rars-digest 19950603

Robot Auto Racing Simulation (RARS) Mailing List Digest 19950603 The rars-digest is a compilation of choice cuts from the RARS mailing list. It's published once a week to comp.ai.games, rec.autos.simulators, and to individual subscribers. Send mail to [email hidden] with a subject of 'subscribe rars-digest' to subscribe, or 'unsubscribe rars-digest' to unsubscribe. Contents Re: WWW Coordinator (Mitchell replies to Andrew) Announcement: RARS Amiga release 3 Version 0.61 (final form of 0.60) Rars for NT to ftp site contributors about the upcoming races A couple of bugs NEWCOMERS OUTLAST VETERANS IN SIMULATED INDY 500 indybots.zip and two more indy 'bots ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: Re: WWW Coordinator (Mitchell replies to Andrew) To: [email hidden] (Andrew Samaha) Date sent: Sat, 27 May 1995 18:49:59 -0400 (EDT) Copies to: [email hidden] (Rars- List) > I'll give it go. Having little success with making a robot maybe I can do > this. <g> Hey, that's great, Andrew! You are now our World Wide Web Coordinator. I suppose you have the URL's for the web sites that we now have. I am sure that everyone will give you their cooperation. Let me know if you need anything. m ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: [email hidden] (Marcel Offermans) Subject: Announcement: RARS Amiga release 3 Send reply to: [email hidden] Date sent: Sat, 27 May 95 17:35:12 To: [email hidden] Robot Auto Racing Simulation Announcement of the Amiga version I've just uploaded the third release of the Amiga version of RARS to the anonymous ftp site. It is based on RARS version 0.60, but has some improvements over the original version: - Track file recognition is no longer case sensitive, and track file names aren't chopped off after 8 characters. - A new way of specifying tracks is supported. You can now describe a track by its centerline, instead of having to use the outer rail. This piece of code is still portable and can be used in other ports. - Removed some compiler warnings, removed some MS-DOS dependencies throughout the sources. - Added a brand new GUI to RARS (the layout what somewhat inspired by the Mac port of RARS :-). Included in the archive are all the sources you'll need to compile RARS with the SAS/C 6.55 compiler yourself. I've also included an executable for the 68030 CPU and 68881 or 68882 FPU. You need at least AmigaOS 3.0 (V39) for this version to work. This is due to the new GUI. If anybody wants a compiled executable for another CPU/FPU combination, has suggestions, wants to help or has found a bug, please e-mail me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: Version 0.61 (final form of 0.60) To: [email hidden] (Rars- List) Date sent: Sat, 27 May 1995 09:37:56 -0400 (EDT) Hello All, Version 0.61 is now in the uploads directory of the new ftp site. It is meant to be the final form of 0.60, replacing 0.6b and 0.60. I hope nobody discovers something I have to change. It is not significantly different than 0.60. The name of the rand() function has been changed to r_rand(), so any robots that call a random variable generator should use r_rand() now. There are several minor bug fixes. In my testing everthing is very fine. From now on, all of my races will be run with this version, for at least a few months. I don't expect to develop another version soon. m ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date sent: Fri, 26 May 95 15:28:00 PDT From: Muir Lee Harding <[email hidden]> Subject: Rars for NT To: [email hidden] I have uploaded two new files to the ftp site: nt_rars.exe and nt_rars.txt. This is a hacked-together port to Win NT 3.5. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: to ftp site contributors To: [email hidden] (Rars- List) Date sent: Fri, 26 May 1995 16:07:33 -0400 (EDT) Hello All, Since we have not found anyone to agree to keep the ftp index up-to-date, we will fall back on plan B, orinally suggested by Marcel Offermans. This means that every file should have a short text file to acompany it, and explain what it is. Files that are already short text file can do without this. For maximum compatibility with all system, the short text file shoul have the same name as the file it explains, but with .txt at the end. Example names: exe050.zip exe050.txt The file exe050.txt could simply be one line of text that says "version 0.50 exectable for DOS" or something similar. Authors of files that are already on the ftp site should upload the text file to go with it, or send e-mail to jivko asking him to delete the file. m ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: about the upcoming races To: [email hidden] (Rars- List) Date sent: Tue, 30 May 1995 17:23:29 -0400 (EDT) Hello All, Below are the three upcoming races, through July 9. All races from now on will be with version 0.61. If you developed your driver with version 0.6b or 0.60 it should be fine. Of course it is alway a good idea to test it on the actual version. This past Sunday we had a little IRC chat going during the races. We will continue this practice as it was kind of fun. My wife, Arelys, handles the keyboard as she is an IRC regular. I holler out the play-by-play as best I can, and she types it as best she can. Some info gets across the net that way! So, from now on, we will log onto the IRC at 5:00 EDT on each race day, and begin the races at 5:10. I start the race at realistic speed, but then speed it up later when nobody is passing. Now that we use ver. 0.61, others will be able to replicate the races. I will distribute the race report which contains the initial seed. You can get the same bots from the ftp site, and put them in the order shown in the race report. (actually, I will include the CARZ.CPP file) I will also state the exact command line that I use. Then when you run the same race, and enter the seed with the -nr option, you should see exactly the same race I did. The Next Three RARS Race Meets (no prizes) June 11: No. of races: 4 Track: two surprise tracks, two races each Laps: 25 each race Software version: 0.61 Surface type: 1 practice: up to 200 laps each track, if anyone requests it (if no-one has a robot that learns, we will skip the practice) June 25: No. of races 6 Track: oval2 Laps: 10 each race Software version: 0.61 Surface type: 0 no practice on race day, practice at home all you want! The default starting order system will be used, i.e. alternating random and reversed. July 9: No. of races 2 Tracks: one race on each of the same two tracks as June 11 Laps: 80 each race Software version: 0.61 Surface Type: 1 There will be no practice on race day. The tracks will be known after June 11. Fuel economy will be a factor here. m ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date sent: Tue, 30 May 95 09:48:50 MDT From: [email hidden] (Rob Creager x2365) To: [email hidden] Subject: A couple of bugs Yo racers, I just thought I'd point out a couple of RARS bugs I found this weekend while creating my first robot. 1) The lap counter doesn't work real well during practice sessions. If there are 25 practice laps and 10 race laps, the lap counter counts from 10 to -15. 2) When refueling, the cars take damage. This can be seen by running a car solo on a track where it doesn't normally take damage (ie go off road). As soon as it refuels, some damage occurs ('bout 300 pts I believe). Note that this is with 0.60 picked up 5/26/95 from the FTP site. I have a hack fix for #1 and will donate it if desired. Maybe in a month, I'll have something to race you folks :> Rob ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: NEWCOMERS OUTLAST VETERANS IN SIMULATED INDY 500 To: [email hidden] (Rars- List) Date sent: Sun, 28 May 1995 20:52:14 -0400 (EDT) Hello All, Here's what happened today at our indi500 race: There were three first-timers but some of our regulars didn't make a special Indy car, so we again wound up with a total of nine. Here they are: Novice: Tim Battersby Canada Emily Muir Lee Harding U.S.A. racer_X Grant Reeve New Zealand IndyMan Thomas Rooney U.S.A. goCART Patrick Tierney Canada Heath3 Expert: Bill Benedict U.S.A. Rusty Safai Ma Canada Burns Jussi Pajala Finland Bubble Randy Saint U.S.A. Ramdu (plus two from the novice race) As in today's real Indy 500, our racing was dominated by crashes. There were only two finishers in the novice race and three in the expert race. It would have been heartbreaking for Bubble and Ramdu, if they had hearts, for both lost the lead in the last third of the race, after laboriously working their way from the back of the pack. Bubble was the fastest driver, but only by a small margin. He started off dead last and took about 20 laps to push through to first place. Bubble was able to hold the lead, and increase it slowly, for more than half the race. Finally, however, he tried to pass a slower car and touched the inside wall. Having already accumulated damage from various hits, he stayed there. (The leaders had to pass slower cars many times, and there was occaisonal contact.) Bubble's demise left Ramdu in the lead, and being the fastest driver had no trouble holding it. BUT... at about lap 178 he hit the outside wall just after the 2nd turn. (Just like many of today's real indy cars did!) I didn't notice if this resulted from passing a slower car, but it probably did. The two finishers of the novice race were Emily and racer_X, who then went on to the expert class. Surprisingly, they took 1st and 2nd in that race also! Congratulations to Tim Battersby and Muir Lee Harding for such a fine showing! results of novice race: (X denotes did not finish) 5 cars for 200 laps. The track was indi500.trk. The drivers were: Emily, goCART, Heath3, racer_X, and IndyMan. starting positions: Emily, racer_X, Heath3, goCART, and IndyMan. place 1 Emily average speed 220.67 mph 10 points accumulated place 2 racer_X average speed 210.73 mph 6 points accumulated place 3 IndyMan X average speed 224.77 mph 4 points accumulated place 4 Heath3 X average speed 0 mph 3 points accumulated place 5 goCART X average speed 0 mph 2 points accumulated results of expert race: 6 cars for 200 laps. The track was indi500.trk. The drivers were: Rusty, Burns, Bubble, Ramdu, Emily, and racer_X. starting positions: Emily, Burns, racer_X, Rusty, Bubble, and Ramdu. place 1 Emily average speed 220.43 mph 10 points accumulated place 2 racer_X average speed 210.75 mph 6 points accumulated place 3 Burns average speed 210.03 mph 4 points accumulated place 4 Ramdu X average speed 221.6 mph 3 points accumulated place 5 Bubble X average speed 224.1 mph 2 points accumulated place 6 Rusty X average speed 0 mph 1 points accumulated Expert Class Point standings Jussi Pajala 12 pts (Finland) Tim Battersby 10 pts (Canada) Bill Benedict 7 pts (U.S.A.) Randy Saint 7 pts (U.S.A.) Safai Ma 7 pts (Canada) Muir Lee Harding 6 pts (U.S.A.) Mike Inman 2 pts (U.S.A.) Novice Class Points: Patrick Tierney 5 pts (Canada) Oscar Gustafsson 4 pts (Sweden) Grant Reeve 4 pts (New Zealand) Carl Burke 3 pts (U.S.A.) Thomas Rooney 2 pts (U.S.A.) Tristrom Cooke 1 pt (Australia) The source code for these 'bots will be on the ftp site shortly, along with the modified CARZ.CPP file. Look for the file indybots.zip. m ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "Mitchell E. Timin" <[email hidden]> Subject: indybots.zip and two more indy 'bots To: [email hidden] (Rars- List) Date sent: Wed, 31 May 1995 13:33:45 -0400 (EDT) Hello All, indybots.zip is on the ftp site, accompanied by indybots.txt. The day after the races I received a couple of late entries. One was an improved version of IndyMan, which I called IndyMan2. The other was from a new competitor, B. Cabe, who called his robot "Bacon". Both of them wanted to know how their driver would have done, so I ran a bunch of 50 lap races. The results are below. You can see that both robots are outstanding. (they are included in indybots.zip) These tables don't really capture what happens in these races. The cars interfere with each other a lot. Often the leader will tangle with the no. 2 car, slowing both down, and letting no. 3 take the lead. Unofficial Novice Races: 7 cars for 50 laps. The track was indi500.trk. The drivers were: Emily, racer_X, IndyMan2, IndyMan, Bacon, Heath3, and goCART. results of race 1: starting positions: IndyMan2, racer_X, Bacon, goCART, Emily, IndyMan, and Heath3. place 1 IndyMan2 average speed 225.51 mph 10 points accumulated place 2 IndyMan average speed 223.56 mph 6 points accumulated place 3 Emily average speed 219.62 mph 4 points accumulated place 4 Bacon average speed 219.03 mph 3 points accumulated place 5 racer_X average speed 210.68 mph 2 points accumulated place 6 Heath3 average speed 214.96 mph 1 points accumulated place 7 goCART average speed 0 mph 0 points accumulated results of race 2: starting positions: Heath3, IndyMan, Emily, goCART, Bacon, racer_X, and IndyMan2. place 1 IndyMan average speed 223.03 mph 16 points accumulated place 2 Emily average speed 219.57 mph 10 points accumulated place 3 Bacon average speed 218.16 mph 7 points accumulated place 4 IndyMan2 average speed 217.72 mph 13 points accumulated place 5 racer_X average speed 0 mph 4 points accumulated place 6 Heath3 average speed 0 mph 2 points accumulated place 7 goCART average speed 0 mph 0 points accumulated results of race 3: starting positions: racer_X, Heath3, Emily, Bacon, IndyMan2, IndyMan, and goCART. place 1 IndyMan average speed 222.85 mph 26 points accumulated place 2 Bacon average speed 217.53 mph 13 points accumulated place 3 Heath3 average speed 217.01 mph 6 points accumulated place 4 racer_X average speed 210.4 mph 7 points accumulated place 5 IndyMan2 average speed 218.3 mph 15 points accumulated place 6 Emily average speed 219.13 mph 11 points accumulated place 7 goCART average speed 0 mph 0 points accumulated results of race 4: starting positions: goCART, IndyMan, IndyMan2, Bacon, Emily, Heath3, and racer_X. place 1 IndyMan2 average speed 224.27 mph 25 points accumulated place 2 IndyMan average speed 223.79 mph 32 points accumulated place 3 Bacon average speed 219.01 mph 17 points accumulated place 4 racer_X average speed 211.12 mph 10 points accumulated place 5 Heath3 average speed 216.52 mph 8 points accumulated place 6 Emily average speed 0 mph 12 points accumulated place 7 goCART average speed 0 mph 0 points accumulated -------------------------------------------------------------------- Unofficial Expert Races: 6 cars for 50 laps. The track was indi500.trk. The drivers were: Bacon, Bubble, IndyMan2, Ramdu, Rusty, and Burns. results of race 1: starting positions: Burns, Bacon, Indyman2, Ramdu, Rusty, and Bubble. place 1 IndyMan2 average speed 224.99 mph 10 points accumulated place 2 Bubble average speed 224.02 mph 6 points accumulated place 3 Rusty average speed 219.9 mph 4 points accumulated place 4 Bacon average speed 219.59 mph 3 points accumulated place 5 Burns average speed 209.54 mph 2 points accumulated place 6 Ramdu average speed 219.88 mph 1 points accumulated results of race 2: starting positions: Bubble, Rusty, Ramdu, Indyman2, Bacon, and Burns. place 1 Bubble average speed 223.51 mph 16 points accumulated place 2 IndyMan2 average speed 223.02 mph 16 points accumulated place 3 Bacon average speed 219.27 mph 7 points accumulated place 4 Burns average speed 210.34 mph 5 points accumulated place 5 Ramdu average speed 215.95 mph 3 points accumulated place 6 Rusty average speed 0 mph 5 points accumulated results of race 3: starting positions: Burns, Indyman2, Ramdu, Bacon, Rusty, and Bubble. place 1 IndyMan2 average speed 225.46 mph 26 points accumulated place 2 Bubble average speed 223.42 mph 22 points accumulated place 3 Ramdu average speed 221.85 mph 7 points accumulated place 4 Bacon average speed 219.73 mph 10 points accumulated place 5 Burns average speed 209.21 mph 7 points accumulated place 6 Rusty average speed 218.69 mph 6 points accumulated results of race 4: starting positions: Bubble, Rusty, Bacon, Ramdu, Indyman2, and Burns. place 1 IndyMan2 average speed 225.61 mph 36 points accumulated place 2 Bubble average speed 224.63 mph 28 points accumulated place 3 Bacon average speed 219.26 mph 14 points accumulated place 4 Burns average speed 209.57 mph 10 points accumulated place 5 Rusty average speed 211.49 mph 8 points accumulated place 6 Ramdu average speed 0 mph 8 points accumulated ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The rars-digest is compiled and published by (Dave `Gizmo' Gymer) [email hidden] http://www.mal.com/~dgymer -- Dave "Gizmo" Gymer Telephone +44 (0)1268 534228 -- General DataComm Advanced Research Centre Ltd, Basildon, UK -- [email hidden] http://www.mal.com/~dgymer/ -- Team Shark-Porsche online racing LFRS 95-96 co-director