PureBasic Forums - English

Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by Abalon.

Hi!
So my first posting here
There where several discussions about having a coding contests, so I thought why not have a coding contest like those old RoboWar contests.
Don't know if everybody knows what I mean so here is an example:
http://www.cyty.com/robocom/?area=main
In this kind of competition you program a (virtual) robot which fights against other robots. The main program will be the host/server with a command set, which the programs/robots can access. So we should have a talk about the commands the server should have and how it all should be displayed. Best way would be if the server would be open-source, of course only just one version should be present.
So far, I don't know if some people are interested in such a thing, so I wait if someone responses

Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by benny.

Hi,

thats sounds VERY interesting. unfortunately I do not have the time to help developing such a project at the moment.

But I like the idea!

Regardz,benny!

Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by Abalon.

Yes, i think it could be a very interesting thing. But it would only make sense to develop such a program (i mean the server, clients would be not that hard) if enough people are interested.

Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by El_Choni.

Sounds funny, could you give some more clues about it? Would it be an all against all war, or one against one? I'm not very familiar with these kind of games, but it sounds like an interesting challenge.

El_Choni

Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by benny.

Hi El_Choni,

Here are some introductional phrases from different Robot-Game-Clone-Sites. Maybe this helps you a bit. I already post the link where you can find even more information!

JRobots:
[url]http://www.cfxweb.net/~jrobots/jjr_info.shtml " target="_blank[/url]

Jrobots is a clone of Crobots, an old DOS game written by Tom Poindexter in 1985. There are some robots that fight in an arena, firing missiles and avoiding enemies' projectiles. This game seems quite involving, but it's not interactive. First, you must develop the algorithms of your own robots in a particular programming language, and then you upload them in the arena and follow on-line their fights against other robots. You can't help them, the robots are alone and you must teach them the combat techniques to survive. To see some robots fighting, go to the Match Applet page.

Programming Games (Lots of Games inside!!!!)
http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~stever/games/

Robots Games
The "competitors" in these games are robots; usually one with a gun to shoot at other competitors with. You supply the brains for the robot in the form of a program of one kind or another. The oldest of this kind that I know about is CROBOTS, where the robot is programmed in a "C-like" language. This was written by Tom Poindexter, who later created tclrobots.

Maybe these information gives you a better idea about the princip of such a game!

Regards, benny!

Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by benny.

Hi again,

the more I search the Internet the more interesting stuff I find. There are a lot of nice variation of that game. For example the arena/battle shouldn't always be ROBOT vs ROBOT.
Take a look at this side

http://rars.sourceforge.net/

Your task is not to programm the best Seek-And-Destroy routine for a Robot, you have to programm the "brain of a race driver"

@El_Choni:
How many players are in the arena at the same time is optional. Our choice!

@Abalon:
If the project really starts (and we find enough people) I would be interested in helping to develop a grafik-engine (2D ???) and maybe some design matters. But I could start helping actively in summer (July) after my semester/studies [so much to do].

greets,benny!

Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by Abalon.

Hi!
Interesting link. There are really many versions of this game
So I begin with explaining a bit the working of robocom (because I read now more about it, doesn't mean that it is the only possibility how to make such a game or that it is my favour, it's just the one I know something about . And its just a short overview I did so that you know what we here are talking about...
There is a battleground, with 18x18 squares/fields. The game is turnbased. In each turn, the robot some kind of those possibilities (an activity can take one or more rounds, depends how complex it is):
- create (build a new robot)
- die (kill itself)
- move (moves, if the field is free and robot is a mobile one)
- scan (scans a field, a=0 -> field free
a=1 -> enemy oon this field
a=2 -> friendly unit)
- turn (turns the robot 90 degrees in the wanted direction)
And of course attack and repair commands (and some more).
As you see in the command set, robots can only move to north, east, south and west, not diagonaly.
There are three different kind of robots, basic, advanced and super. The better the robot is, the longer it takes to build, the more commands he can access. The basic, for example, can't scan, the advanced can't built new robots. Super can do all things
The robots are placed randomly on the field and the first robot can't move but can built all robots. It is possible to play 1 vs. 1, teamgame or "deathmatch" with a high number of robots.
>>______
18|_|O|_|_ When this red robot moves to the north
17|_|_|_|_ from B/18 it will come to the field B/1.
16|_|_|_|_ So the "world" has no borders.
............... Same from left to the right or other way roúnd.
...............
02|_|_|_|_ If we would make a Pure Basic version of it it would
01|_|_|_|_ make sense limit the size of the executable.
.....A.B.C

As said before, just a little overview of such a game. About the PB version we should discuss what should be included, what not and how it should all work at the and (and of course what kind of game).

@benny:
Yes, sounds good. 2d would be the best imho. We will see if it comes to such a project, but if, i think it will be alot of fun at the end

Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by benny.

@Abalon:
Nice ideas ... we could also allow the players to set up their own configuration of robot. For example, everyone has 10 credits and you could use them for extra ARMORY/SHIELD - FIRE/RANGE - HOW MANY MOVES YOU CAN MAKE PER ROUND.

For example :
ARMORY = 3
FIRERANGE = 4
MOVES PER ROUND = 3 (which means e.g. 3 squares per round)
--------------------
10

In addition to this you optimize your programmed code for your special robot, whether it is slow but has a wide fire range, or it can make more moves per round but has few armory ???
In my opinion, with would bring more variation in peoples programms and tactics.
Furthermore, you could think of primarary and secondary weapons with different attitudes [firerange - level of descruction ...]

Talking about the GFX-Engine, I think 2D would be okay for the first release.
Your idea to divide the battlefield into a squared one seems perfect to me !!!

Well, it all sounds very very interesting in my eyes...maybe some others are interested as well ?

Will see...

Greetz, benny!