Today was a status check, a new way to launch the AI test, and fixes for the stalls the test logs kept showing.
What the logs showed
The last 14 real AI Watch logs, from 4 and 5 October, had the Expert AI stalling in nearly every run. It gave up on a goal 5 times, including the escort to the community center, and chasing enemies sat stuck for 10 to 21 seconds.
Why the elites jammed
The big alien elites collided with the world using their full hit size, even though they are drawn small. They wedged in gaps the map treats as open. They now collide with a walker-sized body, and they steer down the middle of the path.
Tools and hidden neighbours had a similar problem of placement. Some had been put against the hedge wall at the map edge, where both players got stuck short of them. They are no longer placed there.
A test loop that never reached half the map
The "all areas" loop in AI Watch only ever cycled the first three areas, so Sunny Acres, with Commander Bro and the alien elites, and the Sunshine Plant, with the mothership, were never visited in a loop. It cycles all five now. A new launcher, aiwatch.bat, builds the latest game, serves it and opens it with the Expert AI already playing while the background debugger logs what it finds.
Fairer wind-ups
The scarecrow had the shortest and quietest wind-up in the game. It is now half a second long and shows a warning ring in front of it. The singer's song was being logged as a surprise hit, but its wind-up was always there, the song and the dimming light. The log tracker simply did not count it, and now does.
A few smaller log fixes went in with that: a locked-sound warning in an AI Watch that starts on its own is now a note, hovering saucers no longer read as stuck, and the sounds older logs reported as missing are all in the sound bank.
Where this stands
Nothing was played this round. The next AI Watch run is the test, and the stall counts in its log are the numbers to watch.