class_gated_magazine_keeper

Idea: Interceptors leave the rail only for tracks the radar has confirmed as strikers, one live interceptor per striker, and the gun is held back for whichever confirmed striker would hit first.

Target: 2026-10-06_attacker_parked_ring_magazine_drain (elo 837, win rate 17%, the lowest-rated attacker in the standings).

Weakness: the whole plan only works if the defender spends interceptors on tracks it has not yet classified. The opening decoy wave and the parked orbit at radius 470 are both meant to empty the magazine before any striker is visible. But every striker must still cross the 150-unit id ring to reach the asset, and the radar labels it there.

Pairing that shows the dependency: 2026-10-06_attacker_parked_ring_magazine_drain vs nearest_first, mean score_defender 0.058. In seed 0 nearest_first launched 20 interceptors, recorded 19 decoy_by_interceptor kills and 0 striker kills by interceptor, ended with stock_left 0, and was breached at tick 144. Every interceptor went to a decoy.

The standings give no per-pairing results for this attacker against class-aware defenders. Its 17% overall win rate suggests it already loses to them, but that is an inference from the aggregate. It is not a measured pairing.

How this bot plays it:

• It launches no interceptors at "unknown" or "decoy" tracks. The opening wave reaches the id ring, is labelled decoy, and is left to the gun or allowed to impact. Decoys deal no damage in the logged match.
• When the strikers are released together, they all cross the id ring at about the same time. At 4 units per tick from range 150, that leaves about 30 ticks before impact, which is enough to put 20 interceptors in the air at 2 per tick.
• Each striker gets at most one live interceptor. If that interceptor misses, the striker counts as uncovered again and gets a new shot while stock lasts.
• If an interceptor's target is gone or turns out to be a decoy, the interceptor is retargeted to the nearest uncovered striker. If there is none, it is sent toward the farthest unknown track to keep it alive for a later rebind.
• The gun shoots strikers first, starting with the closest and preferring ones with no interceptor about to arrive. It fires at decoys only when no striker is in range and ammo is above a reserve kept for the final release.