Starcraft AI blog

Steamhammer 1.1 is in the works. It is currently short 1 major feature, 2 smaller features, and 7 critical bug fixes that I know of, so it is still a ways off. When it does come out, the headline feature will be the ability to transition from one unit mix to another in the middle game. Currently, all transitions are written into the opening book, obviously a severe limitation. The work involves completely rewriting the macro code, and I’m only part way through.

I keep changing my mind about the order of improvements. Here is an outline of what I’m thinking today, so that when I do something completely different, nobody will be surprised.

The basic order of middle game skills should be mutalisk skills, then lurker skills, then drop and runby skills (which are related in a way). For the benefit of people who fork Steamhammer, I want to make sure that all races work and that the bot can play random—it’s theoretically possible today, but I haven’t tested it so expect some bugs. It’s also a priority to upgrade base defense in general and worker defense in particular. In long macro games Steamhammer 1.0 does stuff which is bananasuperbeyond boneheaded, which I’ll have to ameliorate a little at a time. Scouting has got to be worked on and must tie into tactical decisions better. Upgrades need to be more aggressive, and the first hive units should be ultralisks. I really really want to make a start on opponent modeling soon. And I have many other plans that I’ve written down but not put into priority order.

Anyway, here are today’s plans for the headline features of the next few versions. I’m expecting many extra features and fixes in 1.1 and few extras in 1.2 (and beyond that I don’t want to predict).

• 1.1 - transitions
• 1.2 - test and fully support random play, like UAlbertaBot
• 1.3 - mutalisk reign of terror

After starting work on 1.1, I’ve already changed my mind twice about what to do when, and I may rethink again without warning. I shouldn’t try to plan further ahead.

Now I need to put my head back down and return to work.