Starcraft AI blog

The next version will be Steamhammer 1.4.2. I still have a bunch of work to do before it will be ready to release. I’ve implemented “side features” (meaning stuff I added for this version beside my main goals of map analysis and the opponent model) that will improve macro for all races, but especially terran and protoss. Micro is improved for all races, especially zerg and protoss. But I haven’t finished most of the main features that I promised! The map analysis works but is not well tied in to the rest of the code yet. The opponent model features will improve strategic play for all races—I expect they will improve play a lot. But the opponent model features are not ready at all.

So I’ve decided to get back to my main goals and skip further side features for now. Well, I’ll fix a broken improvement to wraith micro that I already wrote, but that’s all I plan. Pushing ahead on the main goals will get the release out sooner.

Earlier on this release, I thought I was working a lot on openings. I made a zerg AntiFactory opening to counter terran vulture openings and their followup, and it does its job. (By the way, more experience shows that even with AntiFactory, Steamhammer loses most games to Iron. Steamhammer stops the vultures, but has other weaknesses that Iron exploits. Still, zerg puts up a fight and does win occasionally, and that’s good enough for now.) As part of testing it, I made a terran VultureWraith opening, which is why I wanted an improvement to wraith micro. (VultureWraith seems to work well against unsuspecting zergs.) Plus I added various other openings, and fixed the accidentally broken OverpoolSpeed.

Now I feel as though I need to put in more time than I have on openings. I started working through Antiga’s new openings, beginning at the beginning with 6Gate. I got distracted after realizing that different followups for 6Gate put different pressure on the opponent, and had to stop when I saw that it was going to take too much time. I expect that I will slot Antiga’s openings into the configuration file, but I will probably not set any of them to be played, because I don’t have the time. Well, the following version 1.4.3 is planned to collect opening data itself and decide on its own how often to play openings, so I guess it’s OK. And for 1.4.2 I plan to play “never play this” openings when all else fails, so even in this version the new openings may help a little. Krasi0 will at least get to exercise its different reactions.

Since production goals are working well, upcoming versions will emphasize production goal features, alongside the map analysis features that will let me turn off BWTA. Each new production goal feature should further improve macro, until I can finally drop BOSS from Steamhammer altogether. In both BOSS and BWTA, I’ve come to feel that the B stands for Big and Bad.