AI:Development

Development < AI Development

How to write a Skirmish AI for Spring

This section gives help on how to create Artificial Intelligence agents that control teams (as if a player) - "Skirmish AI".

The SpringRTS engine interacts with the Skirmish AIs through an "Interface". There are stable (10-2014, Spring v98) interfaces for the languages C/C++ and Java (not currently sure about the others but I think Lua too).

Quick Start

See these pages for tutorials on how to setup a development environment, connect to the appropriate "Interface" and how to build your first example Skirmish AI:

• C++
  
• C
  
• Java (up-to-date as of 10-2014, SpringRTS v98)
  
• Lua
  
• Python
  
• C#
  
• Groovy
  

I have setup my development environment. What now?

• SpringRTS <-> AIs architecture - architecture of SpringRTS and how it interacts with the AIs.
• The mappings provided by the AI Interface - how the engine maps the game area and how the interface exposes those maps.
• How to monitor and debug your Skirmish AI - How to monitor and debug your Skirmish AI.
• AIs for Spring - list of some of the Skirmish AIs that have already been developed for SpringRTS.

Overall AI ideas, practical examples, useful resources

• AI related links - ranging from how to conceptualize AI agents all the way down to how to tackle very specific problems like pathfinding.
• Useful inferences - how to infer where the opponents might have started, where on the maps can your units go, etc..
• Springs AI dev forum - comunity's forum dedicated to AI development.
• AI Interfaces & Wrappers - semi-technical description of the Interfaces that expose the SpringRTS engine to the AI agents.

Other hints, tips and interesting infos

• AI "frame skipping"

http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=463953#p463953
As in: if a Java/C/C++ SkirmishAI gets delayed responding back to the Interface, the SpringRTS engine will wait on the AI. Thus delaying the game, thus not having the AI "skip" frames.

• Engine commands to control the AIs

In spring you have some control over AIs with these commands:

/aireload
/ailist
/aikill
/aicontrol

• Lua<-->AI communications [in Spring 0.83+]

http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=26298 He shall say that only it once!

• Link to source code of the Interface, engine-side

Chances are you'll have doubts about what exactly the commands abc(), qwe() or xyz() do. Asking in the AI forum is a good way to clarify. The most reliable is probably to look at the source code (if you're able to navigate the maze of C++ code in all its glory, that is):
https://github.com/spring/spring/blob/develop/rts/ExternalAI/AICallback.h
https://github.com/spring/spring/blob/develop/rts/ExternalAI/AICallback.cpp