bot maker riding a disruptor unit
Dispatches

Influence maps help your bot score like Messi

• Drekken

June 10th 2025

Why hello Reader,
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Ever watch your disruptor fire a perfect shot… right into your own units?

Yeah. RIP my army.

You know, when I started I thought I had everything figured out. Disruptors look simple—just aim for the biggest group of units and boom, free wins. But turns out, in StarCraft, disruptor shots aren’t even spells. They’re units in the API. Which means the bot needs to steer them. Every. Single. Frame. This is nothing to say the risk factor of 100 true damages it does to your own units.

I was just not going to use them.

But then I remembered how a top-tier bot NegativeZero beat a grandmaster using disruptors. Its control so beautiful, I sat down with its creator Mindme, and he let me in on the secret: influence maps.

That changed everything.

In Case You Missed It

video preview​

You can see how I took influence maps to the next level into my bot and made a splash against some higher level opponents

Influence maps let your bot “see” the battlefield. There’s a lot you can do with them—assign scores to each location (positives for enemies, negatives for friendlies) and let your bot make smarter decisions: when to fire, where to aim, and how to not nuke its own front line.

I built a whole system around this: using grid values, army cost, health weightings, even a Goldilocks zone logic to find just the right spot. And it worked. We climbed the ladder with cleaner disruptor shots, smarter movement, and fewer friendly fire disasters.

If you’ve ever wanted your bot to play like it has eyes—not just react, but predict and adapt like a high-level player—this is it.

For Your Radar

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🗒️ ./run Notes:

Want to build your own influence map? Here’s how to get started without over complicating it.

We’re using the SC2MapAnalysis module. It turns the map into a Numpy array—each cell becomes a spot you can assign influence to (great for pathfinding, choke points, or danger zones).

  1. Get the base grid: Grab it with MapData.get_pyastar_grid().
  2. Add influence with add_cost: Use this function resets pathable cells to 0 and non-pathable to -10000. Clean slate.
  3. Score the units: Loop through all units. Give each a base score, and increase or decrease depending on if it’s an enemy or friendly.
  4. Add weight: Want smarter targeting? Score units by value using: army_value = (((minerals / 0.9) + gas) * supply) / 50

It gives more weight to beefy units. The divide by 50 just keeps the numbers sane.

Bonus for low hp: If a unit’s health is 100 or less, multiply its influence by 1.5.

Using Ares? Then you’re in luck. Just flip on TacticalGroundGrid in your Config.yml and Ares handles most of this for you. You can learn about AresSC2 grids here.

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