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Release 2.1
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@kant2002 kant2002 released this 15 Jan 04:56
· 11 commits to master since this release
2.1
8adbcbe

Here is the change list:

opponent model

  • Fixed a bug in InformationManager that could fail to recognize an in-base proxy.
    macro
  • Configured WorkersPerPatch to 2.0 for terran and protoss, to reflect mineral locking. Mineral locking helps terran and protoss over zerg, because bases tend to have more workers. Reducing the maximum worker count per base while maintaining full mining efficiency means that much more cash and supply to spend on tech and army.

tactics

  • Medics and tanks act in clusters. They are controlled by their own code, which needed updating.
  • Bug fix: A cluster of all medics which happened to reach the front line would then continue to advance heedlessly into the enemy position and die. Now it falls back toward the base—normally it will soon merge with another cluster that is on the way. To implement this, I split the former “no fight” case into 2 cases, “I have no fighting units” and “there are no enemies nearby,” which behave differently. All medics is an example of no fighting units.
  • Steamhammer knows a number of places that a cluster of units can retreat to. I moved “retreat to join up with another cluster” (which can be an advance rather than a retreat) ahead of “retreat to the location of a cluster unit which is not near the enemy” in priority order. It helps clusters merge a little more often.
  • When there are many clusters, Steamhammer saves execution time by not updating all clusters every frame. It divides the clusters into “phases” and updates one phase per frame. In Steamhammer 2.0, the phases were calculated incorrectly, which contributed to bad micro (though it wasn’t the biggest cause). Fixed.

combat sim

  • Combat sim scores are based on the cost of units, not the destroyScore, because destroyScore is sometimes strange. For now I set score = mineral cost + gas cost.
  • Steamhammer uses the combat sim scores in an unusual way to decide who won the simulation: It’s the side that ended up with more stuff surviving. It seems illogical, but it tested better than alternatives I tried, such as the side that lost less. Still, there are pathological cases where it gives a wrong answer. I fixed this pathological case: If you lost nothing, then you won the simulation, even if you finished with less stuff surviving. (If the other side also lost nothing, then you still won, because a draw counts as a win.)
  • I also changed the units included in the combat sim in special cases. 1. If you have nothing but ground units that can’t shoot up, then ignore enemy air units that can’t shoot down. Because the side with more surviving stuff wins, this can affect who wins the simulation. This fixes another pathological case, where for example zerglings might run away from corsairs. 2. If you’re scourge, include only ground enemies that can shoot up. Scourge are never afraid of the air units that they want to destroy, only of useless death by ground enemies.

At some point I’ll add the other natural special case, for air units that can’t shoot down. All this combat sim stuff could be way more sophisticated....

micro

• I fixed the biggest cause of poor micro in Steamhammer 2.0. As part of choosing an enemy target, the melee and ranged unit controllers called CanCatchUnit() to see whether the enemy unit would be able to escape if chased. It was meant to reduce goose chases. Anyway, the results of CanCatchUnit() are apparently wrong. I haven’t looked into what the trouble was, because I found that removing the calls had no effect on goose chases—long chases have become rare due to other changes. The error caused units to overlook targets that they could, and often should, attack. Zergling micro became weak, and zealot micro was worse. It’s all back to normal now.

  • Vultures and wraiths would become fixated on their targets, unable to switch away even to retreat in an emergency. Fixed.
  • Like clusters, defiler actions are divided into phases. There was a bug in coordinating the cluster phases and defiler phases, so that defiler actions might be skipped for a long time depending on the phase of the cluster the defiler was in. Fixing it makes defilers more active, though they still don’t swarm or plague as often as they should.
  • Scourge is allowed to spread out more in regrouping. Mutalisks should usually group tight, scourge should spread out some. Formerly, all air units behaved the same.
  • I made a couple adjustments to defiler plague. 1. Plague on a building was formerly worth 0.6 of plague on units with the same hit point loss; I changed the discount to 0.3, half as much, so that defilers will try harder to plague units. Buildings have a lot of hit points and threaten to dominate the scoring. (Static defense buildings are treated the same as mobile units, though.) 2. Plague gets a bonus for carrier interceptors, to exploit the plague-on-interceptor behavior, but I didn’t see Steamhammer trying hard to plague XIMP’s interceptors (only the carriers themselves). I increased the bonus by a factor of 4.

zerg

  • Scourge are in their own squad, the Scourge squad. They behave somewhat better in my tests, but it’s primitive and they still have a long way to go. I mentioned a couple other improvements to scourge behavior above. It was surprisingly difficult to get scourge to do anything sensible.
  • Get an evolution chamber and a spore colony for air defense when needed even if still in book. Steamhammer formerly waited until the book line came to an end before it dared defend itself. I think this will be a net gain, though it will make mistakes sometimes.
  • Tweak: Enemy dragoons and dark templar loom a little larger as reasons to make static defense.
  • Fixed a bug in deciding to get defilers. Battlecruisers are an excellent reason to get defilers; valkyries, not so much.
  • Strongly avoid spawning mutalisks versus large valkyrie counts. Valkyries in numbers pass through mutas like they’re hardly there.

openings

  • Fixed a typo in the opening name Over10Hatch2SunkHard in the AntiZealot strategy combo. When this opening was selected, Steamhammer couldn’t find it and played its default 9 pool instead, a poor choice against mass zealots.
  • Added the zerg opening AntiFactoryHydra, which may be better against SAIDA’s unit mix than Steamhammer's original AntiFactory, and the terran opening 10-10-10FD in a form close to that popularized by Flash. 10-10-10 is an opening stem that gets a super-fast factory, and 10-10-10 FD is a followup that continues into an attack with 2 tanks and 8 marines, which is strong against protoss that techs too hard or expands fast.
  • I configured terran and protoss counters to Naked expand by protoss. That means configuring which openings are to be tried as counters to an expected enemy plan. 10-10-10FD should be a good counter to protoss Naked expand.

debug drawing

  • In the game info display (drawn in the upper left of the screen when turned on), Steamhammer 2.0 added an overall score versus this opponent, shown next to the opponent name, “2-3” meaning 2 wins and 3 losses. Steamhammer 2.1 also adds a score for the chosen opening, drawn next to the opening name. The context makes it easier to interpret Steamhammer’s choices. The numbers are specific to the matchup. Randomhammer will show different numbers depending on what race it rolled.
  • Squads have 2 settable flags, “fight visible only” (only include visible enemies in the combat sim, not all known enemies) and “meatgrinder” (be more aggressive, willing to accept high losses). Visible-only is used by the Recon squad, and meatgrinder tested poorly and is not used. If the squad info display is turned on, it draws cyan V and M left of the squad’s information line if the flags are turned on.
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