An AI is a majorly time-consuming thing to make. The only reason I got mine done in time was because I'm on study leave! While a decent cinematic could be done in the space of a day, an AI requires a small project's worth of work!
My plan was to load up the competing AI's into Mimic, and let it learn their build orders xD. It would be beaten in terms of micro however. It's kind of a "jack of all trades, but master of none".
Mimic actively records your build order and army composition as you play, which can then be saved into Mimic's memory for later use. Mimic will then try to emulate your playstyle in subsequent games!
Features:
Mimic can play as Protoss, Zerg and Terran
Mimic actively scouts, and cannot attack what it can't see
Up to 12 players can be controlled by Mimic simultaneously
The AI can be easily transferred into other melee maps
Mimic can store up to 30 build orders simultaneously
Instructions:
Playing - By default, Mimic starts with no build or attack orders. If this is your first game against Mimic; build and expand as much as your please. Attack the existing enemy base, and type -save before defeating the opponent. Once the profile is saved, restart the game and Mimic will now know how to build and attack with your race! Alternatively, you can download the MimicAIData.sc2bank file and place it into the Starcraft II Beta\Banks folder. This contains 9 basic profiles to get you started.
Editing - You can change several basic settings within the AI Initialization trigger: 'Gather Rate' determines the mineral yield of the AI. Setting this to 2 will make the AI gather minerals twice as fast, and you can use this to alter the difficulty. Similarly, 'AI Omnipotence' can be toggled on to remove the scouting mechanic; this effectively allows the AI to see the entire map. If you want to change the players controlled by the AI, simply add them to the 'AI Players' player group.
Copying - Mimic can be copied into any melee map. Simply copy and paste the 'Mimic' folder, and delete the 'Start Melee AI for all Players' function within the Melee Initialization trigger of the destination map.
A little harsh don't you think? It's just a competition, and we're entering voluntarily. I would have probably had a go at making an AI somewhere down the line anyway. If I can get rewarded for it, then all the better!
Getting pretty close to finishing mine now. The biggest remaining hurdle is scouting though. The damned thing refuses to scout in any way shape or form. I've tried using both the scouting natives and the GUI functions to no avail. I could always throw something together myself, but I don't want to end up wasting hours like I did with the build orders ^^
I dont believe it lol! After hours and hours and hours of building an 'AI construction system' I figured out how to make it build stuff normally with a single function!.
Use the AI - Advanced function to clear the stock list and build queue for an AI player. Then make a build order of set-stock commands, and finally at the end stick an Enable Restocking function.
The AI will NOT use workers that are harvesting via the 'Order workers to harvest nearby resources' function, which was probably how I overlooked this in the first place. Hopefully this will help some people out so that they don't make the same mistake!
Edit: Upon further inspection, you will also need the three following functions to run for the AI player:
AI Advanced - Start AI for player (player) in Campaign mode with 200 Actions Per Minute
AI - Initialize campaign towns for player (player)
AI - Initialize campaign harvesting for player (player)
It seems many of the AI - Advanced triggers in the GUI don't work too well; the AI seems to have trouble building structures in particular. Anyone managed to figure this out?
I've had to make my own pathing detection and build order functions as a workaround :S. Not a total project ruiner, but a pain in the ass nonetheless.
Definitely! Notice how number of votes correlates somewhat to page position. (That and the top submissions also happen to be pretty damn good). I might actually make a graph for giggles.
Not a fault on anybody's part though; it's a great competition, and so there are a great number of entries. It can't be helped ^^
EDIT: Threw a graph together, the sad person that I am! (Sc2 is bugging, what else am I to do? xD) Notice how Eiviyn's masterpiece proudly breaks the trend!
The raw unedited fraps footage (that I uploaded) was a 1.1gb .avi file. Youtube processed it and optimised it I guess. My screen resolution is 1280 x 1024 so I assume fraps used the same resolution.The odd lightning flickering also appears in-game, either because of my graphics settings or just the camera's draw-in distance.
I would rather have a rating system, if battle.net doesnt have one implemented with it anyway. The Hive Workshop had a good system where the number of votes were weighted into its ranking on searches (a rating of 4.8 and 100 votes is more reliable than one with 5 and 2 votes).
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@Demonette: Go
I think the rules are relatively lax; if it can fight someone in melee, submit it!
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@Eldrazor: Go
An AI is a majorly time-consuming thing to make. The only reason I got mine done in time was because I'm on study leave! While a decent cinematic could be done in the space of a day, an AI requires a small project's worth of work!
@zifoon: Go
My plan was to load up the competing AI's into Mimic, and let it learn their build orders xD. It would be beaten in terms of micro however. It's kind of a "jack of all trades, but master of none".
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Well, after much sweat and elbow-grease, my AI is ready! (I think)
From the map's page:
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@TartarusMkII: Go
A little harsh don't you think? It's just a competition, and we're entering voluntarily. I would have probably had a go at making an AI somewhere down the line anyway. If I can get rewarded for it, then all the better!
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Getting pretty close to finishing mine now. The biggest remaining hurdle is scouting though. The damned thing refuses to scout in any way shape or form. I've tried using both the scouting natives and the GUI functions to no avail. I could always throw something together myself, but I don't want to end up wasting hours like I did with the build orders ^^
Has anyone managed to get an AI to scout yet?
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I dont believe it lol! After hours and hours and hours of building an 'AI construction system' I figured out how to make it build stuff normally with a single function!.
Use the AI - Advanced function to clear the stock list and build queue for an AI player. Then make a build order of set-stock commands, and finally at the end stick an Enable Restocking function.
The AI will NOT use workers that are harvesting via the 'Order workers to harvest nearby resources' function, which was probably how I overlooked this in the first place. Hopefully this will help some people out so that they don't make the same mistake!
Edit: Upon further inspection, you will also need the three following functions to run for the AI player:
AI Advanced - Start AI for player (player) in Campaign mode with 200 Actions Per Minute
AI - Initialize campaign towns for player (player)
AI - Initialize campaign harvesting for player (player)
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It seems many of the AI - Advanced triggers in the GUI don't work too well; the AI seems to have trouble building structures in particular. Anyone managed to figure this out?
I've had to make my own pathing detection and build order functions as a workaround :S. Not a total project ruiner, but a pain in the ass nonetheless.
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I can't wait!
You know what would be an AWESOME way to find the winner? Battle the AI's against eachother =D
EDIT: oh, and dibs on the name "skynet" :D
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@LolCakeLazors: Go
Definitely! Notice how number of votes correlates somewhat to page position. (That and the top submissions also happen to be pretty damn good). I might actually make a graph for giggles.
Not a fault on anybody's part though; it's a great competition, and so there are a great number of entries. It can't be helped ^^
EDIT: Threw a graph together, the sad person that I am! (Sc2 is bugging, what else am I to do? xD) Notice how Eiviyn's masterpiece proudly breaks the trend!
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@SCPhonebook: Go
Hehe, fantastic! Similar idea, but a totally different take on it. I love the mini-conversation you put together!
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@mrm3fan: Go
The raw unedited fraps footage (that I uploaded) was a 1.1gb .avi file. Youtube processed it and optimised it I guess. My screen resolution is 1280 x 1024 so I assume fraps used the same resolution.The odd lightning flickering also appears in-game, either because of my graphics settings or just the camera's draw-in distance.
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My entry:
Had to leave my pc on overnight to upload the damn thing for the 4th time (1.1Gb video? :S)
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Facebook!? In my starcraft?
Ew.
I would rather have a rating system, if battle.net doesnt have one implemented with it anyway. The Hive Workshop had a good system where the number of votes were weighted into its ranking on searches (a rating of 4.8 and 100 votes is more reliable than one with 5 and 2 votes).
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Changed it to an attachment, sorry about that. It showed up fine in my browser, but I guess not for everyone.
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Was just browsing through the game textures, and I stumbled across this: (see attachment)
Maybe it's just my lack of tech-knowledge, but this strikes me as an unusual reflection texture!