I'm lost on your method Jaff. How do you tell if a stored Scarab is about to die? A Random Suicided Scarab that is dying will only have the blue death animation and will do NO DAMAGE, but is still considered a movable Scarab by triggers. The purpose of my system was to completely eliminate such errors. How do you avoid this? I opened your map and found no solution for this.

EDIT: It might be possible to figure out how many tiles a Scarab can move in 45 trigger cycles and use its movement as a pseudo timer to prevent dying Scarabs from being used. It should be doable in less than 256 tiles. You would have to enforce a stack before using the pseudo timer (which might slow the Scarab creation down), but I can see it working. With this modification, it's definitely a superior storage system.

It takes 10ish cycles due to how the Reavers have to pivot, and how some Reavers block off other Reavers. I was creating a relatively good number of them.

Also, continually moving a Scarab works fine. You can't move a Scarab if it's inside a Reaver. Moving a unit that isn't there causes no lag. So, once the Scarab is out, it is moved.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 27 2009, 5:41 am by SelfPossessed.

My map doesen't fix that error. I suggested it to payne because it is very simple, and the maximum possible error is 1 scarab less which, by the way, I've never experienced in my test map, even though I tested a lot. Are you sure the scarab dies before the trigger cycle begins (yet is still detectable and moveable in that cycle)?

Continiually moving the scarab can't detect when it is being shot, which is the point of my system - you remove the reaver once it shot his scarab. Of course, you could use constantly move the scarab to some buffer-location and detect the scarab's appearance there and then move it to the main holder location, but that requires twice as much 'move' commands... although it is potentially a bit faster.

Your idea of detecting their movement is a very good one - it can remove any possible errors and does not eat up much map resources. If you won't make the fully functional, well-triggered test map about everything we've discussed now and before, I will (as soon as I get back at the end of March).

I'm sure the Scarab can die without dealing damage. I've had it happen before when I had a relatively small number of Scarabs in storage. You had a large enough number such that it minimized the chance of a failed Scarab, but the possibility was still there.

I continually moved Scarabs to a holder location as I used that spot to stack the Scarabs. The primary storage location then wouldn't need continuous moves to stack (less lag).

The pseudo timer thing would need some tests as to see the approximate number of trigger cycles it takes to shoot Scarabs (fewer Reavers = less blocking, though pivoting is still an issue) AND the approximate number of trigger cycles it takes to stack the Scarabs. 45 minus the sum of those two numbers is how many trigger cycles a stacked Scarab will survive and therefore how large the storage area should be.

I'm actually not sure if stacking can be done with a single Scarab via moves; I've always stacked Scarabs on top of other ones. If you can stack a Scarab by itself via moves, you could have separate locations for each Scarab for stacking purposes, which would allow the storage system to keep the Scarabs that shoot earlier alive longer. It takes more locations though and is probably not worth it.

Also, as a side note, you probably want the Scarabs to run from right to left so the triggers will automatically pick the oldest ones. Otherwise, the triggers use all the newest ones, the oldest ones blow up, and you have nothing left in storage.

Hmm, all of this is interesting, though I have some questions:
In my map, I can get the scarabs out of the reavers in 2 trigger cycles (a trigger creates reavers, wait(0) and then move scarabs). So why saying it takes about 40 cycles or so?
Also, if the scarabs are stackable, how comes I've got to move them from 'A' to 'A' to keep them over each other? I saw in my test map that they weren't moved in top of each other, which is weird (I think). And why do I need to move them so they are all right over each other? As long as they are in the location, it's okay, no?
Anyway, I've got a course very soon, I g2g, but I should have more questions soon

EDIT: Oh yeah, and how can we set different scarab damages for each computer player? And are they upgradeable in-game?
kthxbai

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 28 2009, 12:11 am by payne.