Robocode Tutorial

robo-code/robocode: Build the best – destroy the rest!

Robocode is a programming game, where the goal is to develop a robot battle tank to battle against other tanks in Java or .NET. The robot battles are running in real-time and on-screen.

Category:

design

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fun

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Game Physics

BattleFieldWidth and BattleFieldHeight

Default grid for 1v1: 800×600
Time is measured in ticks = turns.
1 distance unit = 1 pixel unless the game scaled down the battlefield to fit on the screen.
Acceleration (a): Robots accelerate at 1px/turn and decelerate at 2px/turn.
Velocity (v): Max: 8px/turn. The robot movies in the direction of the GunHeading.
Distance (d): distance = velocity * time.

Wiki

The Robot

A Robot consists of:

Body

Energy:
- Start with 100.
- Drops when firing, getting hit, running into robots or walls and being inactive
- At 0, it is game over!
Ahead(double distance) & Back: Distance in pixels.
- Collision with another robot: 0.6 energy damage
- Collision with a wall abs(velocity) * 0.5 - 1 (never < 0) (AdvancedRobot only)
Velocity: Measured in pixels/turn. Max: 8px/turn. Accelerate: 1px/turn. Decelerate: 2px/turn.
TurnLeft(double degrees) & TurnRight
- Maximum rate of rotation is (10 - 0.75 * abs(velocity)) deg/turn.
- The faster you’re moving, the slower you turn.
- Heading: Direction the tank is facing. Returns 0 to 360 (exclusive). 0 is North. 90 is East etc.
Width & Height: Dimensions of the Robot. (36×36)

Gun

Pew! Pew! Pew!!

Mounted on the Body.
GunHeat:
- Can only Fire when this is zero.
- Each turn the Gun cools with GunCoolingRate. Default: 0.1 / turn.
- At game start GunHeat is 3.
Fire & FireBullet(double power): Bullet:
- With power between 0.1 and 3.
- Costs power amount of energy. If power > energy, you become disabled.
- Damage: (4 * power). If power > 1, an additional 2 * (power - 1) damage.
- If hit, you regain (3 * power) worth of energy.
- GunHeat increases with 1 + (power / 5).
- Generates onBullHit, onBulletHitBullet and onBulletMissed events.
- Bullets move with a velocity of 20 - (3 * power)
turnGunLeft and turnGunRight.
- The maximum rate of rotation is: 20 deg/turn.
- GunHeading: Direction the gun is facing. Returns 0 to 360 (exclusive). 0 is North. 90 is East etc.
- IsAdjustGunForRobotTurn: True = Guns turns separately of Body.

Radar

Scans for other robots.

Mounted on the Gun.
turnRadarLeft(double degrees) and turnRadarRight.
- The maximum rate of rotation is: 45 deg/turn
Generates onScannedRobot events when another robot is detected.
RadarHeading: Direction the radar is facing.
IsAdjustRadarForGunTurn: True = Radar turns separately of Gun.
IsAdjustRadarForRobotTurn: True = Radar turns separately of Body.