by smiley1983 » Sat Nov 17, 2012 1:50 pm
I would not be discouraged by the lack of response here: these forums move very slowly when there is no contest happening.
If dismissive comments have been made in IRC, it simply means that people are wary of putting effort into writing code for a platform which is still under development.
From my perspective, there are three key things which would make the system much more attractive to use. These reflect my personal priorities, and are as follows:
1) Separating replays from game simulations. As it stands on my system, I can only run the simulations at proper speed with no display ("headless" mode). Clearly I need to see the replays of these games, since raw win/loss data is of little value by itself. I understand that you are already planning to have replays, so this point is just highlighting one thing stopping me from starting development immediately.
2) More game specification data. Movement speed, stopping delays, turning delays, defense vs attack vs charge delays - and since this data may be in flux, it should be passed to the bots as setup variables. I know this has been discussed on IRC already, and you have reasons for not wanting to provide this. Here is how I see it:
If you don't provide this data, or provide it in documentation only, the result is that values get hard-coded into the bots (in one way or another) and they become brittle, responding poorly to changes in the setup, unless the developer comes back and re-anneals the hard-coded values for the new situation. I'm disinclined to work on code when that's the future I see for it.
I understand that certain general principles and relationships are being maintained, and that this data is available. The problem is that the underlying game is a simulation, and the bots which perform best will often be the ones which judge the edge cases most accurately - this means you benefit from having the real data, and if it isn't provided, it creates an incentive to extract as much as you can from the engine through some sort of annealing process. This is processor-intensive and not fun at all.
3) Some assurance that the source code will be released at some point. Again just my personal priority, but I'm wary of putting effort into closed source endeavours, because their survival and future path is entirely dependant on the decisions of whoever owns the source. EDIT - this is not a promise to put work in if it does become open source, just stating that when the source is closed, it looks less appealing to work on.
I also imagine that placing a link to the forums in the header of the aisandbox website would help people find them, and see that there are people developing bots. Talk of future contest ideas would probably also get some attention.
I think the project is a great idea and shall be following its development. Interest will pick up over time; there were people discovering Ants after it was over, and disappointed to find that it was too late. Word spreads slowly in these parts, it seems.