"Top Dogs" will be a weekly, 1-on-1 Robot Battle tournament intended to encourage RB players to develop and share the most efficient and effective 1-on-1 strategies and programming.  All matches will consist of 700 games using default RB 1.4 settings in a 700x700 arena.  Robots will start each game with an energy level of 700, no cease fire turns, and new & random positions and headings.  Match scores will be adjusted by dividing a robot's point total by its net lines of code; not counting comments and spaces (encouraged), or name, version, and author command lines (required), but counting each line of code which exceeds 70 characters as 7.  Adjusted scores will be used to determine match winners and the "Top Dogs" will be ranked by their adjusted score average.  If robots earn equal adjusted score averages (rounded to three significant digits), subsequent matches between the tying bots will be run until the better bot is identified.

To enter the initial “Top Dogs” tournament, a robot must be posted by its author, neither scrambled nor shrunk, to the Robot Battle Mailing List with “Top Dogs” in the subject line by March 14th midnight, 24:00:00 GMT.  Following the initial "Top Dogs" tournament, all robots similarly posted by Friday midnight will be considered new entrants in the next tournament.  The number of entrants per author will not be limited, but bots that appear overly similar, cooperative, or incompatible risk rejection.  (As host, I reserve the right to refuse entry to any robot or to postpone any "Top Dogs" tournament at my own discretion.)  Tournament results will be posted to the Robot Battle Mailing List as they are available.  The top 7 robots of each tournament will share the title, "Top Dogs," and will be re-entered in subsequent tournaments until displaced by leaner, meaner bots.

First entrant: PALADIN 030221