I know the wiki said it was impossible, but there has to be some way, right?

I wanted to wait until it was finished, so I could show it off as an OMGWANT! proof of concept, but I'm stuck, so... I wanted to make a map where players could bring a Civilian near a vehicle (Tank, Vulture, etc.), and press E to enter it. (A nod to Halo: Combat Evolved's PC version.) That didn't work -- I have SCBW1.161, and EUDs (or sprites?) crash it.¹

So I set about creating an EUD-less version of the trick, and thought of using a unit that can change into another unit (and back). This would have the advantage that the player could hotkey it, and use two keystrokes to use it as a controller... So the player would bring their Terran Civilian over to a Siege Tank, and bring their Hero Tank into siege mode to enter the non-hero Tank. They would later un-siege their Hero Tank to exit the vehicle. (This would also be used to enter Goliaths, etc..)

Thing is, what if they siege their Hero Tank when they're not near a vehicle? I could just make them un-siege it and re-siege it to enter a vehicle later, but... I'd rather just automatically and forcibly un-siege the Hero Tank (less work for the player, you see). Course, I rigged the trigs to move the tank and give it to a CPU, and I tried the tricks listed on the wiki, to no avail... (I'm aware that the wiki says that CPUs never unsiege a hero tank. AI fail?)

I don't want to delete and recreate the tank, because that'll unset any hotkeys. (I read somewhere that giving the tank to a CPU and returning it leaves hotkeys intact. 'Course, whatever method I end up using, the tank won't be returned instantaneously -- would the delay and the CPU ownership break a hotkey?)

Now, I could flip it -- use hero tanks as enterable vehicles, and normal tanks as controllers... But that would create inconsistency (white wireframe for tanks, normal for other vehicles). I could also use normal Siege Tanks as both vehicles and controllers, but that would complicate the triggers (and there's already a ton of them²). (There's also the fact that I want the controllers to be named: "Siege to enter vehicle" and "Un-siege to exit vehicle".)

So... Anyone know how to do the seemingly-impossible and coax a CPU into un-siegeing a hero tank?

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¹ While I'm on the subject, ever since I upgraded to SCBW1.161: maps with sprites crash SC; the main menu experiences random graphical glitches (everything except the actual animated sprites turns black); player colors are ignored, and the default ones are forcibly applied... WTH?

² I use two locations for each player, to detect vehicle proximity. That way, a vehicle can be entered from within five or so tiles, but if multiple vehicles are in that range, the player'll end up entering the closest one when they siege their controller-hero-tank. I also display a message ("Siege controller to enter _____"), which means... Three triggers per vehicle (5) per range (2) per player (4), plus one or two for if no vehicles are in range. I'd rather not complicate this further by having to distinguish between a normal tank on the field and a normal tank being used as a controller.

The hotkey will be retained as long as the unit lives. It's bound to the unit ID.

But as you already mentioned, automatically unsieging hero tanks is impossible. This is due to them not having any unit ai, like all heroes.
It might be possible using EUD actions, by simulating a keypress, but they got patched in 1.13 or something.

About the colors: Force colors and overlapping map names are no longer possible in newer patches. Is that what you mean?

As long as the Hero Tank is the only unit in the hotkey (not grouped) then the hotkey will remain intact until it is given back to the player. You can't force a Hero Tank to unseige because Blizzard never triggered their AI as far. Using a regular tank for both shouldn't be much harder.

How about this... make the players hotkey their siege tanks first...
Then give them to the computer for most of the game.
When the player is near an enterable vehicle, give the siege tank back to them.
When they're not, give the siege tank back to the CPU.
As Nudey said, it will not disrupt the Hotkey.

I'd suggest using a different system altogether, since Unsieging the tank takes a while to detect, while sieging the tank doesn't.
Use a Dropship system (dropping a unit = detecting if vehicle is near + entering)
Or use a unit walk to anywhere system (tho that's kinda trippy).

How about you just use a burrowed zergling? Burrow to enter, unburrow to leave.

Tada.

Not a fan of unnecessary complication.

Or use something besides a unit state, like a building where they build a marine. That way you can just remove the marine if there's no tank around or something and nothing changes.

carrier/reaver has 5/6/9/11 different detectable states.

Thank you all for your help; I implemented a system with burrowing Infested Terrans (the only burrowable ground unit I wasn't using as a zombie) and it's working great!

@NudeRaider: When, in SCMDraft2, you go to Scenario>Map Description..., and edit the colors for an individual player. In-game, I'm finding that SC disregards those settings and uses the default colors for each player (Yellow for P8, etc.).

Your map needs to be a .scx to change default colors. Vanilla maps won't work. Save as a broodwar format and it will work.

Well, thanks for your help, guys.

I wanna post the map on SEN to get some feedback on how I should proceed with the zombie element... Should I keep using this thread, or would it be better to go over to Map Production?

If it's ideas for a map, it goes in Theory and Ideas. If you are actually going to make the map, and have already developed the general theme/story/gameplay, stick it in Map Production (where you can get input if you want more ideas). Keep in mind you'll need screenshots at the minimum for Map Production.

I have the main concept (vehicles) done, and even some spawn loops set up, so I guess that'll be enough. I'll head over there now.