StarCrack AI Official Feedback Thread (V5.5)

[Razredge]

Here is my construtive criticism and ideas:

-The AI should research more, rarely (not to say never) have I seen the AI upgrade weapons or armors.


-Each race should have it's core strategy, i.e. terran should block the ramp with depos, protoss should use chrono boost and warpgates.


-Special abil units should not try to be amidst the fight, they should be backing up, and use its ability (never seen HT using storm).


-AI should gather it's forces before going to attack, not with just a few units, and it should retreat less often, and if it had to retreat not to be overwhelmed, it'd only come back with a bigger army.

[Pleomax]

Any of you guys when playing with AI , can't load units into T CC? is this a bug or something?

[Razredge]

Any of you guys when playing with AI , can't load units into T CC? is this a bug or something?

You have to place the units around/under the CC, and then select CC and click "Load".
"Satelite Link CC" (forgot the name) cannot load units inside.
PF can store units, but can't liftoff.

[orbb24]

Ya i think I will try the cheating AI. How much stronger would you say it is?

[Gamewiz]

So does all those "fixeds" imply 6.0 should be right around the corner? Today perhaps?!

I would prefer it to be tomorrow, so they can do it more shiny, and keep working on it.
I dont want to kick 5.5's ass, and then get pwned by 6.0

I'm still waiting for an AI to beat me... (I haven't downloaded any of the cheating ones). If 6.0 kicks my ass, I'll be ecstatic.

you should try the cheating one they are little stronger

Nah, I want to be beaten by a smarter AI, not an AI that beats me because he starts with more minerals and just zergs me to death.

[iounas]

Ya i think I will try the cheating AI. How much stronger would you say it is?

I just played PvP with it and it zerged me.
Robotics just warped and there are 7 zealots attacking my door with only 2 zealots and a sentry defending..They kill me..Shortly a bunch of stalkers joined..
I dont like that ai always goes for 2/3 gate rushes

[2g4u]

Its nice that, Turd no longer "spam" us with a lot versions. I hope that the next will be a very good, polished one, which will increase the level of the challenge.

Btw, is it only me that can't wait to test my noob skills vs real person ?

[Artanis186]

Just tried my first time vs the 5.5 cheating AI. Usually, I just rape the AI. Now... well, let's just say it's harder to fend off 20 archons, 15 carriers, and an uncountable amount of Zealots.

[orbb24]

Just did a cheating AI match myself. It is pretty pointless to try this. Basically the computer gets to put out twice as many units as you and just over runs you. Not much you can do really. Some stationary D helps but in the end you are going to get run over. Just too many units.

[Rhett]

Played a handful more games against the cheating AI yesterday, as all 3 races. Had a few surprises, and my time was mostly spent examining the AI's behavior.

TvZ: Zerg seemed to get confused and hover outside my base.. had two expansions, was creating units from all 3 hatcheries (makes sense).

PvP: Protoss is wonky, to say the least, as noted by Turd. What surprised me though, (not sure if this is hardcoded, or added) is that the Stalkers actually Blinked when in combat. Albeit not significantly (and I ripped them apart), they did blink forward, and one blinked down a cliff to get away from my forces.

PvT: Terran expanded 3 times (did not destroy rocks), was building (!!) on its closest expansion, possibly only after almost completely filling its own base up. Building as in, more than a CC and extractors. I saw starports and barracks, as well as a few sparce missile turrets.

 

[Marble]

Is it just me, or is the AI's endgame strategy nonexistent? The beginning is okay (unless you rush them with zerg early on), but once you get past the initial barrage of units, the AI doesn't know what to do next?

[r3ddrag0nx]

The best way to review the bot is watch the game you just played.
 
Anyway, some things I noticed about the Terran AI:

• they dont saturate mineral fields (builds 15 scvs and stops for a good while - saturation is at 24)
• the unsaturated minerals results in an imbalance w/ overabundance of gas b/cuz u programmed terran to dual gas early
• instead of building the 3rd rax, perhaps it can tech up? i think the problem in the a.i. lies in optimal build order. if that's the case you should program the standard openings for all 3 races.
• as stated before in my previous post in this thread, the constant back and forth of a.i. army is ridiculous. i've noted that you should program them to retreat and stay put for a little while if the difference in army strength is larger by x amount. meanwhile, they can build their forces. if difference is minimal they should just stay and fight/micro and re-evaluate the strength difference in intervals or something cuz they seem to be constantly evaluating army sizes compared to their own and fog of war fucks with their perception.

I can only provide feedback on early game as any mid game and late is redundant if early is not corrected. little mistakes equate to bigger problems. plus, i'm not too familiar w/ late game anyhow.
 
btw, turd if u need any testing, build order, etc. help, please let me know. i think i can be of some assistance in that aspect in the same manner that david kim is helping blizzard test in-house.
 
oh another idea is when the a.i. encounters an abundance of unit x, they should pump unit y (which is the counter to x). they should probably start off with the first possible counter they have available and tech to the best counter if there is an overly large amount of unit x. higher tier units should be weighted since they are naturally stronger than lower tier units. for example, 1 immortal equals x zealots to put it plainly.
 
UPDATE: upon playin another vs T game, I think a.i. shouldn't pull back his units to defend his base (the ones of his in my base) if his army strength is bigger relative to mine meaning that he can rip apart my base faster than i can his. i had a game where he retreated, rightfully so, but then it occured to me that perhaps if my army was small, he would have retreated too which is bad.
 
perhaps we can make the T a.i. have the ability to wall off? somehow detect narrow choke points in his main in the early game? perhaps then we would have map dependant a.i.?

[orbb24]

So I actually just did a match against a cheating AI right after my last post. Was a TvZ. All I did was wall off and put a couple bunkers at the front of my base. Eventually got 2 marauders and 2 siege tanks to hold off as well. They held off all of the ai rushes until closer to the end of the game. What I did was while that was holding everything off I got one expansion to an island and just built up a reaper strike force. They went around (8 of them in a medivac) and took out a lot of buildings and took some pressure off my front door. Continued doing while massing up battle cruisers from 3 starports. Once I got 6 BCs the ai pushed hard. A lot of loses on both sides. I held them off again and was able to re build a front door D. By the time I had 12 BC I decided to push out. I had my reapers and BCs go through the map and clear out everything. Took some time and some resupplying of the BCs but I eventually won the match. Was a long match though.

[Artanis186]

they dont saturate mineral fields (builds 15 scvs and stops for a good while - saturation is at 24)

24 is saturation? I only go with 16 and I fare pretty well. I don't see a need for 24, that's just overkill. It'd only be good if the extra 8 were going for expansion, and if they don't, that's a waste of 400 minerals.[/quote]

[Gamewiz]

they dont saturate mineral fields (builds 15 scvs and stops for a good while - saturation is at 24)

24 is saturation? I only go with 16 and I fare pretty well. I don't see a need for 24, that's just overkill. It'd only be good if the extra 8 were going for expansion, and if they don't, that's a waste of 400 minerals.

I agree. At the closest mineral (because they do stagger slightly in distance), 2 SCVs is fully saturated. So technically it's more like 2-2.5 SCVs per mineral for saturation, but to me that's not fully necessary. So 16 SCVs per standard mineral batch (12 for the high yield) is a nearly full saturation. 24 is definitely overkill.