This is the user manual for RealTimeBattle. Here you should find how to run the program, how the program work, how to create your own robots and how to construct arenas.
RealTimeBattle is a programming game for Unix, in which robots controlled by programs are fighting each other. The goal is to destroy the enemies, using the radar to examine the environment and the cannon to shoot.
Even though the environment the robots are moving in is fairly simple, it is far from easy to construct an intelligent robot-program. RealTimeBattle constructed to be easy to use, flexible and fast. The intention is that the program could be used as a test for intelligent algorithms, as well as just a game to play and enjoy.
Features include:
More information can be found in the INSTALL, BUGS, TODO,
README, FAQ and ChangeLog files in the
distribution. More updated information are available on the
RealTimeBattle homepage, where you also can
find robots, news on tournaments as well as this manual in different formats.
The hardware requirements is very much dependent on what you do. Running a few robots should be possible to do on any computer on which Linux or any other Unixes can be run. The demand on hardware will, however, grow the robots you want on the battlefield simultaneously; running 120 advanced robots is certainly demanding for any personal computer.
RealTimeBattle is only available on Unix. It is developed on a Linux-machine, but it should compile
on other Unixes too. Running in
competition-mode is currently
only possible in Linux, because of the need to read the /proc directory for information on
CPU usage.
The only software requirement is gtk+, which is used for the graphical user interface.
The project started in August 1998. Inspiration came from RobotBattle, a very interesting game, which however suffers from two major drawbacks:
RealTimeBattle is distributed under the General Public License, in the spirit of the Linux community. Official versions of RealTimeBattle will be released by the authors.
Copyright (C) 1998-1999 Erik Ouchterlony and Ragnar Ouchterlony
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
If you find anything in this package which doesn't work, appear strange, is missing, is spellt wrong or is just confusing, don't hesitate to send in a bug report to the authors. But please check first the include bug list and the bug list on the homepage.