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expect Steamhammer 1.4.2 within a day

Once I debugged the opponent model opening selection, a long careful test revealed that—drum roll—it didn't work as intended. When the number of games against a given opponent went over 30 or so, the "clever" system for trying out new openings became overactive and gummed up the mechanism, with poor game results. It was a design mistake, and I had to redesign it with less cleverness and rewrite a large section. Now it tests as working reasonably well against both predictable and difficult opponents, over both short and long runs of games.

Tests located the stubborn bug in the gas steal, which sometimes caused the gas steal drone to sit around next to the enemy extractor doing nothing. I fixed it. Is that the last gas steal bug? Based on history, probably not....

More tests to run, and the wild shots so far are par for the course. Everything is on track. Expect Steamhammer 1.4.2 to be uploaded late tonight or early tomorrow (in my time zone).

Tomorrow: Steamhammer 1.4.2 change list. It's kind of long.

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Antiga / Iruian on :

Looking forward to 1.4.2! AI Starcraft Tournament S1 has been announced publicly! Tournament is designed to as closely as is reasonably possible replicate a human professional tournament in order to further bot development and create middle ground between the human and bot focused tournaments.You can read more about it here : https://drive.google.com/file/d/13AB_Xus6In1He_DD0wvngzQ7Lq9fnG7D/view?usp=sharing

Jay Scott on :

A tournament well worth having, great! But wow, Sparkle is in the map pool? I think Third World is already tough for bots. Sparkle has special features way over their electronic heads. I foresee hardcoded adaptations to the map.

Dan on :

Yes, especially given the short timeframe. I think that's fine! It's a good start. You can get by in both SSCAIT and AIIDE with minimal adaptations to map-specific features (basically just the Destination/Heartbreak blocker minerals, and ignoring islands). The less that's the case, the more developers will have to start adapting.

Jay Scott on :

Once the Steamhammer release is out of the way, I’ll be writing more about this tournament. I think it’s a good way to push bot development forward. I am already feeling a push to change my development plans, to delay opponent model work and accelerate support of difficult map features. We’ll see!

Antiga / Iruian on :

Yup decided to go full no compromise on the map pool and use exactly what the most recent pro season is using, and it will be updated to reflect that for future seasons. Time to push bot development forward a little!

Jay Scott on :

I just listed in my head the features I’d need to add to play an adequate game on Sparkle, and even if I started now and did nothing else I could not finish them all in time. At best, there will be compromises. Probably all bots are in the same position, though, so it’s hardly unfair.

McRave on :

Last year I promised to you that I would add expanding to islands to my bot. It's never too late I guess :D

McRave on :

And I am the first BWAPI bot to take an island expansion (or at least I'm being told I am the first)!

http://www.openbw.com/replay-viewer/?rep=https%3A%2F%2Fsscaitournament.com%2FReplays%2FGUIBOT%2F264286-GuiB_Spar-PvT.rep

Jay Scott on :

The first that I know of. With worker transfers, too. Good work!

Dan on :

I wouldn't fault you for pushing it further and replacing the tame Gladiator with something like Outsider or Gold Rush.

MicroDK on :

Has this version become the new vaporware? :D

Jay Scott on :

That’s right, total vapor. Unquestionably, nothing so much talked about could ever see the light of day. (P.S. At least not until the sun rises.)

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