feat(*): retune scoring incentives and add finishing reps

Game/scripts/ship_ai_controller.gd

@@ -15,13 +15,28 @@ extends AIController3D
 # Reward shaping weights. Dense terms accrue per physics tick (60 sim-ticks
 # per sim-second); event terms fire once. Exported so tuning needs no code
 # edits. Goal rewards are added by TrainingMode, which owns goal events.
-@export var ball_touch_reward := 1.0
+@export var ball_touch_reward := 0.4
 # Ball touches pay out at most once per this many physics ticks (1 sim-
 # second at 60). Run07 lesson: body_entered re-fires on every micro-
 # separation, so pinning the ball against a surface farmed ~2 touches/s —
 # outearning every other term while the goal rate fell. The cooldown keeps
-# touches a stepping-stone signal instead of the objective.
+# touches a stepping-stone signal instead of the objective. Halved again
+# after run01-vs-run02 eval (training/eval_history.json) came back 87.5%
+# draws: even at 1 touch/s, a full episode's worth of touches could still
+# outweigh TrainingMode's goal_reward, so scoring and ending the episode
+# early was never worth it. See goal_reward's comment for the other half of
+# this fix.
 @export var ball_touch_cooldown_ticks := 60
+# A touch pays out scaled by how goal-directed it was — full ball_touch_reward
+# when the post-touch ball velocity points straight at the attack goal, down
+# to this floor when it doesn't (0 = only goal-directed touches pay at all).
+# Without this, any contact paid the same regardless of direction, so batting
+# the ball anywhere counted the same as an actual shot on goal — reinforcing
+# possession, not scoring. The floor keeps a purely defensive touch (e.g.
+# clearing a shot away from your own goal) worth something as a stepping
+# stone, matching ball_touch_cooldown_ticks's existing "stepping-stone, not
+# the objective" framing.
+@export_range(0.0, 1.0) var ball_touch_direction_floor := 0.3
 @export var velocity_to_ball_weight := 0.02
 @export var ball_velocity_to_goal_weight := 0.004
 # Per-tick penalty scaled by distance to the ball (full value at the arena's
@@ -48,6 +63,13 @@ extends AIController3D
 # still was a rest state. Sized well below velocity_to_ball_weight so flying
 # fast toward the ball still beats flying fast anywhere else.
 @export var speed_reward_weight := 0.004
+# Flat per-tick cost (-0.06/s, -1.8 over a full 30s episode) applied
+# regardless of position or behaviour. Every other dense term can be farmed
+# indefinitely by an episode that never ends in a goal; this one can't — it
+# only stops accruing once the episode does, via a goal or the timeout. That
+# makes running the clock out strictly worse than scoring as soon as a
+# chance appears, instead of a free way to keep collecting dense reward.
+@export var time_penalty := 0.001
 
 # Contact normals with y above this are floor contact (exempt from the wall
 # penalty); below it they read as wall (sideways) or ceiling (downward).
@@ -122,6 +144,9 @@ func _physics_process(delta):
 		return
 	_ticks_since_ball_touch += 1
 
+	# Flat time cost — see time_penalty.
+	reward -= time_penalty
+
 	# Dense shaping: own velocity toward the ball
 	var to_ball := ball.global_position - ship.global_position
 	if to_ball.length_squared() > 0.0001:
@@ -174,6 +199,13 @@ func _wall_or_ceiling_contact() -> bool:
 
 
 func _on_ship_body_entered(body: Node) -> void:
-	if body.is_in_group("ball") and _ticks_since_ball_touch >= ball_touch_cooldown_ticks:
-		reward += ball_touch_reward
-		_ticks_since_ball_touch = 0
+	if not body.is_in_group("ball") or _ticks_since_ball_touch < ball_touch_cooldown_ticks:
+		return
+	# Contact-signal ordering means ball.linear_velocity here already reflects
+	# the collision impulse from this touch, not the pre-touch velocity.
+	var alignment := 0.0
+	var to_goal := attack_goal_position - ball.global_position
+	if to_goal.length_squared() > 0.0001 and ball.linear_velocity.length_squared() > 0.0001:
+		alignment = clampf(ball.linear_velocity.normalized().dot(to_goal.normalized()), 0.0, 1.0)
+	reward += ball_touch_reward * lerpf(ball_touch_direction_floor, 1.0, alignment)
+	_ticks_since_ball_touch = 0

Game/scripts/training_mode.gd

@@ -18,11 +18,22 @@ extends GameMode
 # "EVAL_RESULT {...}" line is printed before quitting.
 
 @export var episode_length_seconds := 30.0
-@export var goal_reward := 10.0
+# Run01-vs-run02 eval (see training/eval_history.json) came back 87.5% draws:
+# with a 30s episode, the dense per-tick terms on ShipAIController can sum to
+# several times this value before it was raised, so scoring and forfeiting
+# the rest of the episode's farmable reward was worse than never finishing.
+# Raised well above that ceiling so a real scoring chance always beats
+# continuing to farm dense reward for however long is left in the episode.
+@export var goal_reward := 40.0
 
 # Episode-start state mix; remaining probability = fully random state.
 @export_range(0.0, 1.0) var kickoff_state_chance := 0.2
-@export_range(0.0, 1.0) var ball_near_goal_chance := 0.2
+# Raised from 0.2: fixing the reward incentive to score (see goal_reward,
+# ball_touch_reward, time_penalty on ShipAIController) only helps if the
+# policy also gets enough reps at actually finishing. At 0.2 that scenario
+# was 1 in 5 episode starts; most training time was spent in generic
+# midfield play where a finish never comes up.
+@export_range(0.0, 1.0) var ball_near_goal_chance := 0.35
 
 # Placement bounds for randomized episode starts, derived from the standard
 # enclosure (ArenaBoundary). The inset keeps a randomly oriented ship (1x1x4

training/eval_history.json

@@ -18,5 +18,15 @@
     "wins_b": 1,
     "draws": 35,
     "win_rate_a": 0.1
+  },
+  {
+    "timestamp": "2026-07-20T18:47:54+00:00",
+    "model_a": "/Users/jcreek/Documents/repos/GitHub/CosmicClash/Game/bots/run09.json",
+    "model_b": "/Users/jcreek/Documents/repos/GitHub/CosmicClash/Game/bots/run07.json",
+    "episodes": 40,
+    "wins_a": 6,
+    "wins_b": 9,
+    "draws": 25,
+    "win_rate_a": 0.15
   }
 ]