This is a project to make the best robot possible in robocode. (http://robocode.sourceforge.net/)

Robots are programmed in java. They move around and shoot each other.

http://robowiki.net/cgi-bin/robowiki?BeginnersFAQ

The best bot currently around is SandboxDT

heh... sounds interesting, I must admit... Ill take a look at it later today...

I'm in.

There are 4 main parts to a robot: Targeting, Movement, Target Aquisition, and learning(for really good robots)

Targeting and movement are mostly heavy statistics, while Target Aquisition is fairly simple and learning is fiendishly difficult.

We'd probably be more successful in the long run if we started by perfecting a few simple components (target aquisition, single movement and targeting schemes, etc), and move on to integrating a complete learning system into the components.

I could probably do target acquisition and learning, if I had time :)

Yeah, we can do learning later, if at all.

Linear Targeting: I found an algorithim that should work, for shot power 1.

Solving the law of cosines for the angle yields:
Angle to Turn gun = ArcSin(((v^2)-d^2-17))/(2*d*17))

v is the velocity of the target, d is initial distance to the target. The 17 comes from the speed of the shot.

Note: In robocode, the unit circle opens clockwise: All sins should be replaced with cosines, and cosines with sines in your calculations. The above formula is already replaced.

sweet jesus... if i had the time, i'd help on this, but i don't, so i'll sit on the sidelines for this, and throw some pointers in.