scootbattlebots

Robocode Battle Bots, in Kotlin

This repo contains robots for the programming battling game Robocode.

Started way back in 2001, Robocode was built to teach Java using a fun 2D bot battling game. Turns out it can be hacked and dented a little bit so bots can be written in Kotlin.

Note: the instructions below use Java 8, but it works with Java 12 and maybe ought to be using that.

Setup

• Install Intellij + JDK (if you actually need to)

  • Download IntelliJ Community
  • brew tap adoptopenjdk/openjdk
  • brew cask install adoptopenjdk/openjdk/adoptopenjdk8
  • Set up jenv for managing multiple JVM versions
  • jenv add /path/to/jdk8 (should be /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-8.jdk/Contents/Home)

• Install Robocode

  • Download latest setup jar (not the testing jar)
  • Install to a directory of choice (I used ~/code/kotlin/robocode)

• Clone this repo (you can create an IntelliJ project directly from the GitHub link)

• File > Project Structure

  • Modules on left side

    • Sources tab

      • Delete the default sources folder (src/)
      • Make sure the bots/ folder is added as a source folder instead (You should see it listed in blue on the right)

    • Dependencies tab

      • Make sure you have the KotlinJavaRuntime as a dependency
      • Click the plus sign at bottom left, choose JARs and add <robocode install dir>/libs/robocode.jar

• You should now be able to build the project

  • Build > Build Project or CMD + F9

If your bot import robocode.*, and you subclass either Robot or AdvancedRobot, IntelliJ autocompletion will work for all the Robocode classes and methods, which is pretty cool. See /bots/src for examples. Sourcecode sportsmanship applies!

Running

• Launch the Robocode game itself by running <robocode install dir>/robocode.sh
• Options > Preferences > Development options tab
• Click Add and navigate to the battlebots repo (NOT the Robocode installation directory) and add out/production/scootbattlebots to the classpath
• Battle > New or CMD+N to start a new battle. You should see your bots and others' in the packages on the left.
• Add and remove contenders to the Selected Robots on the right
• The Rules tab will let you change the battlefield size and other various constants, such as the total number of rounds for the battle.
• Hit the Start Battle button at the bottom

Keep Going

• API Docs
• a series of tutorials (feel free to skip to #2)
• The Robocode Wiki, but it might be down?