Starcraft AI blog

After every new Steamhammer version it’s time to come out with new plans for the following versions—plans that are always updated and sometimes changed beyond recognition. No plan survives contact with further consideration.

Despite my intention to stick to low-risk changes in the latest Steamhammer, I seem to have introduced a severe bug into combat simulation. I’m seeing cases of pointless fear, like ultralisks fearful to attack an assimilator, and Games Are Being Lost, which must not be. I need to make a point release to fix this bug, and possibly a few minor bugs besides.

But I don’t have the energy to fix bugs right now. I want to do something fun instead. I’m adding broodling for queens, and thinking about how to adjust the strategy boss so it can make more than 1 queen at a time without ever going overboard. Hmm. The rest of the code already supports any number of queens, at least in principle, but not the strategy boss. This is, by the way, another change of plans; I was originally intending to implement ensnare before broodling.

Related stuff that’s high on my list: Simple sample configuration file, for people who prefer to ignore the complex default config file with features piled over their heads. Up-to-date documentation. I promised a post on defilers. Oh, and I forgot to release source, I’d better do that next. I’d forget the period at the end of the sentence if it weren’t there on the keyboard to remind me

In the longer term, I need to go to BWAPI 4.4.0 and make progress on strategy adaptation. My thinking at the moment is that I’ll make the most progress by working with timings: The opponent model should record the timings and unit mix of opponent attacks, and compare them against the measured timings of Steamhammer’s openings to figure out how to counter an opponent. That’s only a small part of the full strategy adaptation suite, but it’s critical and it seems like a good piece to do early.

If you look closely at the source—you know, the source I forgot to release—you’ll find an unfinished and unused class BOSimulator which is a start on another essential part of strategy adaptation. I need to rename it, the name is confusingly similar to Dave Churchill’s BOSS.