Bot Land Scripts

This repo contains TypeScript code for controlling bots on Bot Land. Bot Land is an RTS game where you control your units programmatically instead of manually. This code, with appropriate tactical use, reached #1 on the Bot Land attack leaderboard in October 2019:

These bots allow you to execute a variety of strategies. If you're familiar with units from Starcraft 2 / Warcraft 3, these bots are analogous to:

• micro / blink Stalkers that kite enemies
• "Siege Tanks" (artillery) that micro and lay mines
• specialists in melee combat
• a cloaking melee unit that does splash damage
• cloak rushing the enemy CPU
• supporting other units (medic, repair, etc.)

Except, now you can micro your units perfectly via code instead of with your fingers. For example, check out this 5vs12 battle using missiles and landmines:

Getting Started

This is a JavaScript/TypeScript project, and requires that you have NodeJS and Yarn installed on your system first. Then, do the following:

1. Clone this repository: git clone https://github.com/mizzao/bot.land.git.
2. Install local dependencies: yarn install.
3. Build the bot code: yarn build.

Bots will show up in the build directory. If you have any problems, create an issue.

We recommend you use VS Code to work with this repo if you don't already have an editor of choice, as it will automatically set up most of the tools used here. You can use the Run Build Task (Ctrl+Shift+B by default) command to build all the bots.

Features

Bot Land uses a reduced dialect of JavaScript where all variables are global and code is written as a single file. Obviously, this makes it difficult to use modern development conveniences like type checking, code reuse, and sharing code between bots. This repo is my attempt to fix some of those issues and make it more fun to write code for bots. It includes the following, much of which is provided by TypeScript:

• Static and inferred types for the Bot Land API
• Code isolation and reuse (using Typescript and project references)
• Incremental builds (Typescript 3.4)
• Fine control on how source *.ts files get compiled into target *.js files
• Code formatting and linting (Prettier and Tslint)

For more information on how we set up TypeScript to transpile to a format that Bot Land will accept, see this StackOverflow question.

Commands

Several commands are available as yarn scripts: yarn <command>, which you can see in package.json. The ones of note are:

• build and build-clean to compile all bots
• format and lint to format code and check for common errors
• botland strips out all var keywords in the output and converts all variables to global.

Add New Bots

If you want to write new bots, first fork this repo. Then:

1. Copy any bot folder (i.e. Sneaktillery) to a new folder <NewBot>.
2. Rename the bot (e.g. Sneaktillery.ts --> <NewBot>.ts).
3. Edit the <NewBot>/tsconfig.json to set files and outFile with the name of the new bot.
4. Edit tsconfig.json and add a reference to <NewBot>.

If you like your new bot and it works well, consider opening a pull request to share your code with the community.

Known Issues

Because Bot Land uses an "eccentric" version of JavaScript, you should keep in mind that not everything written in standard TypeScript will transfer verbatim to your code. For example, all local variables will be global: const foo = 42; in a function may be overwriting an existing value of foo that you may be using elsewhere. Using TypeScript means we are protected against using undeclared variables in local function scopes; however if you want to use stateful global variables explicitly it is a good idea to declare them with declare let GLOBAL_FOO; at the top of your bot file.

Shared variables and arrays also have an non-standard interaction, which will be documented later.

Bugs / Questions

Can't find an answer to your question here? Open an issue or discuss this code on the Bot Land Discord.