Starcraft AI blog

Another test version is uploaded. Almost done. At most one more test version, maybe none, and then the proper release. My attempt to get lurkers to stand off from cannons failed, but it’s not critical. The change list:

• BOSS has a hard-coded limit (in DFBB_BuildOrderSmartSearch::calculateSearchSettings()) on the number of workers. It was restricting terran and protoss to 45 workers. I changed the limit to 75, to match Steamhammer’s intended maximum. I can’t wait to get rid of BOSS.

• Protoss and terran configured limit of workers per mineral patch tuned downward slightly, to spread workers better among bases.

• I broke out InformationManager’s BaseStatus struct into a separate file, renaming it Base (always a good name for a class). I arranged for Base to keep track of its own geysers so it can work around the BWAPI geyser bug. This bypasses BWTA, whose geyser tracking is subject to the bug, and it is another step toward dropping BWTA entirely. It took more refactoring than I expected.

• Using the new Base geyser tracking, I wrote a method InformationManager::getMyGasCounts() which counts taken and free geysers accurately. The old way could be wrong after either a base or an extractor had been destroyed, including after the extractor trick. This should fix a variety of mistakes in starting and stopping gas, building extractors, and so on. It was the most serious of the remaining basic infrastructure bugs.

• I implemented Arrak’s idea of individual attack or retreat for dark templar. It has its own problems, but it seems better overall.

• Zerg collects 300 spare gas before turning off gas collection, down from 400. There are other minor tweaks to turning gas on and off.

• Zerg reacts more strongly to early terran attacks. It’s still not good, but it’s a little improved.

• Aux guardians and aux devourers were badly wrong. It would do things like make 6 devourers to face down a shuttle. Fixed.

• Unused code, different code for doing the same vector and angle calculations, removed from one place and commented out in another.