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Technical FAQ

This page contains frequently asked questions about running the robocraft software, writing a player, or clarifications about the contest specifications. For a general FAQ about 6.370, please refer to the General FAQ.

Some questions that we receive result in clarifications being added to the spec. See the ChangeLog each time a new version comes out to see if your question has been addressed.

If you can't find an answer to your question online, see Getting Help.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Gameplay

Software


Gameplay

How do I spawn my first Bomber?

Once you have two Falcons, you can use transferEnergon to give one of them enough energon to spawn a Bomber.

Can Sentries and Falcons really not attack diagonally?

Correct. Diagonally adjacent squares have a Euclidean distance of sqrt(2), which is outside the attack range of these robots (which is 1). This means that when facing diagonally these robots can only attack themselves. Note, however, that the dependence of attack ranges on the direction a robot is facing is simply a way of requiring robots to turn towards the direction in which they wish to attack.

Some robots can't attack themselves. What if I want them to self-destruct?

Your robot explodes instantly if its VM terminates. There are three ways to accomplish this:

  • Return normally from RobotPlayer.run() (using program logic)
  • Throw an uncaught exception
  • Call System.exit()

Software

What version of Java should I use to compile my players?

The supported version of the JDK is 1.4.2. Java compilers that target the 1.5 runtime libraries may produce class files that refer to classes not supported by the RoboVM.