GarBots

Program tanks to wipe out the opposition. This is a great little game for teaching the fundamentals of programming. Make sure you visit the Garbots Official Site to download the program and to contact Scott and tell him what a good program this is.

Notes on Protection

I don’t get a link off the official site, and it is probably because I have released the following information. You can unprotect a bot’s .pdb file by opening it up in a hex editor and changing just one byte. If the first byte of a record has the bit flag 0x02 turned on, just flip that one bit to unprotect the record.

Bots I Wrote

I left all of these unprotected as there’s no point in trying to hide the code.

• Wal-Mart - Just shoots the walls. When I first started playing GarBots, too many bots hung out around the walls.
• Maz - Drives around and shoots randomly around the arena. It also tends to pick on things hanging out near walls.
• Path - A pool vacuum gave me the idea to create a robot that just drives in straight lines, killing things in front of it. It turns when it hits a wall. Sometimes it gets hung up near corners, but it usually gets out before dying.

Testing Robots

These are just simple robots that you can use to spruce things up or to help you out with finding information.

• Bugbot - Illustrates the FIRE bug. It just shoots off the screen and everyone dies.
• Count and Count2 - These work in conjunction to provide timing information. Replace the comment in Count with the code you want to test, then run Count and Count2 in a battle with the Battle Speed at 1. The last line you see is the amount of time the command took.
• Minimum Radius - Checks to see what radius truly can kill you. DAMAGERAD is just a bit too small when dealing with integer math. See the Code Snippets for my calculation.
• Moving Drone - Hmmm. A moving drone. Target practice.

Other “Open” Bots

The word “open” is in quotes because there’s really no protection for any bot, but these authors have intentionally published their bots’ source code for others to peruse.

• K-Drone - Emailed to the GarBots mailing list by cozmikforz. Provided here as a file so that nobody needs to actually type in the code by hand. Drives around and shoots. Very similar to Fleeter by Rudi.

Modified Bots

These are bots that I modified to run faster and be more aggressive. Some I also fixed a bit. The code is protected (as the originals were).

• Cruiser2 - Originally from Rudi’s Site. I combined multiple assignments and moved some math into the scan line.
• Death Tank 4 - Originally from the official site. I removed GOSUB functions and made the scan randomly pick its direction so it catches some robots that would otherwise have been missed.
• Fleeter 2 - Originally from Rudi’s Site. Very hard to improve on this little guy. I made it so that it couldn’t hurt itself, and I made the first shot come off a little faster.
• Lord of the Rings 2 - Originally from Rudi’s Site. A very nice robot. I made it avoid damaging itself, removed GOSUB functions, had it initially drive to its starting spot without starting in the center, and sped it up a bit. Excellent concept!
• Smack Down 2 - Originally from the official site. I removed the GOSUB functions and unnecessary assignments, and made the first shot fire faster.
• Sniper 2 - Originally from Rudi’s Site. I made it pick a random direction, removed the WHILE loop around the program, combined assignments, removed GOTOs (which were used like GOSUBs), and corrected the program so it assumes the target is on the other side if a sub-scan missed its mark. Works great against non-moving drones.

Even More Links

• Garbots Official Site - You have to go here.
• [Yahoo GarBots Group] - Some messages, some files, some links. Nothing too fancy, but you have to be a member before you can even see the message archive.

Unfortunately, Rudi’s site was taken offline.

Bugs

As much as I don’t want there to be any bugs in the program, there are a few. However, Scott told me that several of these will be addressed in the next release and more will be fixed later.

Scanning

Scan should scan a full radius, not just a triangle. I don’t care if the picture just shows a triangle; I want to actually scan the full distance. I submitted some code to do this, and it should be fixed in the next release.

Shooting

Shoot off the screen. Everyone dies. See “Bugbot.” The problem is fixed in the next release.

Random Numbers

The RAND function doesn’t work as expected. To counter the problem, I have a snippet of code in my Code Snippets section. This should be fixed in the next release after 1.4.1.

Damage Radius

This works fine when you shoot in a cardinal direction (N/S/E/W). If you fire at any other angle, you’re going to get hurt. This is due to integer math. To counter this problem, I have another snippet of code that will work for you. This should maybe get fixed in the code, so that bots that are 6.00001 away don’t get hurt. That just requires a better distance function, which I submitted.

Logic

It would be nice if >=, <=, and != (or <>) were supported. This should be implemented in the next release after 1.4.1.

Auto Off

Not only is there a spelling error next to the “Disable Auto Off” checkbox, but the checkbox also doesn’t work. Scott is working on this.

Editor

The editor only scrolls one line at a time. Additionally, the scroll bar is not updated properly after pasting in information, causing a headache when I paste in large amounts of code and then want to go to the end of the program. Scott is working on this. I also suggested an optional smaller font so that I could see more code on the screen.

Math Functions

SIN, COS, TAN, and ATAN are provided. It would be nice to have the rest of the inverse functions available as well. That way I could figure out how wide an area to scan based on DAMAGERAD. a = 2 * (INVSIN (DAMAGERAD / SCANRAD)). This may be implemented in the next release after 1.4.1.

Command Timing Mechanics

The game processes the robots in alphabetical order. Therefore, if your robot comes alphabetically before the other robots, you have an advantage. From there, each robot gets five ticks, for lack of a better term. A tick is like a second. It’s the smallest unit of measurable time that I found.

What	Ticks	Notes
Linefeeds	1	Try to avoid blank lines in your code.
Comments	0	Comments on the same line as code are good. A comment on its own line still counts against you.
FIRE	10	Maybe just shoot instead of scanning?
SCAN	10
PRINT	0	The only cost comes from a newline.
Assignments	0	The x = part of an assignment is free. It’s the other side that can cost you.
Calculations	1	5-7, 2*areax, 3 all cost the same.
WHILE, IF, FOR	1	IF x > 0 and IF x < 1 cost twice.
ELSE, NEXT, ENDIF	0	IF x > 0 ... ELSE ... costs only 1 for the IF.
Errors	1	Test your code thoroughly.
GOTO, Labels	1	Just having labels costs time.
GOSUB, RETURN	1	Better-structured code costs you time.
RTOP, PTOR	1	Conversion to/from polar costs time.
POSX(), POSY()	1
DAMAGE()	2	Nearly useless; see below.
DRIVE	5 + x	x is (distance / drivestep) rounded up.

Tips:

• If you want to return to the WHILE loop at the beginning of your program, you can optimize the loop by making a label at the beginning and then just GOTO the label at the end of the loop and wherever else you want to return to the beginning of the loop. It is better to skip logic entirely when possible.

• Conversion to/from polar coordinates costs time. Perhaps you can keep everything in one coordinate system instead of doing any conversion. Also, POSX and POSY are a bit expensive, so perhaps keep track of your position yourself. Maybe just move N/S/E/W to make the whole movement thing easier.

• Determining your damage is not worth your time. By the time you realize that you’re hit and your motor gets moving after the expensive startup cost of DRIVE, you’re likely to be hit again, and therefore dead. Also, since you can’t say if z < DAMAGE() to shorten things up, you’re stuck spending another couple ticks before you can realize that you’re hurting.

• Driving short distances is extremely spendy. For peak performance, I suggest driving a multiple of drivestep with each DRIVE command.

Each tank gets 5 ticks to do whatever it can, then the other tanks get their turns. If a command goes over your 5-tick boundary, it does get executed, but it will be a while before you can go again. Let’s say a FIRE command is the first line in your program. When your tank eventually gets control back, you will be able to run 4 PRINT commands or something of equal cost.

When figuring out the cost for a line, take 1 for the linefeed, plus the cost for whatever else is on that line.

A list of things that I have learned (via trial and error) is provided here for your amusement.

• Comments and functions are good, but use up time.
• Blank lines are your enemy.
• Good coding techniques are punished. Cut and paste instead of having functions.
• Having a counter to decide which way to scan works well, but it uses up time. Randomly picking a side to scan is faster.
• Using SCAN to cover an area is faster than trying to shoot the entire area.
• X and Y coordinates are great for driving and shooting, but polar coordinates don’t need to be converted.
• Damage extends past DAMAGERAD at non-cardinal angles.
• Shoot fast, shoot often.
• Two direct hits at the default settings will wipe out a robot.
• A lingering robot is a dead robot.

Code Snippets

' Code snippets -- Feel free to use.  Code is all under MIT license.

' Get a random 1 or 0 -- counters the RAND issue mentioned above
r = (rand 100) / 50

' Due to integer math, this is the closest you can fire
' at an arbitrary angle and not get damaged at all.
' I usually add one to this number, just in case.
' See Minimum Radius bot for proof
d = sqrt (2 * damagerad * damagerad)

' To use it, you can do something like this
s = scan (a - 10) (a + 10)
if s > 0 then
    f = fire a (max s d)
    while f > 0
        f = fire a (max s d)
    next
endif

' How to fire at robots.  A comparison.  The good way is
' just a little faster and a little safer.  Remember to
' remove comments in your program for the sake of speed.
' Bad way                ' Good way
a = rand 360             a = rand 360
b = a - 10               s = scan (a - 10) (a + 10)
c = a + 10               if s > 0 then
s = scan b c                 f = fire a (max damagerad s)
if s > 0 then                while f > 0
   f = s                        f = fire a (max damagerad s)
   while f > 0               next
      fire a s           endif
   next                  ' You can replace damagerad with d
endif                    ' if you use the snippet above