Battle Event - 12th March 2008

This event was held using version 4.3 of the battle framework.

Entrants and Results

Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Total
Owner Name Language Placing Points Placing Points Placing Points Points Placing
Caleb HR Exterminator C# 8th 5th 2 8th 2 7th
Cam Chongy Pull My Finger C++ 4th 4 6th 5th 2 6 5th
Dave I Zippy C++ 5th 2 1st 10 1st 10 22 2nd
Jeff 5 C# 1st 10 3rd 6 2nd 8 24 1st
Jim Space Invader JavaScript 2nd 8 2nd 8 3rd 6 22 2nd
Matt Fartacular Ruby 3rd 6 8th 6th 6 5th
Saxon Penfold C++ 7th 7th 7th 8th
Stephen S Illuminator 2.1 C++ 6th 4th 4 4th 4 8 4th

Jeff's 5 (56KB) won overall, narrowly beating Space Invader and Zippy, despite Zippy finishing first in two of the three rounds.

Logs

Log files from each round, including who bought what equipment, and what taunt messages were sent.

Round 1
Round 2
Round 3

Screenshots

This event was held on my last day at ISS. I had handed in my computer the day before, and was using a temporary computer for the day. My ineptitude at handling the unfamiliar system resulted in this as the only screenshot I managed to record of the event.

Woeful.

So, the following is a 'dramatised reenactment' of the last two rounds.

The game began with the usual chaos of robots attacking each other.

Before long only Zippy, Space Invader and 5 were left.



Both Space Invader and 5 used defensive strategies, driving around backwards and shooting, in the expectation that other robots would chase them and get shot. Neither took any offensive action (and don't seem to have used their sensor at all).

Space Invader took the approach of firing munitions at the same speed as it was travelling backwards, essentially dropping 'mines' which would stay in position until they timed out after two minutes. Although it took steps to avoid mines it had previously dropped, it would occasionally run into them or shoot itself while dropping them. So given enough time it would kill itself off.

5 took the approach of driving in a loop around the borders, firing randomly. By sticking to the borders it would generally avoid most of the mines dropped by Space Invader, but would still ultimately die by hitting the occasional mine, or by occasionally shooting itself while turning corners.

In both rounds Zippy seemed to get stuck within a cluster of mines from which it was unwilling to move to attack either of the other robots.

From this position, Space Invader and 5 would eventually kill themselves or each other, leaving Zippy as the 'champion'.

Unfortunately for Zippy, it was killed off early in the first round and so didn't receive enough points overall to win the competition.

Curiously, in order to produce these screenshots I ran the competition with the same entrants 20 times, and this situation didn't happen once, even though it happened in two thirds of the games on the day. So I ended up having to fake these screenshots.

And finally, in a fitting farewell for my last ever robot battle, my robot Penfold managed to come dead last! :)

Saxon