Code Invaders

1
Code Invaders

• All your code now belong to us
• Make your time

2
Whats An AI

• Alan Turing (1950)
• Turing Test
• Can computers think?
• "The question of whether a computer can think is
  no more interesting than the question of whether
  a submarine can swim. - Dijkstra
• What is an AI?

3
Lets Play Some Games

• Snakes and Ladders
• Battleships
• TicTacToe
• Checkers
• Chess
• Go

4
Your Mission should you choose to accept it

• Develop an AI for a ship
• Points for collecting energy
• Points for delivering energy to your home world
• Points Shooting the Enemy
• Evaluate current situation
• Perform an action given that situation
• The computer does not think

5
Lets Review

• What is AI?
• What is the Turing Test?
• Does Snakes and Ladders need AI?
• Does TicTacToe need AI?
• What are the steps in AI?

6
Setup

• Eclipse plugin
• CSB computers have Code Invaders installed
• Download Eclipse and plugin
• www.eclipse.org
• http//slammer.cs.dal.ca/cjordan
• CodeInvaders zip file
• Unzip into plugin directory
• Does not work on Mac

7
Getting Started

• Start Eclipse
• File -gt New -gt Project
• Other -gt Game Project
• Select Code Invaders
• Name your project
• Select a directory for your workspace
• U drive, USB stick

8
Ok Rookies, Lets take off

• This is a fresh install
• Your ship does nothing
• Select games.xml
• Name your ship and organization
• Add yourself
• Run
• Escape quits early
• Each match runs for a set number of turns
• 1200

9
Move Your Zig

• Every turn your ships move method is called
• src -gt default package -gt MySpaceShip.java
• You can put all your code in move(int)
• this.setThrust(SpaceShip.MAX_THRUST)
• Run again
• double target this.getHeadingTo(this.getHomePlan
  et())
• this.turnToHeading(target)
• Run again

10
Some Documentation

• Help -gt Help Contents -gt CodeInvaders -gt
  CodeInvaders Manual
• Use the Eclipse auto help
• this.
• Wait
• See the info box?

11
Some Ship Functions

• fire() - fires a shot at current heading
• pulse() - pulse wave is fired
• setShieldUp() - rises shield for 30 turns
• getDistanceTo(IObject) - distance to object
• setRotationThrust(double) - turning speed
• beamEnergy() - beam energy to planet
• beamEnergy(IShip) - energy to ship
• getMyDrones() - an array of your drones

12
The World

• World.getOtherShips() - array of ships
• World.getOtherDrones() - array of drones
• World.getEnergySources() - array of energy source
• World.getBullets() - array of bullets
• World.getPulses() - array of pulses

13
Fighting Other Ships

• Add other sample ships
• Run a server
• Window -gt Preferences -gt Games -gt Start
• Other people can now submit ships to your server
• games.xml -gt Game Server
• Server host name your computer
• Submit Code
• Add other peoples ships
• Run

14
Designing your AI

• Evaluate game conditions
• Like TicTacToe!
• if (Chris is awesome)
• give him good evaluation
• else if (class boring)
• beat Chris
• else if (confused)
• rise hand
• if (sleepy)
• drink coffee

15
Another layer of complexity

• Droids
• Same capabilities as your ships
• Stores less energy
• Smaller
• You have 3 of them
• Counters
• Declare them in your MySpaceShip class
• Initialize them in initialize()
• Use them in move()

16
Someone set us up the bomb

• Term Project
• Report
• Explain your strategy
• Explain different conditions you test for
• Explain different actions you perform
• Explain what priorities you have
• Code
• Comment each code block
• if/else
• while
• for
• Any complex chunk of code
• Demo

17
For Great Justice

• You will fight the Wong-a-tor
• Victors will get a 5 Bonus Mark
• You will fight each other
• Winner has lunch with the Dean