One Request?

What are you wanting in the output.txt?

umm, something like:

{Name of Winning bot} {Health of Winning bot}\n
{Name of Losing Bot} {Health of Losing Bot}\n
[EDIT}{Timeinsecondsofmatch}\n
\0
    

or even, If winning is based purely on health:

{Bot1name} {Health}\n
{Bot2name} {Health}\n
[EDIT}{Timeinsecondsofmatch}\n
\0
    

Basically, something so we can just evaluate the performance of a bot. Oh, also it might be handy (Though not so important) to be able to set the seed for the random arena, so we can run the same one each time (Also very useful for debugging purposes)
[Edit] time of the match at the end could also be useful, For bots that win quicker.

Thanks!

[edited by - Xgkkp on July 17, 2003 3:17:00 PM]

[edited by - Xgkkp on July 17, 2003 4:21:22 PM]

Being able to seed the arena would be nice, you could perform the same test cycle as many times as needed to work out kinks in the AI/navigation logic.

so, like

gdarena -seed 1234352 -nographics gdarenaxxx.ini output.txt
 

I feel so dirty asking other people for things, I keep thinking I should do stuff myself :D

Ok, the only problem with the nographics part is that while you may not get graphics, you are still going to have to run the matches in full realtime. I've tried tweaking some values to do fast forwarding, but I really never intended to have FF, so the results are very strange and definitely not correct. And before saying it shouldn't be a problem, just keep in mind that the current state of the arena is far more than I ever intended it to be (believe it or not), and so the design is very.. well, bad because I kept adding things. It doesn't allow for many additions or fancy features in its current state (hence the desire to redesign it).

Otherwise, I believe the output file and arena random seeding can be done.

Well, No graphics in same time is fine, beacuse It uses less system resources so you could potentially run more than one at the same time, and it could also be run on slower machines.

being able to run the arena in fast forward mode would be great but if your implementation does not allow it... never mind then.

the point in disabling graphics is that you can loop the arena in the background while still being able to work on the pc without the graphcis window flashing in every three minutes..
uhm... well, and it might run on systems with graphics issues then.. but you won't see what your bot is actually doing, so there's no point anywhere

[edited by - LagRange on July 17, 2003 4:15:51 PM]

quote:

---

Original post by LagRange
and it might run on systems with graphics issues then.. but you won't see what your bot is actually doing, so there's no point anywhere

---

Perhaps for debugging, but for evolving genetic algorithm bots it could be useful to set a load of old computers working on it so you can still use your main pc.

Oh, and I added to the output list thing the idea of time taken/remaining.


[edited by - Xgkkp on July 17, 2003 4:23:53 PM]

I think it''s far more important to see what the bot is actually doing, ie. ability to dodge, get around obstacles, find the other bot, etc, rather than just the final outcome.

that definetley depends on your approach to implement the ai..

Maybe he should just release the source code so you can make whatever changes you want...

Wait. Forget the sarcasm. It would make teaching my nueral nets a hell of a lot easier if I could just muck about in the arena code. :D

Sure, just teach your nn how to mess around in "The Matrix"