Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education Department of Information Technology
Higher Diploma in Game Software Development (IT114107)
ITP4712
Year 2 Semester TWO (2017/2018)
Logical and Artificial Intelligence in Games ASSIGNMENT
Due Date: 6 April 2018 Robocode
Robocode is a Java programming game, where the goal is to develop a robot battle tank to battle against other tanks. The robot battles are running in real-time and on-screen. The motto of Robocode is: Build the best, destroy the rest!
In this assignment, you are required to build some Robocode robots to accomplish different tasks. You will also need to have a design document on each robot you made.
TASK 1
Applying a Forward-Chaining Rule-Based System
In the sample code, you are given a Robot that applies a forward chaining rule-based system for its action. The rule-based system consists of 43 major classes: Rule, Condition, RBS and ReadFileBotRBS. The first two classes are tedious – they just store the rule data and the condition information of the rules.
Condition class uses the constructor to get the information of the condition, while the name of the condition is stored as a String. The boolean variable in the class indicates whether the condition is to be in the fact list of the RBS. There are some get/set methods and other methods are for equality comparison and String conversion (for output).
Rule class has some add/set methods for inserting the rule data. The conditions are stored as an unordered Set. The rule can have two types of action – method call or fact removal, which is identified by the boolean variable actionType (true for method call / false for fact removal). The rules can be compared by referring to the rule name. Similar to Condition class, there are also some get methods and a String conversion (toString()) method.
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RBS class is the core of the forward chaining system. The abstract class has an unordered Set storing the known fact in the RBS, an ordered Set storing the rules read, and a Robot variable representing the robot under control so that action on the robot can be called. The two major methods of the system are:
- – readFile() method reads the text version of your rule set “rule.txt” and converts and stored them into RBS understandable rules in the RBS’ Rule Set. The file should be stored under the subfolder “<YourRobot>.data” where your Robot locates. In the example, the rule file is stored in “ReadFileRobot.data” under “asgn18” folder inside the robot directory.
- – evaluate() method is an abstract method intends to do the forward-chaining. The system will match the rules from the beginning to the end once according to the rule order (rule names’ alphabetical order). ALL rules matching the condition will be fired. The action will either be calling a method to control the corresponding robot, or remove a fact from the fact list. During the evaluation process, facts may be added or removed during when executing the call methods to the robot (e.g. scanTarget() and turnTank() inside ReadFileRobotRBS), or the methods inside your robot itself (e.g. onScannedRobot() inside ReadFileRobot).
- – There are other trivial methods for listing, adding and removing facts and rules; and also a resetRules() method to set all rules unfired so to prepare the system for next turn and a reset() method to reset all settings of the RBS.
ReadFileRobotRBS is a concrete class extending RBS abstract class that tailor-made for the sample robot ReadFileRobot. ReadFileRobot is essentially the RBS-driven version of the AdvancedNarrowBeam robot we have done during the lab.
The following is the rules for the ReadFileRobot:
- – R0: IF FACT TARGET_DEAD THEN UNSET TARGET_FOUND
- – R0A: IF FACT TARGET_DEAD THEN UNSET TANK_FOCUS
- – R0B: IF FACT TARGET_DEAD THEN UNSET GUN_FOCUS
- – R1: IF NOFACT TARGET_FOUND THEN CALL SCAN
- – R1A: IF FACT TARGET_FOUND THEN CALL LOCK_TARGET
- – R2: IF FACT TARGET_FOUND AND FACT TARGET_UPDATED AND NOFACT TANK_FOCUS THEN
CALL TURN_TO_TARGET
- – R3: IF FACT TARGET_FOUND AND FACT TARGET_UPDATED AND NOFACT GUN_FOCUS THEN
CALL TURNGUN_TO_TARGET
- – R4: IF FACT GUN_FOCUS THEN CALL SHOT
- – R5: IF FACT TANK_FOCUS THEN CALL MOVE_TO_TARGET
- – RX1: IF FACT TARGET_FOUND AND NOFACT TARGET_UPDATED THEN UNSET TARGET_FOUND
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Each rule begins with the rule name that ends with a colon (:). The condition part of the rule always begins with the keyword IF. Condition part may consist of one or more FACT(fact to be found in the fact list) or NOFACT(fact not to be found in the fact list). When there are more than one condition in this part, the conditions are linked together using the keyword AND.
The action part of the rule begins with the keyword THEN. There will only be one single action in a rule, which may indicate by the keyword CALL if it is a function call to the robot; or UNSET if it is a fact removal action.
Any syntax error in a rule set will induce an exception throw in the program.
After trying the given example, you are required to write your own set of rules and RBS to implement the lab’s AdvancedCircler which will have precise targeting and circle around the target robot.
Deliverables:
- – The rules for your RBS. Remember – order of the rules is important.
- – The java implementation (source code) of your RBS class, which will extend the given RBS
class; and the robot’s source code, with all other Java source code that you have written for this
robot.
- – A brief description on your facts and rules and how your methods inside the robot add/remove
the necessary facts during the process of evaluation.
TASK 2
Design a Robot as a Finite State Machine
In this task, you will need to model a robot using a finite state machine. Your robot should have at least FIVE different states apart from the initial state. You may divide the states into sub-states if you want to. Here are some state suggestions: Idle (starting state)
Finding Wall (approaching to the nearest wall to gain the best defence)
Wall Patrolling (move along the walls and shooting nearby targets)
Meleeing (attack nearby targets which are having low energy level)
Chasing (attack a single target when there is only very few enemies left in the field)You can add other states to improve your robot. Your robot will use its senses (radar or hit events) (i.e., onScannedRobot(),onBulletHit(), onHitByBullet() and etc.) and its own attributes (e.g., getBattleFieldWidth(), getBattleFieldWidth(), getX(), getY(), getOthers() and etc.) as the condition of state transition. Your robot needs to consider the current status of battlefield and other enemies to apply different strategies, such as, when to state away from others and when to apply melee. You may also need to apply guessing and/or calculation to make your robot more robust.
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Your current state can be stored as an instance variable. Try using switch case statement in your run() method. Each case represents the action for each state of your robot. The state transition should be triggered by the onXXX() methods and/or inside your run() method when you are checking your robot’s status.
Deliverables:
- – A diagram representing the state transition of the robot.
- – A brief description of the states and transition.
- – The robot’s java file. You should try your best to implement the robot as the state machine
designed by yourself. Marks will be deducted if the robot does not implement as designed.
TASK 3
Design a Robot to Fight with your Classmates
In this task, you are free to use whatever approach to implement your robot. The ultimate goal is to defeat all other robots made by your classmates to earn bonus. If you do not have enough time to implement this part in your project, you may use the same robot in Task 1 or 2; but make sure you have renamed the robot and the package before you hand in.During the battle with your classmates, sampleSentry.BorderGuard robots will be added into the battle mix. These BorderGuards will try to locate and attack the robots located in the sentry border area (default size: 100 pixels from the walls). Robots outside the sentry border area will not get any HP reduction even if it is hit by the BorderGuard bullets. On the other hand, your robots will not get any bonus HP by hitting these BorderGuards. To avoid wasting HP on attacking BorderGuards, you should use the method isSentryRobot()in ScannedRobotEvent class to check if the scanned enemy is a BorderGuard and you should skip attacking it. Also, you may like to keep away from the border area – to check the width of the border area, you can use getSentryBorderSize()inside your Robot class.
Deliverables:
The robot’s java file. You can have any reasonable name for your robot, but the name of the package of your robot must be your s+studentID, e.g., “s171819201”. If you need to have other supporting classes to run your robot, you also need to submit the source code of such files, under the same “s+studentID” package.
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Instructions to Students
- The weighting of this assignment is 40% of Continuous Assessment.
- This assignment is an individual assignment and each student has to submit his/her own work.
Plagiarism is a serious offence and any assignments that involve any plagiarism will be given ZERO marks. The award of Zero marks will apply to all parties, regardless of whether or not a student is the original author or the plagiarist. Further disciplinary action will follow.
- All work is to be submitted through Moodle on or before 9:00 am on Friday 6 April 2018. Late submission without valid reasons may be given ZERO marks.
- You must use J2SDK 1.7.0 or above and Robocode 1.9.3 to develop the programs.
- Your programs must follow the coding standard stated in Java coding standard published by Sun
Microsystems. Marks will be deducted if the coding standard is not followed.
- You are required to hand in your deliverables in different tasks following these instructions:
- Each task should have its own folder (Task 1, Task 2, and sXXXXXXXX, where XXXXXXXXX is your student ID).
- In each folder, it should contain the robot Java source code (the robot itself and all supporting class you have written) and a Word document containing the written report as described in each task (for Tasks 1 and 2 only).
- The three folders should be zipped into a single zip file and submit to Moodle.
- You must have one individual robot for each of your tasks; even if you want to use your
robot in Task 1 or 2 to join the competition in Task 3.
- Students who do not have the folder for any task will be considered as forfeiting the mark
for that task.
7. Marks: Task 1
Task 2
Task 3
(You will get some marks even you lost all battles)
Total
40 marks 10 marks
10 marks 10 marks 10 marks
20 marks
100 marks
Rule/Fact Design and Description RBS Implementation
Robot Coding
Implementation Accuracy
Design and documentation
Implementation (need to match with design)
Efficiency (Are the strategies used efficient in killing others while keeping oneself alive?)
Fighting against classmates’ robots
40 marks 10 marks
20 marks 10 marks
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