late in the match one of the two bots introduces a TESLA tower, the tower doesn’t seem to fire…
as you can see from the image: the Tesla is fully built (at round 277) on the boundary between the two players and neither player has been damaged… (this runs for a while and by round 296 still neither player is damaged…)
I have no problem with this…
and I don’t want the match to be delayed for engine fixes…
I just thought people should be cautioned…
and maybe someone could help verify if they are getting the same bug…
I’m using:
starter-pack-2-0-3
and
an engine from git updated to most recent
and both seem to be giving this issue…
@critic Yes I agree. We try to keep the parsing of the state file as close to the previous phase as possible. In theory you could parse the first phase’s state file in a way that allows for change and then it should work throughout the challenge (just not necessarily using new features).
We have put a little thought into finding a way to indicate whether or not a bot coded with the previous rules will still work on the new rules, but it’s not realistic to rerun the reference matches for all the submissions. We will let you know if we find something that could help you out here.
Hi @Andre,
It seems that player 1 doesn’t have enough energy to fire. There is an energy cost of 100 to firing a tesla. Try it again with more energy.
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Thanks @Leon… a silly mistake on my part… will check it out…
…checked it and you are 100% right @Leon…
@Andre Thanks for supporting us with these, a possible bug is still worthwhile to look at even if it turns out to be nothing.
The team really appreciates it, keep it up 
The C# JSON parser throws an exception by default when using the previous class structure. That’s why I thought that you would clear the uploads after each round, then a mandatory upload needs to take place followed by verification.
Anyway, it’s not an issue for me, just think that you might have a few bots that will fail to run in the next phase.
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I would like to ask if it would be possible to show the custom bot/user names aka “nickName” from bot.json in the results for the next round. It might cause a good laugh…
PS. My strategy is to kill my enemy with jokes.
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Hi Pierre,
I asked here(How to remove bot from next challenge) but got no response.
How do I remove my bot from the next challenge? I am unable to work on it, and I don’t want it to compete.
— Ans: The difference I saw below was probably due to the missile speed difference between the upload engine (speed = 1) and the 2-0-3 engine (speed = 2) —
https://forum.entelect.co.za/t/game-engine-updates/369/29?u=andre
Hi @pierre.roux,
thanks for the kind words…
I feel like I’ve asked a few silly questions and the community has really helped me with their feedback…
so here is one more…
When I upload my bot I have seen a slight difference between the downloaded replay and my replay’s when my bot plays against itself…
I was just wondering if the current upload engine is maybe older or different from starter-pack-2-0-3?
The difference is: as defensive structures are built and a missile is over the structure the engine I have doesn’t block the missile (as the defense is built) but the upload engine does block it (and cause damage to the newly built defense)…
Upload Engine: - defense buildings block as soon as built
My starter-pack-2-0-3 Engine: - newly built defense buildings don’t block missiles
I’m unsure what kind of impact this discrepancy could have on matches…
No. I would like to delete my bot so that it does not take part in the next tournament.
HI @RHL
Sorry for the delayed response, we were going around the table thinking of a solution to your issue.
This is the first time someone’s requested removing their entry from the tournament.
What we found was that there is no simple way of achieving this and because of how we built the tournament, it would be disruptive to other players and certain parts of the system to simply delete your entry.
I can assure you that competing in the second tournament, even with an unfinished bot, will not adversely affect you in the final tournament if that is what you are worried about.
We have, however, added this feature to the backlog for next year’s challenge.