--- In javajousters@yahoogroups.com, "kermitkiser" <infire@...> wrote:
>
> I was disappointed to see the Tracker and Hunter jrobots removed at
> the end of the last tournament. I do not believe they were in
> competition long enough to see how well they could do. In fact it
> seems almost like an accident that their sister bot Butterfly
> survived. I wish the author would reload them for the current
tournament.
>
> I also would like to request a small rule change so that new cadets
> are not removed unless they have fought a complete tournament or at
> least enough of one to make their match counts actually mean
> something. Any one else agree?
>
> -- Kermit
> author of Killjoy and Tinker
>

Speaking as the author of Tracker and Hunter, I can assure you that
their removal was no great calamity.

Butterfly's survival was luck, but as we can see it is performing
fairly successfully in Single and Double (though I clearly have a
great deal of work ahead of me in Team play). However, Tracker was
actually a preliminary version of Butterfly, which I later deemed to
be a more appropriate name, and I decided to make the change in spite
of the disorienting effect I suspected it would have on other competitors.

As for Hunter... It was a starting bot, and I uploaded it before
realizing that the class files for current bots were available. As a
result, in spite of its brilliant performance against Counter, Sniper,
Rabbit, and Rook, I have seen quite clearly that the idea of
increasing accuracy by closing distance most often does me a
disservice, though perhaps there is a way of taking advantage of this
strategy at closer ranges. In addition, it features sloppy scans and
faulty aiming. Altogether, it was a slight improvement over Simple and
did not, in the few trials I ran with it recently, perform
excellently. (I must admit though, that keeping a simpler bot on hand
often helps me in testing to make sure that my "improvements" are not,
in fact, hurting my performance).

If you really want me to, I could toss in those bots again, but they
would only serve to buff up the records of those who faced them,
rather than performing gracefully or distinguishably.

As for the revision of the rules, I second it. I would vote to require
that the N/4 lower bound for advancement be extended to bots that will
be removed.

-Stephen