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## 3. Getting started: crash course

## 3.1 Quick start: Creating bots

This section is intended for people without the patience to go through the entire documentation to get started. The "crash-course" tutorial will go through the steps necessary to create a simple bot going around in circles capable of discovering and shooting at adversaries.

Since we will create a bot you should bring up the "bot-creator" window.

The first step in creating the bot is deciding which hardware a bot should have. Our program won't be that big, so 1k of RAM is enough for us. All bots need at least one CPU, choose CPU in the uppermost combobox. The five buttons below the combobox decides the "level" the device is at. In the case of the CPU, it decides the speed of the CPU. You can choose anyone you want, and test the differences it makes in the behaviour of the bot later.

The next device we need is an engine, we don't want to be sitting ducks do we? Choose engine in the second hardware entry.

Add (in this order) these devices:

> `

>     steering (makes your bot turn),
>     plasmagun (the weapon),
>     scanner (what we use for finding the enemy),
>     armor   (So that we can take some beating before blowing up),
>     armor,
>     fuel (Provides fuel for the engine),
>     fuel

> `

Here is the code we need to write for our bot:

> `

>     out 17,24
>     :loop
>     out 4,50

>     out 16,1
>     hwait
>     in ax,16
>     cmp ax, 60000
>     jae next

>     out 12,1
>     :next
>     out 8,4
>     jmp loop

> `

it begins with this: out 17,24 each device has up to 4 inports and 4 outports. You access these with the asm commands in and out. Which ports a certain device has access to depends on the number of the device.

The first device (CPU in this case) has ports 0 through 3 Engine has 4 through 7 and so on.

port 17 is the second port on our scanner, and it sets the width of the scanner. In this case we set it to 48 botgrades (24*2=48) 1 botgrade is 1/1024 of a circle.

The next line reads :loop. It's a label , all labels start with ':'

The next line: out 4,50 Sets the thrust of our engine to 50, our bot will accelerate to a speed of 50 units per turn.

out 16,1 Orders the scanner to emit a scan pulse, searching for other bots.

The hwait makes sure the result from the scan has time to get in before we try to read the result

in ax,16 gets the scanned distance and puts it into CPU register ax

cmp ax,60000 Compares the value in ax with 60000 (if no bot was in our scan-arc, the value will be above 60000)

jae next Jump if Above or Equal, jumps to next if no bot was in our scan arc

out 12,1 Orders the plasmagun to shoot

:next A label

out 8,4 Orders steering device to turn 4 botgrades to the right

jmp loop Jump to label loop

If you understand this example, you are well on your way to make your own bots.

Save this bot under the name "circles.basm". click on assemble under the assemble menu. If you wrote something wrong the assembler will complain but otherwise it will tell you "assemble successful".

Now you can test the bot in the simulator It will be named "circles.bot".

## 3.2 Quick start: simulating

A quick way to see your new bot in a simulation: bring up the "normal battle".

Press load bot, if you assembled your bot a file named "circles.bot" should exist, choose it.

In order for a simulation to start you need at least 2 bots loaded. So you may either load the circles.bot again or load a different bot.

Then when you press OK, a battle will start immediately.

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