Amazing. Anyone still doubting these things beating top koreans?
-It lost several goons -Some wasted shots -They seem to target the closest goon and not the one to minimize the opponents damage output -The other AI just attack moved
Ideally, no goons should have been lost, goons should think collectively and focus fire 1 shot other units with lower health and no shots should ever be wasted. All the AI appeared to do was back up when being shot by more than 1 unit while targeting the closest unit.
I'm not impressed (kidding, still amazing)
It's impossible not to lose any goons. Think about cool down and acceleration.
Amazing. Anyone still doubting these things beating top koreans?
-It lost several goons -Some wasted shots -They seem to target the closest goon and not the one to minimize the opponents damage output -The other AI just attack moved
Ideally, no goons should have been lost, goons should think collectively and focus fire 1 shot other units with lower health and no shots should ever be wasted. All the AI appeared to do was back up when being shot by more than 1 unit while targeting the closest unit.
I'm not impressed (kidding, still amazing)
It's impossible not to lose any goons. Think about cool down and acceleration.
That doesn't make it impossible. You can predict both of these perfectly. The hard (and pretty much impossible) part is to predict which unit your opponent will attack. But against an a-moving enemy, not losing any goons should be possible without too much trouble.
Amazing. Anyone still doubting these things beating top koreans?
-It lost several goons -Some wasted shots -They seem to target the closest goon and not the one to minimize the opponents damage output -The other AI just attack moved
Ideally, no goons should have been lost, goons should think collectively and focus fire 1 shot other units with lower health and no shots should ever be wasted. All the AI appeared to do was back up when being shot by more than 1 unit while targeting the closest unit.
I'm not impressed (kidding, still amazing)
It's impossible not to lose any goons. Think about cool down and acceleration.
That doesn't make it impossible. You can predict both of these perfectly. The hard (and pretty much impossible) part is to predict which unit your opponent will attack. But against an a-moving enemy, not losing any goons should be possible without too much trouble.
That's the other side of the coin. If there is no cool down & acceleration i.e the goon can move out instantly then there is no need to predict the opponent attack
If the AI has solid micro and perfect macro there's no need for the correct strategy or a need for understanding your opponent. And even that can be done.
Ive played against BWAPI macro. And that was already sick. If it also has this kind of micro then unless a player can somehow break the AI or abuse a weakness, how can a human win?
If the AI gets its way then in PvP the AI will have more dragoons and will also micro like this. You can only win if you know the bugs and weaknesses in the AI. Like micro messes up in a choke, or something. A Bisu or Stork will play normally and get crushed.
On November 24 2009 07:01 spinesheath wrote:Check out the tournament setup, it's UDP multiplayer mode.
Yes, this is exactly my point. While it's impressive to have perfect micro with singleplayer latency, ultimately it's meaningless when playing other AI's. I don't want to pick on the goon micro video, because the micro is nice, but I think it was made in singleplayer (because the "start" crystal needed to be clicked). Every AI will micro worse in multiplayer than in singleplayer--it's unavoidable because of the latency. What I'd be most interested to see is how well AI's micro in multiplayer, because I haven't been able to match basic human micro in multiplayer.
I haven't tried, but I don't think you can set the game speed anywhere past fastest in that mode. So if you are going to participate in the tournament, make sure you use that mode for testing.
I don't think this matters at all, except to make sure that the AI isn't taking too long to run. What matters is the latency. In singleplayer, the latency is 2 frames, and in multiplayer, it is 5 frames. At 23.8 frames per second on fastest, that's 84ms lag in singleplayer and 210ms lag in multiplayer, a huge difference.
Well, there are a decent number of WC3 micro maps. Check you OverSky's youtube.
These maps give some godly reflexes, and ridiculous micro to a comp that doesn't have common sense. I can fairly easily defeat them, albeit they can pop an invuln pot with a coil in the air. Before a holy light hits o.0 etc.
On November 15 2009 18:18 MasterOfChaos wrote: A small tip: On LAN Latency which they seem to use for this competition SC only accepts commands every second frame. So I'd do the calculations for time-insensitive stuff(macro) on the frame where it doesn't accept commands, and the time sensitive stuff(Micro) in the frame where it does. This reduces the Latency by one frame.
Thanks for this. This explains why sometimes my attack orders weren't being executed--they were being overwritten by move orders. My testing suggests that orders are only issued after each even-numbered frame, so, frames 1&2 issue their orders at the same time, frames 3&4 issue their orders at the same time, etc. Is this always true?
[11:47] <Drachlen> I was running a test earlier, to make sure my harvester distribution was functioning, and would work under various circumstances. So I kept pulling my probes off the line, hitting stop, etc, just various abuse, and then I was spamming stop, just to see if it could break it. And suddenly, my probes start EXPLODING. and i'm just like, what the hell is going on. (I had no sound) and then I... [11:47] <Drachlen> ...realize, the sc AI had made a dark templar and was killing my base.
Amazing. Anyone still doubting these things beating top koreans?
-It lost several goons -Some wasted shots -They seem to target the closest goon and not the one to minimize the opponents damage output -The other AI just attack moved
Ideally, no goons should have been lost, goons should think collectively and focus fire 1 shot other units with lower health and no shots should ever be wasted. All the AI appeared to do was back up when being shot by more than 1 unit while targeting the closest unit.
I'm not impressed (kidding, still amazing)
It's impossible not to lose any goons. Think about cool down and acceleration.
That doesn't make it impossible. You can predict both of these perfectly. The hard (and pretty much impossible) part is to predict which unit your opponent will attack. But against an a-moving enemy, not losing any goons should be possible without too much trouble.
That's the other side of the coin. If there is no cool down & acceleration i.e the goon can move out instantly then there is no need to predict the opponent attack
There IS cooldown and acceleration. Also, even if there were none, you would still have to predict enemy movement to some extent because otherwise you might get surrounded and no matter how fast you retreat, you will be hit.
On November 24 2009 07:59 Glaucus wrote: If the AI has solid micro and perfect macro there's no need for the correct strategy or a need for understanding your opponent. And even that can be done.
Ive played against BWAPI macro. And that was already sick. If it also has this kind of micro then unless a player can somehow break the AI or abuse a weakness, how can a human win?
If the AI gets its way then in PvP the AI will have more dragoons and will also micro like this. You can only win if you know the bugs and weaknesses in the AI. Like micro messes up in a choke, or something. A Bisu or Stork will play normally and get crushed.
pvp, if all the AI can do is macro and micro goons than it is simple: Hold your choke (easily possible even if the AI has awesome micro), get a DT/Reaver drop up and win. If the AI reads your gameplan perfectly and reacts perfectly, it will obviously win. But once there is a tech advantage for the human player, it becomes a lot harder for an AI to react properly.
I haven't tried, but I don't think you can set the game speed anywhere past fastest in that mode. So if you are going to participate in the tournament, make sure you use that mode for testing.
I don't think this matters at all, except to make sure that the AI isn't taking too long to run. What matters is the latency. In singleplayer, the latency is 2 frames, and in multiplayer, it is 5 frames. At 23.8 frames per second on fastest, that's 84ms lag in singleplayer and 210ms lag in multiplayer, a huge difference.
Just to make sure I get that right: if I play on UDP over a direct LAN connection, I will have 5 frames of latency? And that means that all my orders given out in a set of 5 frames will be thrown together and executed at once (some orders overwriting others)? Or what are the effects of said latency in detail if my assumption is wrong/incomplete?
On November 25 2009 03:29 spinesheath wrote: Just to make sure I get that right: if I play on UDP over a direct LAN connection, I will have 5 frames of latency? And that means that all my orders given out in a set of 5 frames will be thrown together and executed at once (some orders overwriting others)? Or what are the effects of said latency in detail if my assumption is wrong/incomplete?
Edit: After some more testing, I think the info in this post is somewhat off. The latency seems slightly higher in practice than values of BWAPI's enum, and I'm less sure about the mechanics of it in general.
As a disclaimer, I don't have in-depth knowledge of the workings of StarCraft. This is just what I've either read or guessed, and seems to fit how my AI behaves. So if someone with more understanding notices I'm getting something wrong, please correct me. With that said, here goes.
When playing UDP multiplayer with the low latency setting, 5 frames of latency will be present. That means that whenever an order is made, the unit will wait 5 frames before responding to the order. However, it is possible to issue another order before the unit has responded to the first order, and the unit will then respond to the first order and, after that, to the second order.
An additional complication is that orders can only be issued on even-numbered frames; orders that are made on odd-numbered frames are saved up and issued on the next frame. New orders will overwrite saved-up orders, so it's possible to give a unit a command, give a different command on the next frame, and have the unit never respond to the first command.
Here are some examples. Suppose we are controlling a probe to attack an SCV. We want the probe to attack the SCV and then run away so it doesn't die.
Suppose we order like this:
Frame 1: Send order Attack SCV Frame 2: Send order Move away (that is, to a location away from the SCV)
Because the Attack order was issued in an odd-numbered frame, it is saved up until frame 2, where it is overwritten by the Move order. Because 5 frames of latency is added, the Move order takes effect in Frame 7. Thus, the total effect is that for Frames 1-6, the probe is still, and then in Frame 7, the probe begins to move away from the SCV.
Now suppose we order like this:
Frame 1: No order Frame 2: Send order Attack SCV Frame 3: Send order Move away Frame 4: No order
Because the Attack order was issued in an even-numbered frame, it is sent to the probe. It only takes effect 5 frames later, i.e. in Frame 7. The Move order is saved up until Frame 4, at which point it is issued, to take effect 5 frames later in Frame 9. Thus, the total effect is that for Frames 1-6, the probe is still; in Frame 7-8, the probe attacks the SCV; and in Frame 9, the probe begins to move away from the SCV.
Wow after seeing that dragoon micro video I have to say it's really unfortunate this is only being worked on in the twilight of starcraft's career. A sufficiently advanced AI could definitely compete with progamers.
On November 26 2009 01:41 SirKibbleX wrote: Was there not some hack/part of Chaos Launcher or ICCup that allows for LAN or better latency? Could you hack the game to force a lower latency?
Competition rules state that the competition will happen in a LAN environment, so of course all code is being written for 'L2' latency, meaning every second frame commands are given.
So, I must say that this is a semi-shameless plug, but anyone who wants more details, please visit the official forums: http://starcraftai.rabbitx86.net/
It's only been up for a few days, so it's kind of slow and small right now. It's mostly geared towards the competition, but hopefully it will become a wonderful repository for all of the SCAI stuff.