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BGonline.org Forums
Bot developers: please read
Posted By: Chase In Response To: early 64 play (Chase)
Date: Tuesday, 27 May 2008, at 11:26 a.m.
The bots are all playing at a high level and improvements in strength are getting harder to come by. But one of the areas where there is a huge opportunity for improvement is in the analysis tools. The analysis I did above took quite a long time. Gnu's temperature map made things easier, but I still had to do a lot of work to get at the numbers I wanted.
Here are some examples of how Gnu could be more helpful. I think the other bots could improve in similar ways:
1) The shot count reported in the status bar when you make a move could be improved. It shows the number of ways a blot can be hit, but the reported number is deceptive since many of hits are foolish and there can be a great deal of duplication involved. It would be nice if this were tied into the evaluation function (and updated if a higher eval is performed) so that the numbers are smarter and more meaningful.
2) Being able to display more than one temperature map side by side is a huge improvement. Thanks! Still, it's difficult to make full use of this feature. The other windows become inaccessible while viewing the temp maps. This means you have to close the temp maps if, for example, you want to preview the various candidate choices. And once you close the temp window, the data is lost. So you have to go through the entire process of opening a new temp window, waiting for the eval again, etc. It would be nice if that stuff was kept in memory, so it wouldn't have to be pulled in again. (Perhaps adding a "show move" button to the temp window would be a crude fix.)
3) In the temp map, I'd suggest using two different colors: one for positive equity moves and one for negative. That would make it easier to spot the good and bad outcomes between the candidate moves.
4) A basic report of some type would be helpful to simply show, as in my above analysis, the blot count, number of hits, number of double hits, etc. Maybe a checklist of these types of numbers so that the user could select, then the report could be run at whatever ply.
I'm really not sure how all this should be approached, but I think improvements in the area of making analysis easier and more valuable would be a bigger aid at this point than small improvements in playing strength.
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