Battleship API

This guide lists all of the methods available to you in Battleship.

• Ship Class
  • Setting Base Properties
  • Implementing Turn Strategy
  • Initialization Methods
  • Protected Methods
  • Public Methods
• Arena Class
• Coord Class
• Direction Enum

To see common programming tasks in Battleship, view the playbook.

Setting Base Properties

Modify the base properties of your ship. You have a total of 10 points to distribute amongst the four properties.

• Hull: number of hits the ship can withstand before being destroyed.
• Firepower: number of shots the ship can fire on a turn.
• Speed: number of spaces the ship can move on a turn.
• Range: number of spaces the ship can fire, in any direction.

Initialization Methods

These methods are used to set the properties of your ship.

void initializeName(String name)
void initializeOwner(String owner)
void initializeHull(int hull)
void initializeFirepower(int firepower)
void initializeSpeed(int speed)
void initializeRange(int range)

Implementing Turn Strategy

Program your ship’s strategy by filling in the doTurn() method. This method also takes in the game arena as an argument. On each turn, a ship can:

Observe

• Can search through all other ships in the arena, both enemies and teammates.
• Can check a ship’s x and y coordinates as well as all of its properties.

Move

• Can move up to X spaces, where X is the ship’s speed value.
• Must choose a direction to move in: North, East, South, or West.

Fire

• Can fire up to X times, where X is the ship’s firepower value.
• Must give the x and y coordinates of the square to fire at.

Coord Class

Note: Ships do not have a getX() or getY() method, they have a getCoord() method that returns a coordinate object. The coordinate object has the x and y data.

int getX()
int getY()

Direction Enum

In Battleship, y-coordinates increase from low values on the north end of the arena to high values on the south end and x-coordinates increase from low values on the west end to high values on the east end.

Direction.NORTH
Direction.SOUTH
Direction.WEST
Direction.EAST

Ship Class

Some methods can be called on any ship, others can only be called by the ship they belong to.

Protected Methods

These methods can only be called the ship they belong to.

void move(Direction direction)
void fire(int x, int y)
List<Ship> getNearbyShips()

Public Methods

These methods can be called on any ship.

boolean isSameTeamAs(Ship ship)
String getTeam()

Coord getCoord()
int getRemainingMoves()
int getRemainingShots()

boolean isSunk()
Ship getSunkBy()
Coord getSunkAt()

Ship getName()
Ship getOwner()
int getHealth()
int getHull()
int getFirepower()
int getSpeed()
int getRange()

Arena Class

The arena for the mission or battle is an argument for the doTurn() method. It contains other helpful methods that can be used to enhance a ship’s strategy.

Observe Other Ships

boolean isInRange(Ship source, Ship target)
Ship getShipAt(int x, int y)
int countLiveShips()
List<Ship> getAllShips()
List<Ship> getAllSpawnedShips()

Get Mission/Battle Data

int getXSize()
int getYSize()
int getTurn()

Add Pseudorandom Behavior

In Battleship, you should not use truly random behavior, because then we could not easily reproduce the results of a mission or battle! Pseudorandomn behavior follows statistical patterns of randomness, but can be generated in a definite way. To add pseudorandom behavior, call the arena.getRandom() method to get the arena’s Random object. You can learn about the abilities this object gives you in the Java 8 Random documentation.

Random getRandom()