Hey there!

Man, you were before my time in Robocode, though I've read about some of your stuff. You might be curious to hear that genetic algorithms are something a few of us use to tune our guns these days.
No, there's not much community yet. I only just released the GUI version of BerryBots last night, which I think is a prereq to really gaining any momentum. One of the next things I'll be building is a battle runner API, which is needed for any batch battles and competitions, and to hold onto anyone that wants to get serious about BerryBots.
So I'm not sure I can convince you

Getting into BerryBots vs Robocode would be pretty different experiences at this point, and Robocode/RoboWiki is still going strong. I'd be much more prepared to argue why BerryBots > Robocode in a classroom setting - the programmable stage gives a lot of flexibility in how it's used and what it teaches, and lessens the ability to plagiarize bots off the web. Another cool looking game, which is pretty sleek and more similar to Robocode is
http://fightcodegame.com/Not sure what misled you, but you can't see bullets directly - they are invisible in the air just like Robocode. You do have two additional pieces of information though:
* Instead of having to monitor energy, you simply see an event when any visible ship fires a laser or torpedo.
* You see when lasers hit any ship that you can see, not just when your own lasers hit enemies.
Between these and the ability to see in all directions, you could actually build kickass melee surfing on an open field. Walls make this a lot hairier though.
Lasers are a line segment, with length the same as speed, which is also how Robocode works (though not how it's drawn/presented). Each tick, everyone moves, then lasers move, then it checks for collisions. If you want to get your hands dirty, here's the actual physics code:
https://github.com/Voidious/BerryBots/b ... e.cpp#L359Hope to see you around!