Finally, in the second-quarter Challenge of 2009 (2K9Q2), we had enough played
matches among the cadets, so some of them will struggle again to survive in the
Cadets' League.
The results of the fight among the restricted number of veterans (only six) show
only the demotion of TTL, while Tango (1-1-2), Spike(2-6-1), Starkle(3-4-4),
StrangeMatter (4-2-3) and IonStorm (6-3-5) are waiting for the 21 promoted
cadets.
The promoted cadets are: DarkSoldier, 845bytes, Jimbo (single and double),
RoboOlm (single and team), Janeway, Earthworm, Bosozoku (single and double),
GulleFjun, Teddybear, Mouth, Butterfly, HellFire, Tinker, Bohan, KillJoy,
KillerBees, Stately, DOOM and the new Multiple (single, double and team).
The survivors are: Genuine, Touche, Shark, Ender, AronsRobot01, RoboScape,
Nemesis, S, DeathIncarnate, AronsRobot02, Vampire, Berserk, DeadDuck, MarukoV4,
RatBot, EvilElmo, Yoda, Shrike, Snutteplutt, Ladubug, Hal9000, Dragon,
Grappelli, DirtyCoward, Singularity, Bizarro, CounterStrike, Headhunter.
The jrobots removed for their poor performances are: SuperRabbit, AntiBot,
GenuineA.

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "July-September 2009 JROBOTS
Challenge" (July 4th-September 26th 2009) aka "JROBOTS 2K9 Q3!"
http://jrobots.sf.net

To read the complete results visit the "Hall of Fame" page at:
http://jrobots.sf.net

The final Challenge of 2008 was very poor in matches for what regards the
Cadets' League, in fact no new jrobots were uploaded and the only three
appeared in the arena were copies of the sample jrobots included in the SDK
(Simple, Rook, Sniper). Of course, I removed them from the arena for their
poor results and no other jrobots was promoted because the number of matches
is too low to consider the percentages reliable.
In the Veterans' League, the usual struggle between the stronger jrobots has
given a few results different from the usual ones, but the final outcome is
more or less the same as in the past challenges.
   Among the veterans the results are:
* Survivors: GulleFjun, Mouth, Bohan, KillerBees, (for their results in
team category) KillJoy, (for its result in double category) Tinker, (for its
result in double and team category) Hellfire, Headhunter, (for their results
in single and double category) DOOM (10-12-8), Stately (9-19-11), TTL
(6-5-6), IonStorm (5-2-4), StrangeMatter (4-3-3), Starkle (3-4-10), Spike
(2-7-1), Tango (1-1-2).
* Demoted: Vampire, AronsRobot02, MarukoV4, Dragon, FlameBall,
Grappelli, Butterfly, RoboOlm, Earthworm.

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "January-February 2009 JROBOTS
Challenge" (January 3rd-February 21st 2008) aka "JROBOTS 2K9!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net

The complete results of the September-October Challenge are available at
http://jrobots.sf.net (look for the "Hall of Fame" page)

The end of the September-October Challenge does not show many new jrobots.
The only one were Ulisses and S (yes, just an "S"). The first was removed
because of its poor results, the second did not achieve the requested
percentages to be promoted.
In the Veterans' League the stronger jrobots are always the same (even if
most of them has not been improved for years). This testifies that the
virtual-clock generator smooths the hardware advancements giving reliable
results even after so many years of challenges.
Then, in the Cadets' League we can see the usual struggle among strong
jrobots that fail to survive long enough in the Veterans' League. I'm sure
that they need only a few improvements in their strategies to be much more
effective.
The Cadets' League results are:
   a.. Promoted: AronsRobots02, MarukoV4, Vampire, Dragon, Grappelli,
Butterfly, KillJoy, Earthworm, Mouth, Stately.
   b.. Survivors: Touche, GenuineA, Shark, Nemesis, RoboScape, Genuine,
Ender, S, AronsRobot01, DirtyCoward, DeathIncarnate, Snutteplutt, Yoda,
EvilElmo, Shrike, DeadDuck, CounterStrike, Singularity, Bizarro.
   c.. Removed: Ulisses.

Among the veterans the results are:
   a.. Survivors: GulleFjun (T), Tinker (DT), FlameBall (T), KillerBees (D),
Bohan, DOOM, RoboOlm (ST), Headhunter (SD), HellFire (SD), TTL,
StrangeMatter (5-3-5), IonStorm (4-2-4) Starkle (3-6-3), Spike (2-4-1),
Tango (1-1-2).
   b.. Demoted: Berserk, DarkSoldier, LadyBug, RatBot, Jimbo, Errata,
Bosozoku, 845bytes, Janeway, Teddybear, Hal9000.

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the
"November-December 2008 JROBOTS Challenge"
(November 8th-December 27th 2008) aka
"Towards 10 Years of Challenges!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net

Complete results available in the "Hall of Fame" page at
http://apocalyx.sf.net

The July-August Challenge took more than foreseen to complete because of
reasons that you can understand visiting my Blog
http://apocalyx.blogspot.com/search/label/MekaWars
Anyway, even this challenge came to an end and here are the results.
First of all, we can see Tango achieving another triple victory, while from
time to time, other jrobots succeeded in winning one or the other
category... but not this time so: Let's Dance Again!
Then, among the cadets' league we can see the usual large number of jrobots
that perform well in single, but show bad performances in the other two
categories. That's why they are not promoted to veterans (good results in at
least two categories are necessary). Just only a simple algorithm to
recognize the team-mates is necessary, because those poor performances are
easily explainable with friend fire.

The results of the cadets' league are the following:

Promoted:
Berserk, DarkSoldier, Jimbo, RatBot (16-12-6), 845bytes (17-13-9),
Ladybug, Bosozoku (13-6-12), Errata (11-5-3), Hal9000, Teddybear
(8-3-7), Janeway (7-7-11), FlameBall (5-2-1), RoboOlm (2-1-2)

Survivors:
Ulisses, Genuine, GenuineA, RoboScape, Touche, Shark,
Ender, DeathIncarnate, Vampire, AronsRobot01, DeadDuck, Snutteplutt, Yoda,
Dragon, EvilElmo, Singularity, Shrike, Grappelli, CounterStrike, Bizarro.

Removed:
BigBird, Indignation and my old Phalanx that suffered a lot a
competitive cadets' league.

Among the veterans the results are:

Survivors:
GulleFjun, KillerBees, HellFire, Bohan, DOOM, Tinker,
Headhunter, TTL (6-5-8), Starkle (5-3-5), StrangeMatter (4-2-3), IonSorm
(3-4-4), Spike (2-6-2), Tango (1-1-1).

Demoted:
MarukoV4, AronsRobot02, Nemesis, DirtyCoward, KillJoy,
Butterfly, Mouth, Earthworm, Stately.

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the
"September-October 2008 JROBOTS Challenge"
(September 13th-October 25th 2008)
aka "Let's Dance Again!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net

The complete results are available in the "Hall of Fame" page at
http://jrobots.sf.net

Even this month we could see a lot of cadets fight to be promoted in the
veterans' league. Some of them were uploaded lately so I added a week to the
usual duration of a tournament, but that was not enough to let all of them
reach the requested number of matches. Then the percentages that most of
then gained were not enough to let them survive, but a few promoted: a very
good result for jrobots appearing for the first time. The results of the
cadets' league are the following:

* Promoted: AronsRobot02, Nemesis, DirtyCoward, MarukoV4, GulleFjun,
Butterfly, Mouth, Bohan, HellFire, Tinker, DOOM, Headhunter
* Survivors: Shark, Phalanx, Genuine, Touche, GenuineA, RoboScape,
AronsRobot01, Vampire, Ender, DeathIncarnate, Ladybug, Berserk, EvilElmo,
Snutteplutt, DeadDuck, Yoda, Dragon, Indignation, Grappelli, Singularity,
Shrike, CounterStrike, Bizarro
* Removed: RichBot, Infinity, SparmBot, killer, ForeverAndFornever,
Sparky, CookieMonster, Jez

Among the veterans, we could see the usual struggle. The results are:

* Survivors: KillerBees, Stately, KillJoy, Earthworm, Starkle (6-5-6),
IonStorm (5-4-4), StrangeMatter (4-2-3), TTL (3-6-5), Spike (2-3-1), Tango
(1-1-2)
* Demoted: DarkSoldier, 845bytes, Jimbo, RatBot, Bosozoku, Errata,
FlameBall, Janeway, Hal9000, Teddybear, RoboOlm

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "July-August 2008 JROBOTS
Challenge" (July 12th-August 30th 2008) aka "Fly like a Butterfly!"
http://jrobots.sf.net

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* APOCALYX 3D Engine: http://apocalyx.sf.net
* GUN-TACTYX Game: http://guntactyx.gameprog.it
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net

--- In javajousters@yahoogroups.com, "Leonardo Boselli" <boselli@...>
wrote:

The current code was written by players like you. I didn't write
anything for JROBOT since 2000 or 2001, so you'd a better chance to
see your ideas implemented... implementing them yourself. Feel free to
ask for explanations, if you don't understand any pieces of the sources.


Alright, I've looked over the source code a bit, and I'm starting to
get a sense of it - and through it, the scale of the project I am
proposing. Unfortunately, I'm only acquainted with Java's visual
tools, and I'm no ace programmer. I think that if I had the time right
now, I could probably learn enough to do the sort of thing I want to
do, at least in a basic way. Unfortunately, I'm doing a lot of things
this year to prepare for college applications, so I probably won't
have the time for at least... 10 months? After I have the time to try
to do this, we'll see, but I'd like to officially declare that I will
not be working on it.
If anyone else feels inclined to try their hand at it, they are free
to, and should not worry about having the same project and writing
code to perform the same tasks as are being worked on elsewhere. If
that is the case, I would greatly appreciate notification about it,
since I think it would be a whole lot of fun.

From: sirose44

To: javajousters@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 4:17 AM

Subject: [javajousters] Outdoing 845

 

Working from a < 500 byte base, I brought it
up about 100 bytes, and still perform much poorer than 845 bytes, when
you consider double and team.

Perhaps there could be regular challenges, like this? Ex: Smallest
bot, slowest moving "effective" (threshold percentage of 30% in at
least two categories?) bot, and longest surviving non-shooting bot. Of
course, this could be done through the normal arena system. A
challenge is posted, and somewhere on site the highest rankers in the
current challenge can be seen, as they rank up.

I admit that I haven't taken a serious look at the source code for the
arena, and therefore have no idea how difficult a challenge system
would be to implement on top of the current code, but I thought it
could be fun to throw in something on the side of trying to compete
with titans like Ionstorm and Spike.

I recently started work on a new bot, s (now in the arena). The name
is short for "small", as I found that a longer title actually
increased the file size. Working from a < 500 byte base, I brought it
up about 100 bytes, and still perform much poorer than 845 bytes, when
you consider double and team. I will probably continue work on this
project myself, but working on it gave me an idea:

Perhaps there could be regular challenges, like this? Ex: Smallest
bot, slowest moving "effective" (threshold percentage of 30% in at
least two categories?) bot, and longest surviving non-shooting bot. Of
course, this could be done through the normal arena system. A
challenge is posted, and somewhere on site the highest rankers in the
current challenge can be seen, as they rank up.

I admit that I haven't taken a serious look at the source code for the
arena, and therefore have no idea how difficult a challenge system
would be to implement on top of the current code, but I thought it
could be fun to throw in something on the side of trying to compete
with titans like Ionstorm and Spike.

--- 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

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

To read the complete results of the May Challenge, visit the "Hall of Fame"
page at http://jrobots.sf.net

The May tournament show 13 veterans and 45 cadets fight in two leagues. The
veterans fought for supremacy and only six survived! Some of the long aged
veterans never suffered the shame to be demoted to cadets, but that has
happened. The six survivors are: Spike (1-7-1), StrangeMatter (2-2-3), Tango
(3-1-2), Starkle (4-4-5), IonStorm (5-4-3) and TTL, but the latter only for
its result in single category. The demoted veterans are: Headhunter, DOOM,
Hellfire, Tinker, Mouth, GulleFjun, Bohan.

Among the cadets, 15 deserved a promotion, 23 survived, while six were
removed because of their poor performances, among which there are Stinger,
an old jrobot of mine, and Ciaky, one of the oldest jrobots in the arena.
The promoted are: Stately (1-1-7), KillerBees (2-3-3), KillJoy (4-2-6),
RoboOlm (6-5-2), FlameBall (7-4-1), Earthworm, Hal9000, Janeway, Teddybear,
RatBot, Errata, Jimbo, Bosozoku, DarkSoldier, 845bytes.
The survivors are: Buttefly, Genuine, AronsRobot01, Shark, GenuineA,
Phalanx, Vampire, Berserk, AronsRobot02, Ender, MarukoV4, Touche, Ladybug,
DirtyCoward, Snutteplutt, Yoda, Grappelli, Dragon, Singularity, DeadDuck,
CounterStrike, Shrike, Bizarro.
Finally, the removed are: Hunter, Stinger, Ciaky, Tracker, RoadRunner,
SingleMinded.

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "June 2008 JROBOTS Challenge"
(June 8th-29th 2008) aka "The Mighty Six!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net

"sirose44" wrote:
>

I have already answered yesterday, but probably I made something
wrong, in fact I can't see my answer. I'll retry.

> I didn't find this out until recently, when I noticed a significant
> difference between performance when I tried to run several copies
> of the applet at once, to increase trials without jumping to 2x,
> 4x, or 8x speed.

This is not a good way to proceed, in fact, imagine that those
copies of the applet run team category matches: for each of those
applets you have 32+2 native threads (1 for each bot, 1 for
rendering, 1 for the virtual clock generator). I think that the
thread scheduler of some operative system are not so reliable when
too many threads are in execution.

> I would like to know what sort of environment the
> online arena will provide.

I don't know. The only think I can say is that the online clock is
x1. Then the online tournaments run on the machines of the visitors,
so I can't say which PC (quad core, double core, single core,
Athlon, Intel), operative system (Win98, WinXP, Vista, Linux, OSX),
browser (FireFox, Opera, Explorer) or JVM (1.1, 1.2... 1.6) will run
any of the matches. Years ago I had several statistics, but now all
has completely changed.
However, the virtual clock generator seems to be reliable even now,
in fact the strongest robots in the Veterans' League show almost the
same relative percentages month by month.
I can only suggest to make the first tries at high speed x2 x4 etc.
and test the final version of the bot using the x1 clock to see if
the differences are relevant.

I realized recently that the bots that I've designed will only perform
well on newer machines. Because some of the algorithms I've designed
have running times as high as 5N (I realize that this is not big-O
notation, but at these values, the coefficient has a significant
effect), at less than approximately 80% CPU, the clock will run faster
than the algorithms. The result is undesirable behavior: not shooting,
failing to move back to 740m distance, etc.
I didn't find this out until recently, when I noticed a significant
difference between performance when I tried to run several copies of
the applet at once, to increase trials without jumping to 2x, 4x, or
8x speed.

I am in the process of redesigning, with the hope of eliminating this
type of flaw, but I would like to know what sort of environment the
online arena will provide. Can I depend on 70% CPU or higher, or
should I ensure that my bot continues to function at lower values (40%
CPU? 20%?)?

Thanks for your time,
-Stephen

http://jrobots.sf.net
This month the tournament haven't shown much movement. Only the veterans
succeeded in collecting enough matches, while the cadets' ones are too few
to consider the results reliable. Thus the cadets need to wait another month
before deserving a promotion.

The Tinker vs Grappelli fight has given again the same winner: Tinker. Now
it confirmed its valor and survived for the second time among the veterans
with an interesting 5th place in team category.

The survivors among the veterans are: Tango (3-1-3), Spike (1-6-2),
StrangeMatter (2-3-1), IonStorm (4-4-4), Starkle (5-2-7), Headhunter,
HellFire, TTL (6-5-6), Tinker (11-11-5), DOOM (7-8-8), Mouth (10-10-9),
Bohan, GulleFjun.

The demoted veterans are: DarkSoldier, AronsRobot02, Berserk, Jimbo,
845bytes, MarukoV4, Singularity, Errata, Grappelli, Hal9000, Bosozoku,
Janeway, Teddybear.

The May Challenge will see a Cadets' League very crowded, while the
Veterans' 13 will fight for supremacy.

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the May 2008 JROBOTS Challenge (May
3rd-31st 2008) aka Veterans' 13! http://jrobots.sf.net

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net
* APOCALYX 3D Engine Blog: http://apocalyx.blogspot.com

From: "Nancy" sweetpooja.kapoor2@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:07:32 +0200
To: sweetcrazyboy-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.in
Subject: [javajousters] Desi Hot House wife Pictures

I'm sorry for those messages. I've banned the user and removed the messages from the database.
I apologize for the poor check of the subscribers... it's not going to happen again.

--
Ciao, leo

From: "Nancy" sweetpooja.kapoor2@...
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:07:32 +0200
To: sweetcrazyboy-subscribe@...
Subject: [javajousters] Desi Hot House wife Pictures

I'm sorry for those messages. I've banned the user and removed the messages from
the database.
I apologize for the poor check of the subscribers... it's not going to happen
again.

--
Ciao, leo

The results of the March Challenge are available at the "Hall of Fame" page
in http://jrobots.sf.net

Again a lot of new jrobots were uploaded to the Cadets' Arena during the
March challenge, but they were not effective or uploaded too late, so they
didn't reach the requested number of matches to survive: DreamHunter,
DreamCatcher, Test, Mega, removed with Battlemage, a long aged cadet that
failed to survive.

The new jrobots uploaded during the March challenge were Tinker and RatBot.
The best of the two was Tinker: it survived among the veterans with a nice
9-7-9.

Another jrobot uploaded at March now deserve a promotion: Grappelli. The
April challenge will show if it has become better than Tinker.

The survivors among the veterans are: Tango, Spike, StrangeMatter, IonStorm,
Starkle, Headhunter, HellFire, TTL, Tinker, DOOM, Mouth, Bohan, GulleFjun.

The demoted veterans are: Earthworm, KillerBees, KillJoy, Stately, RoboOlm,
FlameBall, RatBot, Vampire.

We already talked about the removed cadets. The survivors are: Singularity,
RoadRunner, SingleMinded, CounterStrike, Shrike, Bizarro, DeadDuck, Yoda,
DirtyCoward, Snutteplutt, Ladybug, DeathIncarnate, Ciaky, Touche,
AronsRobot01, Ender, Phalanx, Stinger, Shark, Genuine, GenuineA, Dragon.

Finally, a promotion was deserved by: Grappelli, Janeway, Teddybear,
Hal9000, Errata, 845bytes, Bosozoku, Jimbo, MarukoV4, AronsRobot02, Berserk,
DarkSoldier.
Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "April 2008 JROBOTS Challenge"
(April 5th-26th 2008) aka "Tinker vs Grappelli!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net

The complete results of the February Challenge are available in the "Hall of
Fame" page at http://jrobots.sf.net

A lot of new jrobots were uploaded to the Cadets' Arena during the February
challenge. Some of them were not so effective, but survived among the long
aged Cadets, while two deserved a promotion: RatBot and Tinker. During the
March Challenge they are going to fight among the strongest jrobots and
we'll see which is the best of the two. Now Tinker is the best, because of
its double third place, but RatBot has room for improvements.

The cadets that deserved a promotion are: Vampire, RatBot, KillJoy, Bohan,
Hellfire, Mouth, Tinker, KillerBees, DOOM. All the other survived, included
the new RoadRunner, Grappelli, SingleMinded, Singularity. If the authors of
the latest jrobots are going to tune better the performances of their
creatures, in the April Challenge we'll see plenty of brand new jrobots in
the Veterans' Arena.

Among the veterans, Spike regained its good results with two first places,
Tango got two second places, then follows StrangeMatter, IonStorm, Starkle,
TTL, Stately, Headhunter, Earthworm, RoboOlm, FlameBall, GulleFjun.

The demoted veterans are: DirtyCoward, DarkSoldier, Berserk, Snutteplutt,
Ladybug, Jimbo, 845bytes, Bosozoku, Hal9000, Errata, Janeway, Teddybear.

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "March 2008 JROBOTS Challenge"
(March 1st-29th 2008) aka "Tinker vs RatBot!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net
* GUN-TACTYX Game: http://guntactyx.gameprog.it
* APOCALYX 3D Engine: http://apocalyx.sf.net

The complete results of the challenge are available in the "Hall of Fame"
page at http://jrobots.sf.net

We can see several changes in the lists of the January tournament. The low
number of matches played by the veterans and the big number of jrobots in
the cadets' league caused some unexpected results. For example, KillJoy
performances were insufficient to survive among the veterans, and also
KillerBees was demoted. Among the cadets, a lot of jrobots were removed and
also ELECTRON suffered the competition. Let's see if the three weeks of the
February challenge will be sufficient to collect a significative number of
matches. An almost equal subdivision of the available jrobots between the
leagues is going to help a lot.

Among the veterans, Spike suffered the low number of matches, while Tango
confirms boldly its good performances.
The veterans' survivors are: TTL, Headhunter, IonStorm, Spike,
StrangeMatter, Starkle, Tango.
The demoted veterans are: KillJoy, KillerBees, HellFire, DOOM, Mouth, Bohan.

The cadets deserving a promotion are: DarkSoldier, 845bytes, DirtyCoward,
Berserk, Snutteplutt, Ladybug, Jimbo, Hal9000, Bosozoku, Errata, FlameBall,
Janeway, GulleFjun, Earthworn, Teddybear, RoboOlm, Stately.
Several jrobots were removed because of their poor results: 1, 2,
MatadorLouco, ELECTRON, Fraplax, Beholder, Diver, IrrerKurt. I'm sure that
their authors are going to improve them a lot, so we'll see much better
performances in the next tournament.
The cadets' survivors are: Touche, Stinger, Phalanx, Genuine, Battlemage,
GenuineA, Ender, AronsRobot02, Shark, Ciaky, AronsRobot01, DeathIncarnate,
Vampire, MarukoV4, Yoda, Dragon, DeadDuck, Shrike, CounterStrike, Bizarro.

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "February 2008 JROBOTS Challenge"
(February 2nd-23rd 2008) aka "A Farewell to ELECTRON!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net
* GUN-TACTYX Game: http://guntactyx.gameprog.it
* APOCALYX 3D Engine: http://apocalyx.sf.net

Happy New Year To All The Players!

The final contest of the year was effective only for the veterans, in fact
the cadets have played too few matches, so their results are not reliable.
Let's see in January the real value of the new uploaded jrobots: Beholder,
MatadorLouco and Diver.
Among the veterans the struggle is always very hard. The next month, with
only 13 veterans in the league, the fight is going to be even harder. The
top of the list is firmly kept by Tango, Spike, StrangeMatter and IonStorm,
immediately followed by TTL. KillJoy succeeded in surviving thanks to its
results in double and team mode: It's surprising since usually new jrobots
are better in single (and poor in other categories because of friend fire).
We'll see in the next tournament if KillJoy will improve its performances to
treat the strongest veterans' supremacy.

You can find the complete results in the "Hall of Fame" page at
http://jrobots.sourceforge.net


The demoted veterans are: Berserk, DarkSoldier, Jimbo, 845bytes, Hal9000,
Janeway, Teddybear, GulleFjun, Bosozoku, RoboOlm, Earthworm, Stately.

The veterans' survivors are: Headhunter (double), Bohan (team), Mouth,
KillJoy, KillerBees (double and team), HellFire (single and double), DOOM
(7-7-8), Starkle (8-5-6), TTL (5-5-6), IonStorm (4-3-4), StrangeMatter
(3-2-3), Spike (2-4-1), Tango (1-1-2).

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "January 2008 JROBOTS Challenge"
(January 5th-26th 2008) aka "Happy 2008!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net
* GUN-TACTYX Game: http://guntactyx.gameprog.it

We had another challenge that took two months to complete. The matches
played during October were too few, so the contest was extended to November.
At the end two new jrobots appeared: UberOgre, that failed to survive, and
KillJoy, that achieved instead good results in double and team category
(both second places). The fact that KillJoy is so good in those modes gives
good hopes for its behavior among the veterans, because usually the cadets
are tuned mainly for single mode, while better results in higher categories
testify a thought development.

The cadets removed for poor performances are: UberOgre, RauaRoobert.

The cadets' survivors are: Genuine, Shark, Touche, Stinger, Phalanx, Ender,
GenuineA, Battlemage, AronsRobot02, MarukoV4, DeathIncarnate, Ciaky, Yoda,
Dragon, DeadDuck, Shrike, CounterStrike, Bizarro.

The demoted veterans are: DarkSoldier, Jimbo, Berserk, Hal9000, 845bytes,
Teddybear, Janeway, Bosozoku, Stately, RoboOlm.

The promoted cadets are: Berserk, 845bytes, Jimbo (double and team),
DarkSoldier, Bosozuku, HAL9000, Janeway (single, double and team), KillJoy
(7-2-2), Teddybear (4-4-6), RoboOlm (2-3-1), Stately (1-1-3).

Among the veterans, Spike, Tango, StrangeMatter are the winners of the three
categories. It was a long time since the last perfect share of first places
among the strongest jrobots in the league.

The demoted veterans are: AronsRobot01, Vampire, Snutteplutt, DirtyCoward,
Ladybug, ELECTRON, Errata, FlameBall.

The veterans' survivors are: GulleFjun, Mouth, Bohan (team), Eathworm
(single), KillerBees (double), HellFire, Headhunter (single and double),
Starkle (7-4-5), DOOM (single, double and team), TTL (6-5-6), IonStorm
(4-3-4), Spike (1-6-3), StrangeMatter (3-2-1), Tango (2-1-2).

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "December 2007 JROBOTS Challenge"
(December 1st-29th 2007) aka "Do you know Joy?"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net

--- In javajousters@yahoogroups.com, Kermit Kiser <infire@...> wrote:
>
> Hi all;
>
> Still trying to figure all this stuff out. My question is: Should the
> line in the info doc (under additions to JJRobot class) that reads this
> way:
>
>
> double d_rnd(double val)    - returns val, as a double.
>
>
> actually be the following:
>
>
> double d_rnd(int val)          - returns val, as a double
>
> ?
>
> Thanks for your help,
> - Kermit
>

Hi Kermit,

No, I believe the documentation is right in this case.

The JJRobot.d_rnd() function takes a double as an argument and returns
a double.  The returned value is rounded to the nearest integer (but
is still returned as a double).

It is defined in the source code like this:

static protected final double d_rnd(double value) {
	 return Math.floor(value + 0.5d);
}


Cheers, Tim.

Hi all;

Still trying to figure all this stuff out. My question is: Should the
line in the info doc (under additions to JJRobot class) that reads this
way:


double d_rnd(double val)    - returns val, as a double.


actually be the following:


double d_rnd(int val)          - returns val, as a double

?

Thanks for your help,
- Kermit

The complete results are available in the "Hall of Fame" page at
http://jrobots.sf.net

The August challenge took two months to complete. The matches played during
August were very few, so I had to extend the contest to September. That was
a good choice, in fact some CPU contributors played a lot of matches in
September, achieving a total amount of 39928 (almost 40000!). Finally, the
matches of the cadets doubled, and more, those of veterans.
As usual, the promoted cadets and the demoted veterans match; in fact, we
have 10 of each kind.

The cadet's survivors are: GulleFjun (only for its Team result), Mouth,
Bohan (for their results in Double and Team), HellFire (Single and Team),
Headhunter (Single and Double, as usual), then followed DOOM, TTL (665),
Starkle (565), IonStorm (434), StrangeMatter (323), Spike (241, again a
great result in Team category) and Tango (112, another double victory in
Single and Double).

The demoted veterans are: DarkSoldier, Jimbo, Berserk, Hal9000, 845bytes,
Teddybear, Janeway, Bosozoku, Stately, RoboOlm.

Among the cadets, two new jrobots has appeared: Korven and Korven2.
Unluckily thay didn't reach the requested percentages to survive.

The promoted cadets are: AronsRobot01, DirtyCoward, Vampire, Ladybug,
Snutteplutt, ELECTRON, Errata (733), FlameBall (621), KillerBees (212, a
good jrobots of the old days that comes back to the veterans' league) and
Earthworm (1-4-14).

The cadets' survivors are: Phalanx, Stinger, Battlemage, Genuine, Shark,
Touche, GenuineA, Ender, AronsRobot02, DeathIncarnate, Ciaky, RauaRoobert,
MarukoV4, Yoda, DeadDuck, Dragon, Bizarro, Shrike, Counterstrike.
Now you can upload your jrobots to win the
"October 2007 JROBOTS Challenge" (October 6th-27th 2007)
aka "KillerBees are Back!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net

From: Alan

Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 8:09 AM

Subject: Re: [javajousters] Fwd: Request to join javajousters approved

 

Hello Ashmitha

Which JRobot is yours?

The complete results are available at the "Hall of Fame" page at
http://jrobots.sf.net

For the second month, Spike confirms itself as the best team fighter,
beating again the great Tango with 61.0% against 58.7%. It also improved its
performances in single mode achieving a surprising second place with almost
the same percantage of StrangeMatter. Spike's final result is 2-7-1, so it
seems that there is room for improvements in double mode.
The survivors among the veterans are: GulleFjun, Mouth, Bohan, HellFire,
DOOM, Stately, Headhunter, TTL, IonStorm, StrangeMatter, Starkle, Tango,
Spike. Also TTL, with its 6-4-9, is confirmed as a veteran, but it has more
room for improvements.
The demoted jrobots are: Shark, Vampire, AronsRobot01, MarukoV4, Ladybug,
Errata, FlameBall, KillerBees, Earthworm. KillerBees is going to perform its
periodic appearance among the cadets.
The cadets does not show interesting events, because no new jrobot was
uploaded.
The promoted cadets are: Berserk, 845bytes, Jimbo, DarkSoldier, Janeway,
Bosozoku, Hal9000, Teddybear, RoboOlm.
The survivors: Phalanx, Stinger, BenuineA, Genuine, Touche, Battlemage,
Ender, DirtyCoward, AronsRobot02, Ciaky, Yoda, RauaRoobert, DeadDuck,
Snutteplutt, ELECTRON, Dragon, Shrike, CounterStrike, DeathIncarnate,
Bizarro.
No one was removed for very poor results.
Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "August 2007 JROBOTS Challenge"
(August 4th-25th 2007) aka "Let's Spike Forever!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net

You can read the full results
on the "Hall of Fame" page at http://jrobots.sf.net

The last month we could follow a great challenge. Finally, the veterans'
league played a large number of matches, in fact they are 7590. If we sum
the 4088 matches played by the cadets, we got a total amount of 11678
matches! Thanks to the high number of fights, we can fully trust the...
surprising results!

A brand new strong jrobot has finally appeared on the scene, Spike. It
achieved a great 5-5-1. The first place in team category is particularly
remarkable, because Tango or, sometimes, StrangeMatter usually shared the
first and second place in all the categories. Even more remarkable is
Spike's percentage in team category: a 70% against Tango's 60%. We can say
that a new star is born! Let's see if Spike's valor is going to improve also
in single and double categories.

The survivors among the veterans are: GulleFjun, Mouth, Bohan, Earthworm,
KillerBees, HellFire, DOOM, Stately, Headhunter, Spike, IonStorm,
StrangeMatter, Starkle, Tango.
The demoted jrobots are: AronsRobot02, Snutteplutt, Jimbo, Berserk,
DarkSoldier, Dragon, 845bytes, Yoda, Janeway, Hal9000, Teddybear, Bosozoku,
ELECTRON, RoboOlm.

The cadets does not show the same interesting events. There is only the
great triple victory of TTL (90%-91%-76%), but it's not a surprising result
because TTL was already a strong jrobot. It was removed two challenegs ago
only because of a side effect in its code bad for simulations. Now that its
author has uploaded a new version, TTL is going to fight again against the
strongest veterans.

The promoted cadets are: AronsRobot01, Shark, Vampire, MarukoV4, LadyBug,
Errata, FlameBall, TTL.
The survivors: Genuine, GenuineA, Stinger, Phalanx, BattleMage, Touche,
Ender, Ciaky, DirtyCoward, RauaRoobert, DeathIncarnate, DeadDuck, Shrike,
CounterStrike, Bizarro.
Only NeoBot and Sim were removed from the arena for their bad results.

Now you can upload your jrobots to win the "July 2007 JROBOTS Challenge"
(July 7th-28th 2007) aka "Let's Spike Again!"

--
Ciao, leo boselli@...
* JROBOTS Java Battles: http://jrobots.sf.net
* GUN-TACTYX Game: http://guntactyx.gameprog.it

Hi All,

I believe that it would be possible to implement a scheduler that
works (from the point of view of the robots) in the same way as the
old CRobots did.  AFAIK, from the postings in this mailing list,
CRobots used to multitask the robots by switching to another bot
whenever one entered an API function (like time()).  It did this by
swapping the stacks.

This effect could be done in JRobots by having all the threads
sychronise on one object, and by notifying the next one to run.

This would have the following advantages and disadvantages (please
feel free to comment, and/or add to this list):


Advantages.

1. Each robot would run it's code, between API calls, as fast as possible.

2. It would be possible to monitor the CPU time used by each robot, as
we'd only have one running at once.  We could then detect if any robot
is using too much time, and take some sort of action.

3. We could still schedule the timer thread to run, and so could still
adjust to CPU load, although this may be a little more tricky.

4. The scheduling algorithm is compatible with older JVMs.

5. We could choose to increment the simulation time in various ways.
A couple of possibilities would be (a) Make the API calls take some
set amount of time, or (b) Time how long the robot took to execute
it's code, and increment the simulation time proportionally (this
would automatically penalise the ones that used a lot a CPU).


Disadvantages.

1. The robots may make the assumption that other robots get CPU time
even when one robot is in a tight loop (e.g. in team mode, a bot could
wait in a tight loop until one of it's teammates updates a value).
This would definately no longer be possible. However, this assumption
by a robot is actually not a good idea, and IMO is quite unlikely.

2. Currently the simulation will probably adjust to use more CPUs in a
multi-cpu system.  To do this with the new scheduling algorithm would
require that we detect how many CPUs there are, and that we then allow
more than 1 thread to run simultaneously.  The current java API call
for this is only available from version 1.4+.


I'm a bit busy at the moment with work and TORCS :), but I may try out
a new scheduler at some point in the next weeks.


Cheers, Tim.

--- In javajousters@yahoogroups.com, "Leonardo Boselli" <boselli@...>
wrote:

> I tried comparisons a lot of years ago and the behaviors of threads
were
> very different. Now they could be more uniform.

Possibly.  They still seem to be different in various ways which make
using thread priorities very difficult, if not impossible.  see
http://cs-people.bu.edu/sowmya/htdocs/threadsTest.html for some
interesting graphs.  Sometimes the lower priority threads actually get
more cpu time!

In fact, I see that the threading model of the JVM doesn't guarantee
that the thread priorities actually have any effect, and states that
they shouldn't be relied on for any algorithmic use.  Thus any
solution to this problem shouldn't use them.

Also there is no guarantee of the thread implementation using
timeslicing, so it really shouldn't be relied on either.  Thus the use
of yield() in the current implementation is correct and necessary.


>Anyway, because of time
> constraints, I think that, for the moment, it's better to remove the
jtobots
> that slow down the simulation and ask to their authors to fix their
code.

OK.  I see that this has been done already, and that TTL has been fixed.


> In the meantime, if you have modified the code of the simulator
(using API
> compatible with older versions of the JDK), feel free to send it to me
> (please, mark clearly the changes, thank you in advance!)

I don't have anything at the moment, but I may do in the future.  Thanks.


Cheers, Tim.