Poll

league-options

Scap old SB-league.
6 (14.6%)
Invent new SB-league.
4 (9.8%)
Fuse F1 and F2.
3 (7.3%)
Invent efficienty-league.
5 (12.2%)
Veggie-league.
3 (7.3%)
Blind-bots league.
5 (12.2%)
new F3. (if F1 and F2 fuse, F2)
6 (14.6%)
Zerobot-league.
3 (7.3%)
Dog fighting-league.
4 (9.8%)
evo league(later added)
2 (4.9%)
Anyone who comes with a clever idea, click here.
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 10

Author Topic: Overall league thoughts  (Read 35595 times)

Offline Moonfisher

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 592
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #120 on: December 13, 2008, 08:37:00 AM »
I'm told -1 shots bypass shell completely. So balancing shell and poison could be pretty tough.
It should atleast be cheaper to replenish shell than it is to remove it with -6 shots. Just not shure how much cheaper, since it provides no imunity to -1 shots it shouldn't be too expensive.

I'm not sure if poison absorbs -1 shots or just fires back poison with the energy shot.

If it doesn't absorb the shot then you're still fairly vulnerable even with poison, so I would make poison cheaper than shell.
If it does absorb the shot, then I think it should be more expensive than shell.

And I think the combined cost of shell and poison should be lower than the cost of removing both.
But I'm not sure if the combined cost should be cheaper than removing one side. I guess it depends on weather poison absorbs -1 shots...
In the end I think the combined costs should be more expensive than removing one side, since you only need to replenish the defences you loose to attacks.
Can't realy justify why I think it should be in that range. And I need to find out if poison absorbs -1 shots before thinking any further...
But it should be more expensive than it is now, expensive enough to make you think twice about how much you need, but cheap enough to be worth while.
So thats why I'm floating in that area...

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #121 on: December 13, 2008, 11:36:41 AM »
Quote from: Moonfisher
I'm told -1 shots bypass shell completely. So balancing shell and poison could be pretty tough.

That's correct.  There's a breakdown here.

Quote
It should atleast be cheaper to replenish shell than it is to remove it with -6 shots.

Not necessarily.  If you combine that cost with how much shell you can build a cycle max, there's a whole spectrum of different combat tactics.

Suppose that shell is way more expensive to build than it is to destroy using -6 shots.  It's still better for a bot to have shell than not, since it'll still last longer in a dogfight.  I don't think balancing cost to destroy vs cost to build is important.  Whatever the numbers are there are interesting tactics to play with, within reason.  I think the issue is more the relative cost of shell vs the relative cost of slime vs the relative cost of poison.  Those three need better balancing between each other.

Quote
I'm not sure if poison absorbs -1 shots or just fires back poison with the energy shot.

It fires back poison instead of the nrg shot.  The attacking bot has no way to know if the returning shot is nrg or poison until it gets hit.  The amount of poison (and thus the poison's duration) is related to how large the nrg shot would have been.  If there isn't enough poison, I believe all the available poison is used and still no nrg is returned (but I can't remember exactly).

Offline Moonfisher

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 592
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #122 on: December 20, 2008, 07:05:40 AM »
Thinking about it I agree... partialy...
If defences aere too cheap and theres no venom, ties or mem shots, then defences will be too powerfull and attacking won't be worth while (so hamstring would be the only way to win which would be kind of one sided).
On the other hand if shell costs more than taking a hit... then why bother making shell at all...
I'm leaning towards higher costs though, since you may loose more energy making the shell than by getting hit, but your oponent doesn't gain that energy, so you're helping your "team" at a slight cost...

In the end I think the costs should be very close but a litle more expensive than what you get.... I think...
Not sure about anything, but that's what seems to make most sence to me atm

Offline jknilinux

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 468
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #123 on: December 20, 2008, 03:24:24 PM »
Sorry, dumb question:

Why not just disallow shell and poison from the league as well? That way, there's no need to do all this balancing, etc...

Or, did that force contrived complexity? If so, then I'll be fine with keeping it and balancing.


Abyaly, peter, et al. -

Sorry I have always disagreed with you two. LOL!

So, are we still OK? I honestly do appreciate your feedback.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2008, 03:27:55 PM by jknilinux »

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #124 on: December 23, 2008, 12:56:06 AM »
That's the basis of F3.  I think it's valid to have offense countered with defensive abilities in general, though.  Right now it's a bit lame because you can effectively produce as much shell as you can want right at the moment when you need it, so the balancing of costs is so important.  But the core concept is sound.

Offline jknilinux

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 468
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #125 on: December 23, 2008, 01:09:28 PM »
But the more "canned" defenses you can just call on whenever you're in trouble, the less intelligent you have to be, right?
T. Rex was stupid, because you don't need brains when you have a jaw the size of a small tree..
We are smart, because you need to be smart when you are a hairless weakling trying to catch tigers.

So if we disallow shell and poison, then it might lead to more intelligent strategies for not being eaten than simply .mkpoison .
Although I agree that the idea is valid in general, so maybe I'm just forcing complexity here...

Offline Moonfisher

  • Bot Overlord
  • ****
  • Posts: 592
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #126 on: December 24, 2008, 08:54:20 AM »
If shell and poison are expensive enough it won't just be something you can use at your leasure, and it will give multicelular organisms and edge since they can share shell and poison.
Building shell and poison would be more expensive than the energy you can save by having it as a single organism, it would only serve to prevent the oponent from getting the energy.
I think it would be interesting to have resources that cells can share other than energy.

Offline jknilinux

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 468
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #127 on: December 27, 2008, 01:19:50 AM »
Oh OK. I'm all for it.

Would you guys like to start a new thread specifically for the shell/poison balancing discussion?

Offline ikke

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 300
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #128 on: December 27, 2008, 03:42:39 AM »
Quote from: jknilinux
Oh OK. I'm all for it.

Would you guys like to start a new thread specifically for the shell/poison balancing discussion?
Related thread

Offline jknilinux

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 468
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #129 on: December 29, 2008, 01:49:19 PM »
What settings ultimately worked best?

Offline ikke

  • Bot Destroyer
  • ***
  • Posts: 300
    • View Profile
Overall league thoughts
« Reply #130 on: December 29, 2008, 03:46:31 PM »
I couldn't get a league running under non F1 conditions, so I never made the numbers work. One of the reasons I've taken an interest in programming DB3...