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Coach A.I. v0.1a - in Beta
How to play/availability
To play just create a custom game by using the filter search on "coach".
It is currently available on EU and US servers.
The only playable map while in beta is Xel'Naga Caverns. More will come later.
Presentation
The Coach AI is an artificial intelligence that will coach you in real-time and monitor your play, giving you advice on various things such as your macro, your build, your map control and tons of other parameters. It is possible to play versus another human, or versus a computer (includes the green-tea A.I. 0.95), or even watch a match in spectator mode. A voice (placeholder for now) also gives you comments.
Four coaching levels are available, going from easy to strict to challenging, and controls the amount of advice and spam you will get ( you'll soon learn to hate the "spend your minerals! spend your gas" in strict mode.. ). On the top-right corner is displayed an error score, which rises as you make mistakes (supply blocked, not producing workers, forgetting to scout, etc.. ).
Finally, a statistic screen is available at any time from the game menu, and shows various graphs as a function of time. Things such as the potential amount of workers you could have produced or wasted minerals are displayed here. Your opponent's graphs appear uppon the end of the match (so make sure you don't quit too quickly whenever you win/lose ).
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/87fhn.jpg)
Features
General
- Supply block detection/anticipation
- Workers saturation/transfer
- Number of workers on gas
- Continuous workers production when not all-in
- All-in detection
- Overqueued units
- Idle workers
- Number of production buildings
- Keeping resources low
- Hotkey control groups
- Wasted (over-limit) energy
- Build execution
- Holding Xel'naga towers
- Map vision
- Scouting your opponent
- Scouting expansions regularly
- Analyzing ennemy build
- Buidling anti-air defenses
- Building detectors
- Checking base count/not getting out macroed
- Upgrades
Protoss
- Spending chrono boosts
- Chronoing gates when under agression
- Walling and placing a zealot in hold-pos in PvZ
- Researching warp tech asap
- Transforming gates into warpgates asap
Zerg
- Queens injections
- Needing to build more queens
- Queens energy management
- Creep tumors
- Creep spread
- Overlords placement
- Sacrificing an overlord to scout
- Overlord on top of natural when fast-expanding
Terran
- Correct use of scans
- Correct use of supply drops
- Correct use of MULEs
- Energy management on command centers
Errors score/tips
The number on the top-right corner represents an error score. The lower the better. Ideally you'd keep it at zero, however it may be impossible past the first minutes. Note that if your build is perfectly executed, you can keep it at zero during at least the first 5 minutes, for all races. It becomes harder to keep it low as you play a macro game, as opposed to an all-in/rush game. Also, Zergs may find it particularly difficult as they have a notoriously hard macro past the mid game.. some parameters may still need adjustments.
Tips fall on the bottom-right during the game whenever various events happen. Click on them to open the tips panel and view the details:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2IsAV.jpg)
Statistics
You can open the stats menu at any time, even during a game, by going into the game menu. However your opponent's stats are only displayed after the match has ended. You can surrender by typing "-gg".
Some stats may sound obscure so here's a short list of what the stats really mean:
- Total accumulated idle workers time: a worker is considered idle when it's been inactive (not moving or constructing) for more time than it would take to go back & forth to the mineral line. Ex.: a worker is 7 seconds away from the closest mineral line, so it becomes idle after 14 seconds of inactivity.
- Total accumulated non-continuous workers production: time spent not producing a worker when you could have. It is important to note that if you are unable to build a worker (you don't have 50 mins) then it isn't taken into account. Also if you stockpile minerals for some building or expo, it's not taken into account. Finally, it doesn't sanction you if you go all-in.
- Total supply blocked time: number of seconds you've been supply blocked
- Amount of energy wasted: energy that went over the max limit on your nexus/CC/queen
- Workers transfer wasted time: for example, let's say you have 25 workers in your main and only 5 in your natural. Your main is over-saturated (16 is ideal) while your natural is under-saturated. You should transfer 9 workers from your main to nat. If it takes you 10 seconds to fix that, the workers transfer wasted time will increase by 9 * 10 = 90 seconds.
- Mining time wasted: amount of time your workers could have harvested, like due to idle workers or saturation problems. It also takes into account workers that could have potentially been produced, but weren't due to a problem in your macro. Typical example: you've been supply blocked more than 17s, you would have had time to produce one more worker, which would have mined X minerals per minute.
- Amount of workers that could have been produced: currently bugged, though it doesn't affect the other stats. Please ignore.
- Potential minerals wasted: minerals you would have got with a perfect macro, if you didn't have idle workers or saturation problems, continuously produced workers, were not supply blocked, etc..
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GUuP1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/QeChe.jpg)
Versions
0.1a: first public version
TODO/Known problems
To report a bug/problem, or just give feedback in general, just post in this thread. It would be immensively helpful if you provided a replay to demonstrate the problem (in case of a non-obvious bug).
- Some people reported that the AI warned them about having 5+ workers on a gas when it was false. I haven't been able to reproduce that bug, so if you see it, please upload a replay..
- Too much message spam in strict mode
- A spectator cannot open the stats menu: this unfortunately seems to be a limitation of the galaxy (SC2) engine and cannot be fixed AFAIK, but if you know a fix, please contact me.
- Macro score adjustments: quite arbitrary at the moment, I need a lot of feedback to adjust it (please post your global stats, your macro score, and the actual ladder level you are).
- Amount of workers that could have been produced stats: actually the name is wrong, it calculates something else. Please ignore for now.
- Builds analyzis contains a few bugs, and only half a dozen builds have been filled in
- Voice is a placeholder
- Performance: at the moment the coach AI consumes a fair amount of resources, which may impact the framerate especially in lower cpus. I haven't worked on optimizations at all yet, but I will once beta ends. I'm more focused on behavior/functionalities right now.
Credits
- Coaching AI author: Nyast (EU) / Luckytrash (NA)
- Computer AI: Green Tea AI 0.95 by Ptanhkhoa
- Voice: IskenKahn (placeholder, need a better quality/more natural voice)
- Debugging/testing: HFR community
Enjoy !
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Wow this is pretty amazing
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Sounds really cool. I've never used anything like this before so I can't really give good feedback from reading. I might try it out sometime^^
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apparently i was all in with 3 mining bases...
and i have silver macro for a high masters player.. hmm
other than that, this ums will help noobie players, great job :D
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This is really cool dude. Keep up the good work.
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I just used it and there were some problems but in general it was really good. First of all the zerg had early ling agression and killed my gateway and got into my base. The simulator was telling me to get map vision when obviously I can't. It was also telling me to get upgrades before my nat was up (it was delayed) but the help was nice. The other problem was the AI. The zerg never expanded and just sat on the top of its ramp with a few roaches and a bunch of lings (which I was able to just force field the top of the ramp and it never ran away so i got a bunch of free kills even though the units weren't traped.) I liked the probe feature and supply blocked feature although the warning could come a little sooner for the supply block one. Overall good job and if can find a person to play with I will use it alot  .
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United States200 Posts
I (diamond zerg) tried this out for several games today and I have a bit of feedback:
Overall it seems pretty good, the coaching voice is an interesting idea with a lot of potential but currently it is pretty hard to hear/understand. Additionally I enjoy the statistics screen and I think that could be very useful as a supplement to understand how a game went.
The thing I think could use the most improvement is supply block detection. If it could detect the difference between being legitimately supply blocked and cutting drones and therefore not needing any more supply for a set period, that would be very useful, as I found that when doing some gas+pool before overlord openings it thought I was supply blocked for an extended period of time, when actually I didn't need an overlord. Maybe make it so it only counts you as supply blocked when you aren't saving up the minerals to spend them on something? Later in the same build when I hit 18/18 and then got an overlord which would pop right before first inject it also penalized me for supply block when in fact that was the optimal way to do it.
I don't know if that would be too hard to implement into the AI but if possible I think that could be very useful. I also don't know how terran and protoss play into that.
All in all it is a well developed AI program, especially for beta, and I will keep watching it/using it as it is updated, and I hope to see a very good finalized product when you get there.
Edit: I see you already are well aware of the voice problems.
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On August 04 2011 01:45 Kurai wrote:
apparently i was all in with 3 mining bases...
and i have silver macro for a high masters player.. hmm
other than that, this ums will help noobie players, great job :D
Same here. It tells me i'm allin in PvT if i don't expand until the 5 minute mark.
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I'll address some of the feedback later, just a quick word about all-ins and why you get warned when you're on 3 bases, or if you don't expand until the 5' mark:
Being all-in has little to do with the base count. It is related to continuous production of workers.
The AI considers you have entered "all-in mode" when you've completely stopped production of workers during more than 2 cycles of worker production; that's roughly 35s. However if you're stockpiling resources to expo, it shouldn't count towards that timer. Going all-in does not affect your score provided you do it well ( and not ping-pong between worker prod and idling time, which indicates poor macro ).
It will stop telling you you're all-in when not producing workers if and only if you've reached the "ideal" number of workers for the best macro. This number is a function of the number of mineral/gas patches still harvestable in all your bases. If nothing was depleted, it is usually equal to 30 per base. The total number is capped to 78.
As a result, if you're on a single base and have less than 30 workers, and stop workers production for more than 35s ( but could have afforded it, ie. you're not stockpiling forf an expo ), you'll be all-in, because it means you're not anticipating workers for a future expo.
If you're on 3 bases and have less than 78 workers, and stop workers production for more than 35s, you'll be all-in.
Once you're all-in, you're not supposed to build new workers for a decent amount of time ( I don't remember the exact value I used, but it's several in-game minutes ). If you resume workers production too quickly, it considers you're neither preparing a strong all-in push, neither macroing well, which is not ideal in neither case.
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seems pretty good. perhaps you can add something that tells the computer a plan of what ur about to do so the computer wont tell you useless things
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It was a great AI, I do have a few suggestions. Note that these are suggestions because the overall AI is such a high quality build especially for being in Beta. If I sound as if I am coming across any bit rude, annoying or cocky I can assure you I am not.
General Suggestions
Soo, firstly the creep spread as Zerg is a little tough (by tough I mean it's a bit of a bother) as it keeps telling me to spread my creep even when I had more than 70% of the map covered to the point where they just always got sniped because they were to close.
Another idea is that when you remind the player that they have too much Queen energy instead of suggesting that they spread more creep, also suggest that they create macro hatches. Furthermore, see if you can fix it so that it recognizes creep at thirds or fourths as a scout. I usually use overlord creep at thirds fourths and even fifths to scout them but if their being very aggressive killing the overlords sometimes I'll just put a tumor on the overlord creep so they don't continually snipe my ovies and so that they'll have to maybe waste a scan or morph an overseer or just take a little more time to kill the tumors.
I would also suggest that maybe you work in a Build order selection, so that it recognizes saving money up or overlord timings and doesn't make them mistakes. I think that would be a great addition, allow players to choose from a list of preset builds or they can select none if they wish.
Bugs
Another thing I noticed is that on the Gas in the mid right (possibly even left the right was just the expo I took), not the gold or the third, I would call it a fourth. The gas' are close and at one point the AI thought there were six drones on the gas and not just three and three. I'm purely assuming that is what was happening as when I looked at all my expos they were all saturated three and three.
For some reason, the all-in message was displayed when I was on four bases, not sure if it was stuck on from earlier ling pressure or if it has some odd criteria.
The trainer kept reminding me to build drones even though I was at the 90 mark. (Not sure if this is a bug) but possibly put a cap on that at around 80-100. We're not all Sheth.
My overall opinion is that I will definitely recommend this to not only the people reading but friends also. It's a great help, it reminds you to do.... basically everything you should. It keeps you on your toes at all times. I wish I could use it during ladder :D
tl;dr - Download it if you want to improve your game play. It's serious help.
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On August 04 2011 05:32 Pathetic wrote:
The trainer kept reminding me to build drones even though I was at the 90 mark. (Not sure if this is a bug) but possibly put a cap on that at around 80-100. We're not all Sheth.
Are you sure of that ? It's normally capped at 78. If you still have the replay, please upload it somewhere so that I can investigate, thanks
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This is incredible and will no doubt get a lot of play time out of me. (As long as I can find partners.)
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I'd love to see this applied to other maps because xel'naga is...not the map it used to be.
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Wow. This seems like an amazing Idea, will try it tomorrow for sure!
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Great job, this really helps!
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This is awesome! I can see this really helping some people with macro and other basic tasks like creep spread/injects when they are practicing. Sometimes the "coach" is a bit off in terms of its advice but its better than I expected and the AI is way better than Blizzard's version.
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Holy crap O_O
This could be just what I need to get my mechanics to a near flawless state. Bookmarked.
I was going to say that you should have different levels of strictness but you already have that figured out! Nice.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/eR8BD.jpg)
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