Networkable real-time game simulation for 'Aim High'! test it out now

FIRST General Forum
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Hello folks. I’ve created a game simulation that should allow teams to practice some amount of Aim High tactics using 2 computers and a crossover cable. They can create their own robots with their own catch rates, score rates, firing rates, movement/rotation speeds and acceleration rates. The robots can all have multiple modes that can affect how they perform.

Each driver controls a robot. For each computer:
Driver 1:
WASD: Forward/back/turn left/turn right
Left Ctrl: Fire ball (assumes turret always faces target)
Left Alt: change modes

Driver 2:
Arrows: Forward/back/left/right
Right ctrl: Fire ball (assumes target always face target)
Right alt: change modes

Driver 3:
Numpad 8/4/5/6: forward/left/back/right
Numpad enter: Fire ball
Numpad Plus: change modes

Human player:
Left click: change current robot target (I wasn’t aware of the hail mary cross-arena scoring throws when I did the human player. I will have to go back and re-code that section)
**Right click: ** Throw ball. If it hits the targeted robot, you’ll see the ball count go up. Otherwise, the ball appears in the arena.

Starting a ‘local’ match:
If you just want to see the game without amassing 6 people, you can start two instances of it (start GrandUnified.exe twice) and have each of them start a new game with the IP 127.0.0.1.

Starting a game:
Go game->new game. Enter the IP of the computer you want to join to. Choose your alliance robots with the arrow keys (I’m not sure why those combo boxes don’t work), and choose your team. Press go when you’re ready. If you don’t build your own robots in the editor, then just know this: Tinybot sucks, Hugebot is pretty awesome.

Beginning the match:
Once both players have started their clients, the one that says ‘paused’ can hit spacebar to start the match. If you never get beyond ‘connectwait’ then someone has a firewall or someone got the other guy’s IP wrong. To find out your IP, go to start->run->cmd. Type ipconfig. The line labelled IP address is the one you want.

Editing robots:
This should be pretty self explanatory. Don’t bother with turret rotation speed or turret rotation limits, as they aren’t actually implemented in the game. Don’t forget to put your acceleration in.

If anyone has any features they want added, I may be willing depending on the complexity. Right now, my priority will be to actually implement rules, free-throwing human players, and maybe make it a bit prettier.

http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~ahare/Release.rar win RAR’d version.http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~ahare/game.zip NEW zipped version in case winRAR killed your grandma or something

gameInProgress.png
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gameInProgress.png
gameInProgress.png1095×602 43.7 KB

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What does it open in?

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WinRAR. Get it here: http://www.rarlabs.com/rar/wrar351.exe

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Has anyone been able to get this working? I’m worried I didn’t include things and it won’t start or something.

Here’s a zipped version in case people dislike .rar files:
http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~ahare/game.zip

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Is there an accuracy functionality for the always facing turrets?

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Yeah, the value you enter in the editor under ‘score %’ DOES affect their in-game performance. The only thing not implemented is the rotating. It’s not really meant to be a driver-training simulator, but rather something to give a general answer to tactics questions like “if we’re against 3 really good robots with two weak alliance partners, how can we win this?”

Score % is the line in the editor that affects their ball-scoring ability.

Here’s some tips on the editor:

+/- buttons

  1. It’s meant to also be used as a scouting tool so you can possibly get data on others robots while watching them in a match. If you click on the ‘+’ and ‘-’ buttons, it is the same as saying “ball went in” and “ball missed”, and it will adjust the scoring % (or ball catch %) accordingly. So if you see their human player toss a ball at the robot and miss, you should press ‘-’. If you see him toss a ball and the robot catches it, you should press ‘+’. Similarely for the robot shooting. Note that all percentages are between 0 and 1. If you screw it up and want to start over from scratch, press the ‘reset aids’ button and it will reset the internal counters to zero.

Aid buttons
2. The aid buttons will open another window that will allow you to estimate robot speed by clicking a start position on the field, and clicking an end position a few seconds later. It will calculate and display the velocity that a robot would need to move between those locations. The angular velocity calculator is harder to use. Basically, you draw a line indicating a robot’s current heading relative to the field, then draw another one indicating its heading a few seconds later. It will calculate the angular velocity in deg/s and display it for you. Obviously this won’t be very accurate because it’s hard to guess when a robot will start turning, but it should give you a lower-bound for robot rotational speed.

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I could not get it to work, maybe its my computer or something.

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What happens when you try to start it? Nothing? Does it whine about missing portions?

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I only get the files and the images for the game.

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So there isn’t a GrandUnified file in the zip? It might be getting hidden by an overzealous antivirus program that’s trying to protect you from random .exes, but that’s really my only guess.

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GrandUnified is in the zip but I just get the images and what not. I unzip all the files and thats what I get.

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Worked for me, just use the zip file in Bongle’s post and extract everything to a folder on the desktop. Basically a rehash of the instructions he gave but I’ll try to explain every step. (1)In the folder should be the .exe run it and (2)under game click new game then (3)in the menu that pops up make sure to pick a robot for each team and a team color. The drop-down menus don’t work so you have to click on them then use the up and down arrows to select the robot type, either Hugebot or Tinybot and just use the default ip address to start. Once all the sections are filled in start another instance of the program by clicking on the .exe again and following steps 1 through 3 but make sure to pick the team color you didn’t pick when you made the first team. The field should be displayed and just hit space to start playing. The keyboard controls are in Bongle’s post and everything worked so far (haven’t tried network play yet). Hope that helps.

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