Starcraft AI blog

A comment to Undermind Episode 31, which mentions non-programmers entering build orders into Steamhammer. I tried to comment directly at Making Computer Do Things, but WordPress thought I was a bot... which was kind of ironic. So I expanded and posted here instead.

There is documentation for the Steamhammer configuration file. It is not up to date, but it is complete except for newer features. It should be plenty for a non-programmer to enter build orders. Telling Steamhammer to play the build order will look difficult if you only read the config file, because the default config is complex, but if you read the documentation you’ll see it’s trivial. Other tricky parts: Steamhammer doesn’t always play build orders literally; queue reordering will be really confusing for beginners. The unforgiving JSON syntax plus uninformative error message might cause trouble (one misplaced comma and it’s “ha ha, it didn’t work, and I won’t tell you why!”).

Thanks, good discussion! I have new ideas about how to make it easier for people to get started. At some point I’ll try to do them.

• Add a simple sample configuration file for people who don’t feel like being overwhelmed by the performance config.

• Add documentation for non-programmers, that concentrates on the most useful features for them.

• Smooth out some of Steamhammer’s in-game behaviors so they are more intuitive. Somehow. They are there because they help sometimes, but they add complexity and can trip me up too.