object permanence

When I saw IceBot destroy a pylon in its base and kill the probe, and then repeatedly scout the rest of its base as if looking for more proxies, I realized: Bots do not have object permanence (certainly most bots don’t). IceBot had its choke locked up, and no second probe could have gotten in. A 3-year-old knows that objects don’t simply appear and disappear but must move or be moved from place to place, and Brood War bots do not. To be sure, a lot of them aren’t that old yet.

Maybe it’s time for bots to start doing simple reasoning about moving objects: They came from somewhere, they have a goal, they have to pass through points in between. Drop, nydus canals, and recall are the only tricks, and they have limits. “Oh, that SCV train is probably going to a new expansion—there or there.” Or: “That army might be aiming for my natural. I should siege up before it gets in range.” It’s a kind of goal inference.

Or do we still have more important things to take care of first?

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