Steamhammer 1.2.2 orientation

A tiny starter guide to the code. “So you want to make a bot....”

First look at the configuration file (documentation). Steamhammer’s opening build orders and some details of its play are in there, plus debug options and more. You will definitely want to make some changes—start with configuring your bot’s name. If you want to change the name of the config file, it is in Steamhammer/Source/Config.cpp.

If you only change the config file, you haven’t made your own bot yet. A serious Starcraft bot takes a lot of coding (probably why most bots are not so serious). If you keep at it, you’ll get used to reading and changing the code, and you’ll learn the correct curse words for every bug. Here are the most important bits, so you can start to incubate your nefarious plot.

At the top level, the project has 3 parts.

• BOSS - Build Order Search System for creating production plans, capable and easy to use but somewhat buggy. Used in StrategyManager for terran and protoss; not used for zerg.
• SparCraft - Combat simulator, to answer the question “Will I win this battle?” Has important limitations. Used in Squad.
• Steamhammer - The bot proper.

Here are some of the important classes in the Steamhammer source. The entry point is UAlbertaBotModule, which sets things up and then passes control for each game event to GameCommander. Then GameCommander calls on the various other modules to do the work.

• BuildingManager - Keep a queue of buildings to construct, and construct them, solving any problems (“oops, that spot turned out to be blocked”). Takes its orders from ProductionManager.
• CombatCommander - In charge of squads and overall tactics. Passes orders to Squad objects.
• InformationManager - Keeps track of units (especially enemy units that have been seen), bases, and so on.
• MapGrid - Keeps track of the locations of units by grid square, for lookup by location. Also remembers when each part of the map is explored.
• Micro - Sends commands to units, being careful not to spam commands.
• MicroManager - Parent class for making unit-level decisions during play, like what target to attack. Child classes are MeleeManager, RangedManager, TransportManager, etc.
• ProductionManager - Given a queue of stuff to produce, produce it as possible.
• Squad - A squad of combat units, which accepts general orders from CombatCommander and passes more specific orders down to the various micro managers.
• StrategyManager - Decide how to spend minerals and gas: Build/research these things in this order, starting with the opening build order and continuing. Creates the queue that ProductionManager works through.
• WorkerManager - Responsible for most of the stuff that workers do, mining and building and combat.

this version 4 April 2017