A simple bot to play https://brainjar.org/battleships

This is a sandbox, test robot.

The game engine we use is open source and available here: https://github.com/BrainJar/battleships

Start with reading the rules https://github.com/BrainJar/battleships#rules-of-the-game

It's easy: https://github.com/BrainJar/battleships-bot/fork

A Battleships bot is a very simple creature.

It consists of a run.sh and the source code in one of the following languages:

• Coffeescript 1.7.1
• Java 7 (/!\ in this case you need to provide a jar file... and be careful with RAM and timeouts! ;-))
• Javascript (Node.js) 0.10.2
• PHP 5.3.10
• Perl 5.14.2
• Python 2.7.3
• Ruby 1.8.7

To run your bot (with run.sh ready) you will need node.js and coffee-script installed.

npm install
coffee simulate.coffee --help

Usage: simulate.coffee [options]

    Options:

    -h, --help       output usage information
    -V, --version    output the version number
    -n, --norefresh  doesn't download the game engine and random bot [false]
    -v, --verbose    verbose mode [false]

It's goting to download the game engine and a bot template, and play against your local bot. Yeah ! :-)

This is the script we will call, which has to run properly your thing. You need to adapt it to the language you are going to use.

You can check examples https://github.com/BrainJar/battleships-bot/blob/master/run.sh

You can code however you like as long as you follow the rules below. Third-party code is ok, as long as it doesn't violate any licences and is clearly stated in your README.md

• bots are self-contained - all necessary code is in the repository
• bots are stateless - no storage is available, and don't have a memory between moves
• bots don't browse internet - your sandbox is isolated
• bots are slim - you have max 2MB for the code
• bots are short - your sandbox has 256 MB of RAM, so be reasonable
• bots are quick - timeout 2s per move
• bots play fair - if your code uses other people's code, state it clearly in your README.md

Please note that if you violate any of these, your bot will just keep getting beaten up. Be nice to your bot.

Register your bot at https://www.brainjar.org/profile/battleships

And that's it! Now click on fight to see who's better !

Before each fight, we will git pull the code from the master branch, no need to do anything_

Easy. Just run your script using one of the interpreters:

#   coffeescript    ex. 'coffee bot.coffee $1'
#   javascript      ex. 'node bot.js $1'
#   python          ex. 'python bot.py $1'
#   perl            ex. 'perl bot.pl $1'
#   ruby            ex. 'ruby bot.rb $1'
#   PHP             ex. 'php bot.php $1'

The bot will receive a following JSON object.

{
    "cmd": "init"
}

Initial config response has to follow this JSON format:

{
    "2" :
        {
            "point": "00",
            "orientation" : "vertical"   // possible values "horizontal", "vertical"
        },
    "3" :
        {
            "point": "22",
            "orientation" : "vertical"
        },
    "4" :
        {
            "point": "42",
            "orientation" : "vertical"
        },
    "5" :
        {
            "point": "37",
            "orientation" : "horizontal"
        }
}

This initial config will represent

    0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7
0   X
1   X
2           X       X
3           X       X
4           X       X
5                   X           
6
7               X   X   X   X   X

Before each move, player get the current situation - the opponent's grid's snapshot with marked fields.

A snapshot is represented by a JSON:

{
    "cmd": "move",              // for less user-friendly languages

    // an array representing the the sequence of moves and results (see below)
    "moves": ["0001", "1003", "1113", ...],

    // for your convenience, we also suply the following data
    "hit"       : ["20", "30"],  // the cells shot at and hit
    "missed"    : ["44", "01"],  // the cells shot at but missed
    "destroyed" : [2]            // sizes (2, 3, 4, 5) of destroyed opponent's ships
}

In the array representing the sequence, (player, move, results) are encoded.

player = 0|1 // player number 0 or 1
move   = XY  // see above
result = 1|3 // 1 means missed, 3 means hit

For example an array:

["0001", "1003", "1113", "1331", "0123", "0133"]

Represents:

• player 0 shoots 00 and misses
• player 1 shoots 00 and hits
• player 1 shoots 11 and hits
• player 1 shoots 33 and misses
• player 0 shoots 12 and hits
• player 0 shoots 13 and hits

A move (as returned by the bot) is represented by a string (column, row).

A following JSON has to be returned for a bot to play a move.

{
    "move" : "00"
    // any invalid output or shooting twice at the same cell will be taken as a surrender
}

In a turn, player has to chose a valid location on the opponents side. Otherwise they lose.

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014 Mikolaj Pawlikowski

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.