Starcraft AI blog

Most terran bots that lay spider mines don’t pay much attention to where the mines are relative to where their own units are, or to where their own units will be, only to where opponents are expected. Spider mines do massive splash damage to all units nearby, enemy or friendly, so it’s safest to keep your own units away from them. These pictures show what can happen when you leave a spider mine in your own mineral line.

In this case, the mineral line was thinly populated, so only 5 SCVs died along with the 1 zergling that triggered the mine. “Only” 5.

Laying a spider mine in an enemy mineral line can be good. Maybe you can lure a zealot to trigger it. In a neutral base, it will tell you if the enemy takes the base and may not give away that you know. If you take that neutral base yourself, your mine is a danger to yourself. You should kill it.

Most terran bots (even Krasi0) will happily set up a tank line in the midst of their own minefield. When a pro feels the need to do that, they kill their own mines if there is time. In bot world, most opponents don’t particularly notice the opportunity of triggering the enemy mines on purpose, so they score mine hits on enemy units by chance if at all. Some do it deliberately, though. Skynet by Andrew Smith has code which purports to drag mines into the enemy. I also see mine dragging code in PurpleWave, and I expect other top bots have the skill. It’s high on my list for adding to Steamhammer, because it is devastating when it works.