Kicker Bots
Agent Algorithm
A kicker agent chooses a visible ball at random and accelerates towards it. If no ball is visible the agent sets his acceleration to zero.
Pseudocode
visibleBalls = {}
for all visibleObjects
if visibleObject is ball
visibleBalls <-- visibleObject
if visibleBalls is not empty
ball = selectRandom(visibleBalls)
accelerate towards ball
else
set acceleration to zero
Observed Behavior
Since a kicker agent doesn't remember which ball he's accelerating towards from one moment to the next, if he can see multiple balls (e.g. if Number of Balls or Agent Sight is set high), he will appear to have a pretty short attention span, since the ball he will chose balls randomly each time.
The ceasing to accelerate strategy works well when a ball goes out of sight, because chances are the agent was accelerating in the same direction as the ball at last sighting, and an agent without acceleration will bounce around the board just like the ball. To see this, turn down the Agent Sight to around 10 or 15, so that if there's another agent between him and the ball, an agent probably won't be able to see the ball.
If there are too many agents or too few balls, the agents will end up trapping the balls in the corners and the game ceases to be interesting.