.. TODO: How should we host the binaries

Creating your first bot
=======================

The goal of this page is to get you quickly started using the API. The 
following code block is the bare minimum you need to start Starcraft II and run 
your own bot.

.. code-block:: python

   from library import *

   class DoNothingBot(IDABot):
       def __init__(self):
           IDABot.__init__(self)
   
       def on_game_start(self):
           IDABot.on_game_start(self)
   
       def on_step(self):
           IDABot.on_step(self)
   
   
   def main():
       coordinator = Coordinator()
       bot1 = DoNothingBot()
   
       participant_1 = create_participants(Race.Terran, bot1)
       participant_2 = create_computer(Race.Random, Difficulty.Easy)
   
       coordinator.set_participants([participant_1, participant_2])
   
       coordinator.launch_starcraft()
       coordinator.start_game("InterloperTest.SC2Map")
   
       while coordinator.update():
           pass
   
   
   if __name__ == "__main__":
       main()

Now, let us break it down piece by piece to understand it.

.. code-block:: python

   from library import *

.. TODO: Should we really encourage this behaviour?

This imports everything from the library into your namespace. 

Next, we need to define our bot.

.. code-block:: python

   class DoNothingBot(IDABot):
       def __init__(self):
           IDABot.__init__(self)
   
       def on_game_start(self):
           IDABot.on_game_start(self)
   
       def on_step(self):
           IDABot.on_step(self)

A bot which plays Starcraft is defined as a subclass to the class :class:`library.IDABot` which
contains some help code in order to make implementing your bit more straightforward.

If we look closer at our newly created bot, it has three methods which are all 
run at different times. The method ``__init__`` is the constructor, which is 
called whenever the bot is first created.

The method ``on_game_start`` method is run when the game starts. Lastly, the 
method ``on_step`` is run on every time step of the game and thus where most of 
the decision making is going to be implemented.

Moving on, we have the code which sets up a game of Starcraft II:

.. code-block:: python

   def main():
       coordinator = Coordinator()
       bot1 = DoNothingBot()
   
       participant_1 = create_participants(Race.Terran, bot1)
       participant_2 = create_computer(Race.Random, Difficulty.Easy)
   
       coordinator.set_participants([participant_1, participant_2])
   
       coordinator.launch_starcraft()
       coordinator.start_game("InterloperTest.SC2Map")
   
       while coordinator.update():
           pass
   
   
   if __name__ == "__main__":
       main()

This is where the constructor of the bot is called. If we want to play to bots 
against each other we could change the row:

.. code-block:: python

   participant_2 = create_computer(Race.Random, Difficulty.Easy)

to:

.. code-block:: python

   bot2 = SomeOtherBot()
   participant_2 = create_participant(Race.Terran, bot2)

where ``SomeOtherBot`` is a bot defined in the same way as ``DoNothingBot``.