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the most underused skill?

If a skill is effective in games and not too hard to implement, and yet isn’t implemented in many bots, then surely it is an underused skill. For example, I think that evacuating workers from a base under attack is underused. It is easy to tell whether to evacuate workers: If you have a combat simulator or an army strength estimator or any method to tell whether you’ll win or lose a fight, then run it when the enemy reaches a base of yours, at least if you have another base that can keep mining. It is not as easy to tell where to evacuate workers to, since they might flee toward the enemy army. But you know the current place is bad, and running anywhere else is probably no worse.

Steamhammer doesn’t evacuate workers, and suffers for it. It’s high on my list. The 7 bots above it on the bot ladder do, except I think for XIMP by Tomas Vajda; Steamhammer may be the strongest bot missing the skill. Killerbot by Marian Devecka is particularly good at it, if as ask me. Most other bots don’t; it’s a fairly rare skill, which is why I say it is underused.

There is a special case that is even easier to implement: Terran can evacuate SCVs by simply lifting the command center. If terran has another command center landed anywhere else (reachable by land), then the SCVs will return their cargo there. If not, the SCVs will stay near the minerals or gas, not the best place to hide but better than nothing. As a side benefit, if the attacking force includes units that can’t shoot up, the command center will often take longer to destroy—even if it only floats there and doesn’t move away.

PenaBot by Henri Kumpulainen used to lift its command centers, if I remember from so long ago. Iron does it sometimes when losing, though I don’t think the purpose is to evacuate SCVs. LetaBot by Martin Rooijackers will float a command center, but only to move it into position. I can’t think of any current bot that lifts its command center to protect itself.

I nominate lifting the command center for safety as the #1 most underused skill. What do you think are underused skills?

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Antiga / Iruian on :

I've gotta go with burrow. In bot hands it has the potential to be incredible in a way that a human never could do due to apm reasons. Burrow a unit about to get hit by a reaver shot , mid travel. Burrow a unit about to die if the opponent doesn't have vision. Move entire armies, burrow them and wait. I think the entire list of builds / unit mixes humans struggle with for apm related reasons is also worth considering. Bio Tank, mass ling hydra deflier lategame, sair reaver + ground combo builds etc.

Jay Scott on :

Burrow is a good one. It has a tremendous range of uses. From a bot developer’s point of view, the downside is that every use has to be represented in the code: Either explicitly written in, “in this situation, do that” or else discovered by some kind of search “let’s try burrowing, does that help?” Steamhammer, by the way, does have one use of burrow coded. An irradiated unit will burrow if it can to save its comrades. Steamhammer doesn’t research burrow unless it is written into an opening build, so the skill only comes up with lurkers.

Antiga / Iruian on :

One of the coolest uses of burrow is how it works with collision. If say you have 24 marines and 10 marines walk by and are directly over the lings. The marines get "stacked" from below and can't do anything and get obliterated. Barely fire a shot. Even more hilarious is lings vs goons as the goons essentially get locked in non-move mode.

Dan on :

I'll disagree a bit. Burrow sounds cool as a way to avoid fights, but Zerg units are almost always faster than what they're fighting and are usually better off just running away. Hydralisks/Zerglings vs. Vultures or Hydralisks vs. speed Zealots might be among the few exceptions to that rule. And though you can dodge Scarabs, you can't dodge other attacks (bullets en route hit their targets anyway). Normal potential field kiting already punishes Scarabs badly (see Arrakhammer, who usually takes 50 or less total damage from a Scarab shot). Protecting workers, setting ambushes, and blocking expansions are still excellent uses though. Bots rarely escort workers to the expansion site; a burrowed Zergling requires both an escort AND a detector, which is a big headache.

Tully Elliston on :

Burrowing Drones at an agent level when damaged.
Burrowing Zerglings to disrupt enemy expansion.
Unburrowing everything in the area as soon as a burrowed unit is directly attacked.

Dan on :

Most underused skill: Positioning units to maximize your firepower and minimize your opponent's. Even if you float money and build the wrong units, if you can trade profitably you can win. SCVs mine minerals. Concaves mine units.

MicrDK on :

Burrow has been on my list for a while. Especially burrow drones if a base is overrun. Seems to be easier to implement than let them run away... Burrow a zergling in the enemy natural to disrupt the expanion seems like a very good idea. :D

Jay Scott on :

I guess I should write a post about the many uses of burrow.

Dan on :

My favorite: http://liquipedia.net/starcraft/Hoejja_build

Jay Scott on :

That is one of my favorites, too.

jtolmar on :

Two candidates. An easy skill: keep scouting when all known enemies are gone. Some percent of bot matches are going to devolve into ridiculous flailing, and bots that keep looking for enemy bases win those, but low and mid-tier bots are frequently missing the skill. And a harder skill: don't over-micro. Most of the commands you issue reduce the amount of time your units spend firing, and often times the best move is to not move. (Day9 spends a good chunk of his Let's Learn Starcraft episode on micromanagement on this, if you want more explanation.)

MicroDK on :

Burrowed lurkers at bases instead og using static defense.

Jay Scott on :

Lurkers are natural defensive units. Using them to actually defend is certainly an underused zerg skill.

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