Welcome to the galaxy-wide family of Ctec Combat Robot owners. We trust that your Ctec Combat Robot will bring you many hours of safe and fun robot combat. Ctec robots are designed to be easy to use while maintaining the reliability, survivability, and damage potential you expect from a Combat Robot.

To ensure your satisfaction with this robot, we encourage you to familiarize yourself with the equipment descriptions, operating instructions, and programming guides in this manual. We also urge you to observe all safety protocols while programming, running, or recovering your Combat Robot. PLEASE DO NOT OPERATE A COMBAT ROBOT WHILE UNDER THE INFLUNENCE OF ALCOHOL, MEDICATION, OR ANY OTHER IMPAIRMENT.

In the past (barbaric times) it was common for disagreements between individuals, nations, and worlds to be solved by having the life forms on both sides kill each other. These brutal conflicts resulted in countless lives being lost and billions of credits worth of resources being wasted. An untold number of species have been removed from the galaxy due to this type of behavior.

If one of these hostile species had a high enough technology they often created robots that could be used to fight in their place. This saved lives on the side that owned robots but increased the loss of life for those who did not. If both planets were advanced enough they would both use robots to fight each other. This greatly reduced the loss of life on both sides but the damage to the surrounding environment and economy was just as great.

This went on for many cycles until eventually the Galactic Trade & Warfare Organization, which at that time was known only as the Galactic Trade Organization, decided that the loss of resources in these conflicts was adversely effecting the galactic economy. They imposed strict rules and guidelines on how conflict could be handled. Under the new rules both side would enter into an agreement in which each side would create one robot that would compete against a single robot created by the other side. The fight would take place in a specially sanctioned arena on a neutral world. The winner of the fight would win whatever was agreed on and the loser was allowed a temporary immunity to any conflict.

This solution became extremely popular among the ‘civilized’ planets (planets refusing to solve their conflicts in this manner are considered ‘dangerous’ and are quarantined from the rest of the galaxy). Once the Galactic Net (GNet) was instituted, live feeds from robot matches quickly became the second most viewed material on it (right after "mating rituals"). With on-site betting, tourism, and ticket sales, hosting a match on your planet was a great source of income. The matches became so popular that many planets would ‘make up’ disagreements with each other just to create a match to broadcast. To reduce the number of made up conflicts, the Galactic Trade & Warfare Organization started a special ‘training branch’ of robot conflict, thus the Robotic Combat League was created and Robot Combat became an official sporting event.

Your Ctec combat robot comes complete with all the weapons, sensors, and power sources necessary to compete in competitions. The only thing missing is the set of instructions (called a script) used to pilot the robot in combat. When competing in a "fixed chassis" type competition each robot must conform to one of a few select body types. This means that the scripting in each robot, not the hardware, determines the winners from the losers.

To get you started we have included a couple of basic prewritten scripts for your robot to run. You can start experiencing robot combat immediately by loading a couple of these scripts into your robots and starting a match (see "Entering your Combat Robot" below). You can also use these scripts to form the basis of your own combat robot (see "Programming Your Robot" below).

Due to the banning of physical conflict throughout most of the civilized galaxy, most Combat Robots are used only in arena sporting event. Robot Combat Arenas (RCAs) allow for maximum enjoyment of Combat Robots with minimal adverse effects on the surrounding world environment.

To enter your robots into an arena match simply launch the "GArena Launcher" (GAL) and select the two robot AIs from the pre-built AI folder (or a folder of your choice). Once the AIs are selected, press "Launch Game" and the program takes care of the rest.

Due to the popularity of Arena Robot Combat, the distance of the arena from your home world, and the possible incompatibilities of the atmosphere, the best way to watch your robot fight is by viewing the live GNet camera feed of the match in the comfort of your own habitat. The GArena Launcher will automatically switch you to the GNet camera feed when you send your robots to the RCA.

When a match begins you will be given the default view for that arena (normally an arena camera view) and maybe one or more "sub-windows" that can be receive feed from other views.

Controlling the Cameras

You can change the main camera view to one of six cameras.

By pressing the ‘1’ or ‘2’ keys you will receive the "in robot" view for robot #1 or #2. This is normally one of the more exciting views in the game (depending if the robot is on the giving or receiving end of most of the damage) but it is often hard to get the "big picture" of the match from this view.

By pressing the ‘3’ or ‘4’ keys you will receive the "follow robot" view for robot #1 (3) or #2 (4). These views places you in a camera pod that is programmed to float behind the robot. It combines the excitement of the "in robot" view while allowing you a better sense of what is going on around the robot.

The ‘5’ key switches to one of the many Arena Cameras located in fixed positions around the arena. These cameras are programmed to follow both robot competitors during the match. If both robots do not fit into view, the camera will pick the closest robot to focus on.

The Arena Camera is unique in that it is actually more than one camera. All the cameras are stored in a list, with the last camera in the list pointing to the first camera. If you are already using the Arena Camera view, pressing the ‘5’ key again will switch you to the next camera in the list. Continue pressing this key until you find the view you like.

The Free Camera is very different from the other camera in that you control the view. By pressing the ‘TAB’ key you will create a new camera at the current camera location. You can move this camera with the mouse. The left button moves the camera forward, the right mouse button moves backwards, and moving the mouse itself controls the pan and tilt of the camera.

Zooming

You can zoom the camera in and out by pressing the ‘Z’ (zoom in) and ‘X’ (zoom out) keys. Each press of the key doubles or halves the zoom factor of the main camera.

Sub-views

You can display 0-4 "sub-view" windows at the bottom of the main view window. Sub-views allow you to monitor multiple views at once, and switch freely between these views. Note: you can only change the camera type of the main view window, to change a sub-view camera you need to swap it with the main view.

To activate a sub-view, press one of the keys corresponding to that sub-view’s window. The keys ‘Q’,’W’,’E’, and ‘R’ active corresponding sub-views. If the sub-view is already active, pressing its corresponding key will swap that view with the main view. For example, if I press ‘Q’ when the far left’s sub-view is visible than that sub-view’s view becomes the main view’s view (and the main view’s view becomes the sub-view’s view).

To deactivate a sub-view, press and hold the "Ctrl" key and tap the corresponding sub-view’s key.

During the match you can track each of the robots’ vital statistics by reading their "Robot Status" information on the main view screen. The display on the left side of the screen is for robot #1; the right side display is for robot#2. The following information will be present:

The red bar beneath both the ammo counters shows graphically how much time is left until the weapon is reloaded (black > 10 seconds, full red  = reloaded).

At the bottom center of the screen, above the current camera view label, you will find the message line. This will tell you the last significant event to happen in the match. Don’t worry if you miss an event because the next event happed right afterwards, a log of all events is saved to your computer ("gamelog.txt") so you can view them at your leisure. The event message includes a "time stamp" showing the second that an action happened.

Domain Zones
There are three 'domain zones' in the Arena. One zone is located at the center of the map; the other two are located at the robot's starting positions. Zones can be owned by either robot or be neutral. The zone will glow in the color of its owner (red for the red robot, blue for the blue robot, or green if currently neutral).

Claiming a Zone
When the center of a robot enters a 'domain zone' that it does not currently own, the ownership of that zone is passed to it (noted by a change to that robot's color). The zone will remain under control of that robot until the end of the match or until another robot touches it.

Note: If two robots are touching the same domain zone, the one closest to the center gains/retains ownership of that zone. In other words, you can maintain absolute ownership of a game zone by parking your robot dead center in a zone (but this will leave the other two zones open).

Why Claim Zones?
So why are zones important? In some contests, ownership of the zones will help decide which robot wins a match. Destruction is normally still the number one goal but zone ownership is often used as a tiebreaker if both robots finish the match. See the contest rules for more details.

But, perhaps even more important, is that zone ownership is used to calculate the damage multiplier.

Domain Zones Damage Multiplier:
A robot's weapons damage output is modified by the number of zones that robot currently owns. This is know as a "Damage Multiplier" and is calculated as follows:
     0 zones: 0.5 * damage
     1 zone: 1.0 * damage
     2 zones: 2.5 * damage
     3 zones: 5.0 * damage!!!

Using this information, you can see why owning zones can make a big difference in winning or losing a match!

Code to Help You Find a Claim Zones:
To help your robot find and claim zones, the following variables have been added:
qZone_own[3];   // 1 if you own it, 0 if not owned, -1 is opponent owns it
zone_dist[3];   // distance (in quants) from you to a zone
zone_angle[3];  // angle to face this zone.

Note: each zone related variable is a vector with 3 elements (0,1, & 2). Element 1 & 2 relate to the zones located at the starting points of robot #1 and #2. Element 0 is the zone in the center of the arena.

You can use this information in your code to find out which zones you do not own, and then move to claim them.

Example:
// if we don't own the center zone...
if(qZone_own[0] <= 0)
{
    // move to the center zone
    value7 = ang(zone_angle[0] - my_rot_vec.pan);
    FUNC_ONE();
}

Since robots come pre-built, with all the weapons and armor included, the only thing that distinguishes one robot from another is its programming. The winners are separated from the losers by the skill of the robot’s programming alone. Luckily for you we made programming your Ctec robot as easy as possible.

We will look at one of the simple prebuilt AI scripts example.gs. You can find this script in your "rscript" folder and open it with any text editor (i.e. Notepad). Open up this script now and follow along as we go through the steps of programming your robot. If you find a variable or command you want to know more about a complete list can be found in Appendix A: AI Commands and Variables.

The first thing you will encounter when you view the robot script is a ‘user comment’:

// Example Robot Number 1

You will see comment blocks throughout the script. They are used by the scriptwriter to add comments to lines of code; they do not effect the robot in any way (they are simply ignored by the robot when running).

User comments come in two different types: single line and multi-line. Single line comments, denoted with a ‘//’ will make every character that appears after it into a comment. For example:

do_something(); // this is a comment

The "do_something();" is read by the robot but the "this is a comment" part is ignored.

A multi-line comment begins with a ‘/*’ and ends with a ‘*/’. The robot will ignore anything that appears between those two symbols. For example:

The robot will ignore all three lines.

After several lines of comments you will come to the first section of robot code:

This is the load robot function. It is executed once before the match begins and is normally used only to select the robot type to load (in this case robot #1).

This line sets the robot type. The robot_type variable is a special robot variable that can only be set in the robot_load function. This tells the arena which robot chassis you plan on using (1,2,3, or 4).

You can set other starting values here as well. But any value set in this function will only be set once (when the robot is loaded).

Once the match is started, the robot AI function is called once each turn. This is where you give your robot instructions on what to do based on the input it has gathered from its sensors and data stored in previous instancing of this function.

This is the second function in our script and, like LOAD_ROBOT, it must be named exactly like shown.

The first thing we encounter inside the body of the function is an ‘if else’ statement:

This statement checks the environmental variable angle_to_target, which gives the relative angle of the target to the current facing of your robot. If this value you is greater than 5 ("if(angle_to_target > 5)") then the target is more than 5 degrees to the left of your robot. In this case we want to turn counter-clockwise so we can face our target, we do this by moving the left wheel slower than the right one (see Appendix D: Robot Physics below if you don’t understand why).

If the target is not more than 5 degrees to the left we will execute the code in the else part of the statement:

Inside the else statement is another nested ‘if else’ statement. This one is almost identical to the first except it checks to see if the target is less than –5 degrees placing it to the right of the robot. If this statement is true, we turn the robot clockwise.

The next section of code is nested inside two if statements so it is only executed if both if statements are false. Therefore the following code is only executed if angle_to_target <= 5 and angle_to_target >= -5. In other words, if angle_to_target falls inside the range of –5 to +5.

The first block of code should be easy to read:

Since we are facing the target we will move towards it at full speed.

The next block of code handles weapon fire. It uses two non-nested if statements:

Since this code is already in a block that is only executed when the robot is facing the target all we have to do is check the range to see if we want to fire either gun. Since the type #1 robot has a cannon and a machine gun as its primary and secondary weapons we will design the code to fire when the range for those two weapons is met.

The first if statement checks to see if the target is within the range of the machine gun (2000 quants). If so, we will set the gun2_fire skill to 1. Doing this will tell the gun to fire one round as soon as it can. If the gun is loaded it will fire this round at the end of the cycle.

The second if statement does the opposite. Since the cannon has a long range it is not necessary to check to see if it will reach its target, but it is necessary to make sure that the target is far enough away that the robot will not take blast damage from its own weapon. Therefor we check to see the target is greater than 50 quants away before firing.

So now you have a fully functional robot but it’s not the smartest robot in the galaxy. Eventually you are going to want to improve it by adding more code. This is relatively easy to do, just type more lines into the "AI_ROBOT" function, test your robot, add more lines, and repeat as needed. The downside to this method is, after you add several lines of code to your function, it will start to become extremely hard to read and debug.

To help split your code into more manageable sections we have provided you with eight ‘local’ functions called: FUNC_ONE, FUNC_TWO and so on up to FUNC_EIGHT. These functions are used in much the same way as the LOAD_ROBOT and AI_ROBOT functions except you can call them yourself. For example, our previous AI can now be written as follows:

This makes function "AI_ROBOT" is much easier to read. It also ‘compartmentalizes’ your code, allowing you to more easily replace a function or copy that same function to other robot scripts.

Local functions are a powerful tool but there is one thing you need to look out for, endless function loops. This can happen if one of your functions calls AI_ROBOT() or if a function calls another function which calls that function.

For example:

If you make a mistake like this your robot will cause a "fatal engine error" and your robot will be disqualified.

That’s it, you have completed your first combat robot. This design is extremely simple but efficient. It makes a good basis for your future robot designs.

To design a better robot, take a look at the other designs in the robot AI folder and look over the Appendices in this manual to find out what your robot can do and how to communicate with it. With a little effort and lots of practice your Ctec combat robot can give you years of enjoyment.

The following commands are avaliable for use in your robot script: