sandbox
A page for typing out ideas:
Categories and Threat Levels
Categories
- Ground To Ground
- Ground To Air
- Air To Ground
- Air To Air
- Detection
- Stealth
Threat Levels
- c_OM_ThreatLevelNone - exactly what it says. This category is not a present concern.
- c_OM_ThreatLevelPossible - The enemy is known to have completed the Pre-prereqs for the units in question and is one tech step away. A Protoss enemy with a Gateway and an Assimilator up would be at this level for Ground To Air because they are a Cybernetics Core away from building Stalkers and we could have missed the Core being built.
- c_OM_ThreatLevelExpected - All prereqs have been built. The enemy has the tech to build the units in question. A Protoss enemy with a Cybernetics Core is at this level for Ground To Air because Stalkers can be built at will (and probably will be.)
- c_OM_ThreatLevelStructures - the enemy has structures in this class but no units that we know of.
- c_OM_ThreatLevelLight - Units in the class in question have actually been spotted but are very small in number or no known units still exist. We have ample counter units available. Also applies to threats that are only from defensive structures. This class is merely a nuisance concern
- c_OM_ThreatLevelModerate - Mid sized groups of the class in question have been spotted recently and/or are known to still exist. We have the units to counter them but unescorted units may be vulnerable.
- c_OM_ThreatLevelHigh - Significant threat posed by this class of units. We either have the tech to counter but not sufficient units, or our only counter is base defense structures and map control is largely being surrendered to the enemy until we tech to counters.
- c_OM_ThreatLevelSevere - We do not have the tech to counter this class of unit. Tech or die.
Ground To Ground
None
Ground To Ground is never none. Everyone starts one tech away from producing basic units.
Possible
Starting threat level for all players.
Expected
Gateway or Forge is built.
Structure
Photon Cannons
Light
Known unit count falls to 0 after ground units have been seen.
Moderate
Zealots, Stalkers, Collossi, Dark Templars, Templars, Sentries, Archons
Other Levels
Algorithms for calculating higher threat levels will be sketched out later.
Ground To Air
None
Never used.
Possible
Starting Condition.
Expected
Forge or Cybernetics Core built.
Structure
Photon Cannons.
Light
Known unit count is currently 0 but units in this class have been seen.
Moderate
Stalkers, Templars, Sentries, Archons, Immortals
Other Levels
Algorithms for calculating higher threat levels will be sketched out later.
Air To Ground
None
Starting condition
Possible
Cybernetics Core built.
Expected
Stargate built.
Structure
None.
Light
Phoenix - the necessity of using the Gravity beam makes these a low level threat to ground units unless present in significant numbers.
Moderate
Mothership, Void Ray, Fleet Beacon
High
Any sighting of a Carrier. Anytime we would be light or higher but have no anti-air units.
Severe
Any time we would be at Light or higher and don't have anti-air tech of some kind.
Air To Air
None
Starting condition
Possible
Cybernetics Core built
Expected
Stargate built
Light
Phoenix or Void Ray has been seen but none are known to exist now.
Moderate
Fleet Beacon, Void Ray, Phoenix, or Mother Ship
High
Carrier. Anytime we would be Light or higher but have no anti-air units.
Severe
Anytime we would be at Light or higher and don't have anti-air tech of some kind.
Detector
None
Never.
Possible
Starting condition.
Expected
Forge
Structure
Photon Cannon
Light
Robotics Facility.
Moderate
Observer or possibly when burrowed units take damage out of range of a city location or known photon cannon.
High
2 or more Known observers.
Severe
Never.
Stealth
None
Starting condition.
Possible
Twilight Council (we're not going to consider Observers any threat for this.)
Expected
None.
Structure
None.
Light
Robotics Facility or Observers are known or have been seen.
Moderate
Dark Shrine or Dark Templar
Heavy
Would be moderate and we have detector tech but no units or only structures.
Severe
Dark Shrine and no detector tech.
Scout Safety
Scout safety will be determined for 3 classes of scout - ground, air, and stealthed. Initially stealth will be omitted for simplicity. Safety will be based on the nature of the threat level for a certain class (Ground To Air, etc.) as well as information about the town location.
Threat Levels
As described above. Detector and Stealther threat levels will not be considered initially.
Hazardous Towns
Initially a town will be considered hazardous if it is known to have killed scouts of this class before, or if it is the enemy's natural expansion. Later on specific information about defensive structures at each location will be aquired and maintained, but for now if the enemy has defensive structures at all then all enemy built towns will be considered to pose those hazards.
Unacceptable risk to Air Scouts
The risk to an Air Scout (Overlord) will be considered unacceptable (for normal scouting at least) for a location if any of the following are met:
Air to Air (A->A)
- A->A Threat Level is >=Heavy
- A->A Threat Level is Moderate and the location is Hazardous
- A->A Threat Level >=Expected and a town is present.
Air to Ground (A->G)
- Town path is Ground AND G->A is >= Heavy
- Town path is Ground AND G->A is Moderate AND location is Hazardous
- G->A is >=Expected and a town is present.
These may be modified later to account for the Overlord speed upgrade, and provision may be made for the Overmind to deliberately sacrifice a scout to an unsafe location in order to obtain critical information.
Unacceptable risk to Ground Scouts
The logic for Ground Scouts is similar except that the conditions of Hazardous are slightly more lenient due to the lower cost of a typical ground scout and the lack of any supply impact. Hazardous will be a location where >=2 Ground Scouts have been lost or the enemy's natural expansion spot.
Air to Ground (A->G)
- A->G Moderate AND Hazardous location
- A->G >=High
- A->G >=Expected & a town is built here.
Ground to Ground (G->G)
- G->G >=Expected & this is the enemy Main
- G->G >= Heavy
- G->G >= Moderate and location is Hazardous
- G->G >=Structure and town is present
Scouting Priority and Scout Assignment
Assignment
A wave will be created for storage of scouts. One wave will store Ground Scouts and the other will store Air Scouts. These scout reservoir waves will be populated by the Overmind as units are available for scouting.
- At some initial point the Ground Scouts wave will have a Drone placed in it.
- Later, as Zerglings are produced the Overmind will allocate some of them to the Ground Scouts wave
- All Overlords will be allocated to the Air Scouts wave as they are produced.
Varibles tracking the number of Air & Ground scouts will also be incremented so that as units are taken out of the reservoir waves it will remain easy to know how many units are committed to scouting.
These behaviors can be refined later for Overseer production, unit recall, etc. When a unit is assigned a scouting role it will be removed from the reservoir wave and assigned a wave of it's own which will be tracked as part of the townhall struct that the scout is assigned to.
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