PLEASE NOTE - This project is not being actively maintained at the moment - I am taking a break - not sure when I will return.
Dtanks is a robot tank battle game for D programmers. Players program the brain of a tank and then send their tank+brain into battle with other tanks.
As part of my exploration and learning of the D programming language I wanted to make something that would be fun and also help me to learn D. This is the result of that endeavour.
The rules are simple. The last tank still alive is the winner. If there are multiple tanks still alive by the end of the game then the one with the highest amount of life left is the winner.
The gameplay is very straight forward. Each tank has a base, turret and radar, each of which rotate independently. The base moves the tank, the turret has a gun mounted on it which can fire at other tanks. The radar detects other tanks in its field of vision.
See the Getting Started Guide
Dtanks is based on the ruby project RTanque and inspired by many other versions in different languages. The main source being the original Java project Robocode
Most of the credit of this project must be given to Adam Williams who wrote the RTanque project that most of this code is based on. Adam also credits several other projects which helped him to end up with what he created and so I shall also list these as inspirational in the development of DTanks:
- RobotWar - Perhaps the canonical version. Created in 1970's and set in the distant 2002. Apple II
- Robocode - Java game, originally from IBM. Tank & explosion images taken from here.
- RRobots - Ruby port of Robocode. 2005
- RRobots fork
- FightCode - Online javascript tank game
- Scalatron - Scala bot game
- Many more...
The DSFML library is used to render the game in 2D. There are pre-built libraries included for OSX, Linux and Windows.
See a detailed installation and running guide that covers Linux, Windows and OSX here Installation and Running
clone the dtanks repository from github:
git clone https://github.com/masterthought/dtanks.git
cd dtanks
Set up your DSFML dependency in the dub.json. Edit dub.json and point it to the correct DSFML library for your platform e.g:
"lflags" : ["-L/Users/kings/projects/dtanks/DSFML/OSX/lib"],
To start the game run:
dub
When the game starts initially there will be 2 tanks. StaticBot and Keyboard - these are starter tanks to help you get started. You will find them in the following directory:
dtanks/src/mytanks
There are also some sample tanks in the directory:
dtanks/samples
The StaticBot tank doesn't do anything - it just sits there. The Keyboard tank can be controlled with the keyboard and can do various things:
Any tanks you put in dtanks/src/mytanks will be included in the game.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| A | Rotate tank body left |
| D | Rotate tank body right |
| W | Move tank body forward |
| S | Move tank body backwards |
| Arrow Left | Rotate tank turret left |
| Arrow Right | Rotate tank turret right |
| Arrow Up | Fire max power shot |
| Arrow Down | Fire min power shot |
| R | Rotate tank radar left |
| T | Rotate tank radar right |
| C | Randomly change tank colour |
coming soon - in the meantime these classes are useful to look at:
- src/net/masterthought/dtanks/bot/sensor
- src/net/masterthought/dtanks/bot/command
- src/net/masterthought/dtanks/bot/radar
- src/net/masterthought/heading
- src/net/masterthought/point
Plus the helper class for some simple helper methods for your tank brain:
The tank api consists of reading input from Brain#sensors and giving output to Brain#command
module net.masterthought.dtanks.samples.staticbot;
import net.masterthought.dtanks.brainhelper;
import net.masterthought.dtanks.bot.brain;
import net.masterthought.dtanks.arena;
import net.masterthought.dtanks.bot.sensor;
import net.masterthought.dtanks.bot.command;
import net.masterthought.dtanks.heading;
import net.masterthought.dtanks.skincolor;
import dsfml.graphics;
import std.random;
import std.stdio;
import std.range;
class StaticBot : Brain {
static this(){
Brain.add(new StaticBot());
}
override public Command tick(Sensor sensors){
sensors.ticks; // int
sensors.health; // float
sensors.speed; // float
sensors.position; // Point
sensors.heading; // Heading
sensors.radarHeading; // Heading
sensors.turretHeading; // Heading
sensors.radar; // Radar
sensors.arena; // Arena
return command;
}
override public string name(){
return "static_tank";
}
override public SkinColor skin(){
return SkinColor.green;
}
}
From the Radar you get reflections. A reflection contains details about an enemy tank that the radar has picked up. The Radar returns a list of reflections which have the following properties:
sensors.radar.getReflections // Reflection[]
foreach(reflection ; sensors.radar.getReflections){
reflection.heading // Heading (heading to the other bot)
reflection.distance // float (distance to the other bot)
reflection.name // string (name of the other bot)
}
override public Command tick(Sensor sensors){
command.speed = 2; // double (sets bot speed)
command.heading = Heading.NORTH // Heading (sets the bot heading)
command.radarHeading = currentRadarHeadingPlusDegrees(3); // Heading (sets radar heading)
command.turretHeading = currentTurretHeadingPlusDegrees(3); // Heading (sets turret heading)
command.firPower = 1; // int (sets firePower) 0 is not firing
return command;
}
The heading class deals with calculating the heading as well as other information. Most of the time you will need to get the .radians from the heading which you can perform math calculations on and create a new heading.