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ionforce

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After having done Scala for a few years, it's finally a pleasure to be able to read and understand a thread like this.

FP gains are real. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't know what FP is.

To anyone out there who isn't on the FP train yet, get on. You'll become a better programmer for it.

Perl 5.32 Released 6 years ago

If you value your mental health and your earning potential, you'll avoid Perl.

So many better languages with better mental models. And I say this with a decade of Perl experience.

Don't suffer from the blub paradox.

More moderation. More value judgements (and actions) need to be taken against content that is deemed unsavory. Bans, etc.

Higher barriers of entry. The right to comment and occupy mind space is given away too easily. Penalize new accounts, start with limited capabilities, disallow short comments, etc.

Highlight exemplary content.

Now that I'm on the side of "I know what a monad is", let me just say 95% of what people say monads are is complete trash and unhelpful. This includes calling them "semicolons".

I don't think this analogy sets up anyone for success. For a long time now I've wanted to do a series on "FP for OOP folks".

Yeah. I think watching it split a line of Stalkers into two flanks that isn't done with a rectangular selection is crazy unfair.

I think you're saying does it suffer from occlusion during selection. Based on how APIs typically work, I would say no it does not. So yeah that's another thing humans can't do. AlphaStar could hypothetically stack units into a singular mass and it would be discretely untargetable by human players.

Everything about AlphaStar is typed and discrete. It has perfect inputs because it uses an API (and does not read pixel data).

Human limitations that AlphaStar shares:

- Data that requires the camera to see (e.g. enemy location, enemy HP)

- Inability to examine/target cloaked units

Possibly unfair, super-human things AlphaStar has access to:

- Instantaneous awareness of cloaked units

- Knowledge of things humans need to infer/click (e.g. upgrades)

- Global map awareness of unit positions (taking into account fog of war)

Definitely unfair:

- Can select arbitrary collections of units, including outside of camera view

You wouldn't be the first person to say this. But it only proves that the unit isn't useful __ as piloted by AlphaStar __.

Based on the initial AlphaStar against TLO/Mana, you would think that Stalkers are insanely OP and the only thing worth building.

I (and others) have wondered that if you continue to lower AlphaStar's APM, you would see a diversity of units. The money would be in where AlphaStar decides to spend its really tight APM budget. Is it worth casting that Psionic Storm?

I personally feel like it has an insane micro advantage by being able to select arbitrary units on the battlefield, as opposed to dragged squares or control groups. But I'm not a pro gamer, so I don't know what that feels like.

The correct terminology would be "control groups".

The configuration of control groups is visible in replays; AlphaStar's replay data does not have any control groups in it.

Though, via its API, it is able to select arbitrary groups of units from anywhere on the map.

Personally, I would have loved to see it work through control group management because I think that is something that is important and steals attention away from humans. But probably to the researchers, it is just annoying data to model that doesn't get to the "core" of StarCraft.

But most surprising is that it didn't make any "breathtaking" moves or actions, as opposed to AlphaGO.

I don't play any competitive StarCraft so my view might be moot but I was surprised at the number of siege tanks it uses. It made me wonder if there's some critical advantage to having so many tanks stacked up in a line so that the splash is spread out.

Also I find it weird that it did not build any marauders at all, in any of the games I've seen.

And just in general, no sexy units. No battlecruisers, no infestors, no swarm hosts...