My First Bot tutorial

Introduction

This tutorial provides an introduction to creating your first bot for Robocode Tank Royale.

You might also have a look at the provided sample bots for Robocode for inspiration. You might also use the sample bots to provide a starting template containing all the necessary files to create a bot for a specific programming language and platform.

Note that this tutorial is aimed towards the official APIs available for Robocode Tank Royale provided on this site.

Initial setup

The first part of this tutorial is about the initial setup which is common for all bots that must be booted by the game regardless of which programming language is used when developing the bot.

I recommend that you read about the booter first before continuing on this tutorial as the following assumes you are somewhat familiar with the file name conventions, and the concept of bot directories, and root directories.

Prepare a root directory

Robocode needs to locate your bot, which must be stored into its own bot directory under a root directory. The purpose of the root directory is to contain one to many bot directories.

So the first step is to prepare a root directory which we name bots. Under Windows, you might create this folder under C:\bots or %userprofile%\bots, and for macOS or Linux you might create a folder under ~/bots.

If you use the UI for Robocode, you will need to add this root directory in the Bot Root Configuration so Robocode will be able to locate your bot(s).

Prepare a bot directory

Next, you should create a bot directory inside the bots directory for your first bot, which we name MyFirstBot, so it will be located under ../bots/MyFirstBot. All your bot files must be put into this folder and share the same file name as the bot directory (more info in the booter article).

Create a JSON file or set properties in code

To provide the game with information about your bot (like its name and version), you have two options:

1. Create a JSON file: Create a MyFirstBot.json file in your bot directory (../bots/MyFirstBot/MyFirstBot.json).
2. Set properties in code: You can skip the JSON file and set these properties directly in your bot's source code.

Using a JSON file

This is the recommended approach for beginners. Copy the following into MyFirstBot.json:

{
  "name": "My First Bot",
  "version": "1.0",
  "authors": [ "«enter your name»" ],
  "description": "My first bot",
  "homepage": "«insert link to a home page for your bot»",
  "countryCodes": [ "«enter your country code, e.g. us»" ],
  "platform": "«enter programming platform, e.g. Java or .NET»",
  "programmingLang": "«enter programming language, e.g. Java or C#»"
}

The fields name, version and authors are required.

Setting properties in code

If you prefer to keep everything in your source code, you can skip the JSON file. However, you must then ensure that your bot directory contains a file that the booter can recognize (like MyFirstBot.jar, MyFirstBot.py, or MyFirstBot.csproj) so it knows how to start your bot.

Regardless of which method you choose, the fields name, version, and authors must be provided, or your bot will fail to connect.

This concludes the common part of the tutorial, and the following depends on the platform of your choice.

Select platform

The rest of the tutorial is split up based on the available APIs for different platforms:

• .NET
• Java / JVM
• Python