R100K Software Challenge

[MongooseMan]

Does the board always start empty?

Yes, apart from you and your opponent, considering:

2. How are the walls created?
Walls are left behind on top of any vertices in which your light cycle travels.

Do the players always start at the same locations?

No

10. How will the start positions be decided? Will the controlling program decided the positions (fixed or random?), or would we be presented with an empty board and we could choose our own starting points ?
We will supply the starting positions as part of the initial board. This may be assumed to be random.

Source: http://challenge.entelect.co.za/Home/FAQ

[Viat]

think of the board as a donut rather.

The board's a sphere actually -- hence the wrapping on the horizontal dimensions and the going over the poles

[pookfuzz]

The board's a sphere actually -- hence the wrapping on the horizontal dimensions and the going over the poles

Bleh. looks like you are right. Somewhat idiotic board layout. but whatever I guess.

[EtienneK]

Hi guys, just a quick comment:

It's not actually a sphere, it's an ellipsoid, since the vertical is longer than the horizontal. See my explanation here: http://www.makegamessa.com/discussio...4#Comment_1274

[Solitude]

Hey guys

I've put together a test harness for your bots (.net). You can download the project from http://flowgearcoder.net/2012/07/27/...e-bot-harness/

Very nice! That will help people a lot.

[flowgearcoder]

Hey guys

I've put together a test harness for your bots (.net). You can download the project from http://flowgearcoder.net/2012/07/27/...e-bot-harness/

[Faultyboy]

Hey guys

I've put together a test harness for your bots (.net). You can download the project from http://flowgearcoder.net/2012/07/27/...e-bot-harness/

Very cool thank you.

[gkm]

Hi guys, just a quick comment:

It's not actually a sphere, it's an ellipsoid, since the vertical is longer than the horizontal. See my explanation here: http://www.makegamessa.com/discussio...4#Comment_1274

I do not think it is worth paying too much attention to the shape, just to the valid moves and how they get limited by the two bots. I also think a cylinder is probably the closest match, since there is effectively just one position at the top and bottom and the rest are all the same length round.

[Entelect]

Hey guys

I've put together a test harness for your bots (.net). You can download the project from http://flowgearcoder.net/2012/07/27/...e-bot-harness/

Thank you flowgearcoder, i'm sure this will add tremendous value to the community involved in the challenge! I've been really impressed with the uptake on this and the community's willingness to help each other out.

Just an FYI, we'll be putting up the official online test harness within the next 2 weeks. You will be able to upload your .zip solution to the challenge website and watch a real-time simulation of your player against a reference player which we have created. If there are any problems with your solution's compilation or execution process, you will be notified of that immediately. You will also be made aware of any invalid moves that are attempted etc.

It's a pretty cool HTML 5 3D visualisation - can't wait to get it up! Really looking forward to seeing your entries in action. If you guys aren't yet subscribed, drop us a mail to challenge@entelect.co.za with 'Subscribe me' in the subject line and we'll put you on. Aside from keeping track of who will be entering, we'd also like to keep you updated with new FAQ's, clarifications on any of the rules, milestones i.e test harness deployment etc.

We're hoping to have an 'open evening' just before the tournament begins. An excuse for a bit of a party really and an opportunity for you to meet the people you'll be up against Hopefully will be seeing some of the mybroadband folk there.

Tim

[MongooseMan]

I've sent you a PM and an email and haven't had a response yet...

[EtienneK]

I do not think it is worth paying too much attention to the shape, just to the valid moves and how they get limited by the two bots. I also think a cylinder is probably the closest match, since there is effectively just one position at the top and bottom and the rest are all the same length round.

It is pretty important since it'll influence your heuristics.

[flowgearcoder]

@Tim good to hear about the official harness, I look forward to seeing it! I figured my harness would be useful anyway because you can step through your code in VS which won't be possible in your hosted harness.

[gkm]

It is pretty important since it'll influence your heuristics.

Yes, I guess it can influence your strategy. For my program, in the beginning I tried to exploit the shape, but had more luck with pure heuristics. It is very hard to "own space", because the other player can just go round the back. So, for the moment, until I maybe have some good idea, the weird shape at the poles just slow down my heuristics calculations, because of all the extra for loops and if's needed to handle that.

I am dying to see if somebody else finds a good way to exploit the shape, but I have not found any way yet. The fact that the shape "breaks" some of the standard heuristics do make the challenge more interesting I guess.

[gkm]

I am curious, what is everybody using to develop their bot. I considered both C# and Java, but because it is running on Windows, I settled on C#.

Anybody else maybe please want to share which language are they using? Maybe even something more unusual than C# or Java?

And how big is your program? Mine ends up in a 13KB zip file and the compiled exe is 17KB. And at least half of that is just test code not used in the running bot. It worries me a bit that it is so small.

[pookfuzz]

Yes, I guess it can influence your strategy. For my program, in the beginning I tried to exploit the shape, but had more luck with pure heuristics. It is very hard to "own space", because the other player can just go round the back. So, for the moment, until I maybe have some good idea, the weird shape at the poles just slow down my heuristics calculations, because of all the extra for loops and if's needed to handle that.

I am dying to see if somebody else finds a good way to exploit the shape, but I have not found any way yet. The fact that the shape "breaks" some of the standard heuristics do make the challenge more interesting I guess.

Based on my initial tests using a smaller board sizes and fully exploring all possible game results the poles are important, if a player can reach a pole first they almost always can win. Also the distance between the starting locations of the players seems to impact who can win depending on who gets to move first as well as if the board is even or odd sized. I can only assume the poles give an advantage because they offer more move choices.

I am starting to think the winning bot will be the one with the most interesting evaluation functions, Ive tried the standard heuristics usually used in tron such as battlefronts/voronoi spaces rooms with chokepoints, monte carlo, annealing, zobrist(this not a heuristic, just a speedup method) and they just seem really expensive and don't seem to help that much. Of course the winning bot could also be the one that managed to implement a long term strategy which has a payoff late in the game (beyond the calc depth of the opponent).

I had initially thought this writing a tron bot would be bit dull, but its actually been quite fun so far. Getting to dredge the memory for things almost forgotten and also learning a few new interesting things so far. I doubt my bot will get anywhere but its been worth the effort just to re-learn a whole bunch of stuff.