We've all played maps where you can change your weapon by switching units. This is the simplest and most unrealistic way of doing it, since your HP does not stay the same when you switch weapons. Of course, one could implement VHP, but that can be very annoying and spoil the simplicity of the gameplay. You can use the sprite battle system, but having sprites over your civilian all the time is also quite annoying; besides, you have difficulties controlling what they shoot.

Imagine a map where you are an undercover agent/ghost that has to stage a diversion inside the enemy base. You can dress up as the enemies you've killed, which allows you to pass the guards and achieve your goal. What is the main problem with moving HP from one unit to another? -We can't detect it. Then how about this:

We move the unit to a remote location and deal N damage to it each trigger loop via Direct Damage. When it dies, we know the number of trigger loops it took to kill it, thus the HP. This allows us to give this HP to the new unit.

With that being said, this system also has its cost, drawbacks and some limitations. Here are the most important ones:

1. All enemy attack and maximum HP of your units must be multiples of N to make the system accurate.
2. Detecting HP like this takes time. You can say that changing clothes takes time, which is fairly realistic, but you can't use this to change weapons.
3. While the HP is being detected, the player cannot really be damaged by enemies normally since his unit is moved away from the fighting area. This can be fixed by detecting the HP right in the arena without moving it, but then the Direct Damage can deal damage to nearby units also (its range is about two tiles if memory serves). So it's up to you to decide what method works better for you.

Possible applications: 'The Thing' and other similar arena maps, adventure RPGs such as '5th Station', spells such as 'avatar' from WC3 that change your hero into a stronger unit, but maintain the HP (or the HP ratio, as in the case of the avatar spell). I am considering the possibility of using this in City of the Dead, where the CPU defenders will be healed when they get seriously wounded; this will allow me to control their survivability by controlling the amount of heals they have.

I'm probably not the first one to come up with all this. I just think that we need a thread to discuss this possibility and perhaps think of some solutions/options/methods together.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 7 2009, 12:36 pm by JaFF.

Sounds interesting, good idea.

Thanks, but I'd like to hear something more practical, like ideas and methods to lessen the limitations and drawbacks.

assuming it was in an arena map setting you could do it during a transformation animation or possibly unleashing technique, i actually have a similiar idea with a bunch of 1damage dealing units that dealt like 10per deathcount which would equal about 115-120 per second, equating how much health is left. the down side is, the higher health they are, the more delayed the process is.

Interesting idea, Jaff.
Another problem I see that could arise is the maximum hp. Assuming that you are using set %hp to modify the health after you've determined how much life is left, if the hp is too big, or the numbers are weird, setting the percent won't give you the right amount of health.
Streamlining this looks difficult.
If you had 2 triggers doing the same thing, would they both run at the same time? Because in that case, you could have 2 scarabs attacking at slightly offset times, and it should increase the speed a little.

The system is accurate as long as you use smart numbers as your maximum HP.

Triggers run 1 by 1 no matter what, just like commands in programming. Think about these scarabs as objects that deal damage between trigger cycles, and it will become clear to you why that is not possible.

I was actually already planning to implement this idea, but for items in an RPG.

The item would be a generic name, parsay "Sapphire". Depending on the HP values, the Sapphire would be of a set quality. You'd do direct damage in a series of loops to see what the item truly is. For example. A 5/10hp Archon would be considered "Average Sapphire Shard", and so forth.

That's actually a very good idea. If you want monsters to drop items of the same type but of different 'values', you just randomise the item's HP and then 'read' it when you pick it up. This totally removes the need to place burrowed units under the dropped items or store that information in any other way.

We should make a wiki so that when the topic dies, the concept wouldn't be buried.

I think our main priority is to write a wiki/tutorial on Direct Damage first. I already planned on creating a Direct Damage test map based on an advanced scarab storage system, which would greatly complement any wiki/tutorial on the subject.

How about we just keep the same unit, and change the damage?

If we have a ghost with a damage of 1, we know it does 1 dmg. Lets just say that there are 2 weapons in the game. Pistol and the IMA FIRIN MAH LAZORRR Cannon. (Abbreviated as IFML)

If the pistol does 5, then we just have an EUD to detect when the ghost fires. Do the damage Via Scarabs that blow up but don't show the sprite. If the Scarabs do 1 dmg, then we throw in 4 of them suckers, and Voila.
Now, the player "picks up" an IFML Cannon. To switch weapons, lets just have a GW system.
Sometime throughout the game, the person changes weapons, and now we just convert that into a DC or Switch.
Since the IFML does 10 dmg, then we just create 9 scarabs, and thats it.

There's no switching of units, which makes it even more realistic, and it doesn't destroy hotkeys. In RPGs, I would always hotkey my hero, and it got switched around because of "Changing weapons". It was so irritating.

First of all viet, I see you failed to mention that was MY Idea, second of all. Though this is neat. Using EUD's is much eaiser.


We can* detect it.


Are you saying to deal direct damage that the target of the ghost? Because unless there are only a few units not only would this be hard, but unpractical. You would have to detect unit HP and location at the same time. Which means you would need a trigger for every unit.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 7 2009, 11:11 pm by Pigy_G.

Pyro & Pigy: I do not like EUDs in general, since it lowers the survivability of your map over time. You guys probably didn't think about this much, but I have, since I'm in university and I'm not even sure if I'll have the time to complete the main map I'm working on. I will definately not have the time to update my maps with each version of SC. If you know that you'll still have the time in a year from now, go ahead; I made this topic under the influence of my views on map-making.

So can we get back on topic please? Thanks.

@Pigy - I assumed this would be an RPG, and since I interpreted Jaff to be talking about something that is more "covert ops" like, I assumed that it would be a max of 1 or 2 units.


@Jaff, I posted on Topic, and This is the option i gave.

::: Use the EUDs and make a map that will be awesome but temporary. I too, will be running out of time. I'm getting into college, and my first year is not going to be plagued by SC. Besides, Chances are that SC2 will come out before SC 1 gets updated with a new version that kills all of the EUDs.

You're looking for a better alternative to an already good solution to the problem. Switching out units is a good solution, and it doesn't have many drawbacks. Plus, you can ride off of SCs damage reduction (Concussive, Explosive, normal), so different weapons would be effective for different targets.

If anything, the solution you had can be refined. Instead of having the scarabs be controlled by a player that would injure a computer, have them be controlled by the computer.

After SCII comes out I doubt patchs will be released nearly as often.

I planned that months in advance, before Stormwind even existed.

Chances are that SC2 will come out in a year, not earlier.

I am considering a system that can find many applications, such as the item system described earlier in this thread and the healing of CPU defenders I mentioned in the first post.

This makes no sense at all. The scarabs have to be owned by a computer player, otherwise Direct Damage doesen't work.

It is irrelevant how often will they release patches after SC2 comes out, since all I need to know is that they will release patches before it comes out, and after I stop having time for mapping.

Cool the engines bud.

1) Giving an exact time to the due date is silly; don't pretend you know Blizzard's Game Creating Schedule.
2)The Solution you have is a good solution. That's my point. Use it instead of trying to find something better, because your search won't come up. You wont like any of the other solutions. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The solution you have "Ain't broke".
3) It makes sense. Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it doesn't make any sense at all. If it damages BOTH the computer that youre attacking, AND the player that you have, then obviously there is a 3rd player (or computer) that you are using the scarabs with. Use the Computer that the player is fighting to fix this.
4) If patches come out rarely, that means your map will be played for a longer time. I doubt you're going to make a map that lasts eternally. Eventually, players will forget it, or it will get edited so many times that it will end up being shitty, and people will stop playing it. Does it matter whether or not that the thing that kills your map is a patch or people editing it??

Pyro, the scarabs deal splash damage, even using the direct damage system.

Technically if the player owned the scarab, and the other player was unallied, the damage would still apply.