I am quite new to mapping and have some modding experience(Stopped due to inability of creating graphics).
In the past, I always played around with the editor, never really did anything, just tested it out.
I had started making an RPG map, which I have now returned to 17 months later.
It showed promise, if polished and such, not as complicated as recent RPG's, but fun nonetheless.
There were MANY flaws. So many, that the map may as well be redone.

However, I have started working out all the flaws one by one. Until...

I got to air unit abilities.

Can someone please tell me how to create air units blind, so that they may not see over walls, and ruin surprise or attack units that you cannot see. Or is this not even possible?

Thanks for the help!

You can't create them blind, but you can blind them after creation. Just let them attack a medic, he should respond by blinding.

This doesn't entirely get rid of the look over walls problem, as the vision radius is not 0 for blinded units.

Isn't it 1? I'm pretty sure people won't want to look over walls anyway.

But they are more for the visual effect, as well as attack.

Then again, I could make it have no visual effect, and have a bunch of units in the corner of the map, give medic 255+255 armor;10000hp and make them attack her, then respawn her multiple times so she doesn't just run, or something like that.

Edit: What about non-ground attacking air units, such as the valkyrie.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 16 2010, 6:46 pm by DeathWingSC.

Another (and IMO better option) is a little bit more involved, and involves turning off vision for the player. I presume the blinded unit will be virtually uncontrollable (blind units still see, just 2 square radius) perhaps hovering over a ground unit. That's all well and good, but I've done extensive tests with vision mechanics to the point where you can change a single unit's vision to anywhere from 3-11 radius.

The end result is that you don't see your own units, just what a computer player sees. This lets you own a lot of things, but not see them (like upgrade buildings, and detectors).

For example, if you have an area where you know you'll be fighting DTs, and you don't want to share vision with the dt player, you can place missile turrets or spore colonies on high ground where you can't normally see them, owned by each player. They won't get vision of the area, but they will detect the DTs perfectly. You might also get an observer as a "torch" or something, and the observer won't give vision, but will give detection.

I'll admit, I never looked at death counters, as I thought it would be too time consuming and complicated, and my brain would implode. However, that looks simple enough to be effective. Thanks for the tip, will use.

The observer seeing detected units without actually being seen to the player sounds sweet.

Here's the test map I used to discover this, so you can see the triggers I used. It may very well be way too much for you to handle, but it's good to learn Death Counters, definitely.
[attach=5463]

Attachments:

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jun 17 2010, 2:31 am by rockz.

Uhhhh, the attachment is broken?

yeah it does that...

Gosh darnit. If I want to utilize this system, I will need to throw away about 40 human hours of work!!!! QQ...

Oh well. I knew I would need to start from scratch instead of trying to fix my broken triggers. Unfortunately though, ideas ran through my head at the thought of "New Map".
This is why I stopped map making! Lack of dedication, ffs!

This is the answer to your question:

Yes it is possible, and it's very easy to implement as well as being reliable. The units should not attack the medic, as it is unnecessary and could potentially disrupt the system with unwanted unit behaviors. Any medics you use for this purpose should be invincible.

To begin, make sure the computer has Optical Flare researched and is unallied to the player who owns the unit to be blinded. When you need to create the blind unit, create the unit at some isolated blinding area (corner of the map for example). The next action in the same trigger, immediately after your create action, will be "Create Unit with Properties" to create an invincible medic for the computer at the same location.

For example:

-Create valkyrie at 'blind' for Current Player.
-Create medic at 'blind' for Player 8. Apply properties (invincibility).

Now, wait either 4 death counts (if you're using hyper triggers) or 336 milliseconds (if you aren't). This is the time it takes the medic to cast Optical Flare. The medic can now be removed and the blind unit moved to wherever it is needed.

You can have multiple "blinding areas" if you want to create multiple blind air units simultaneously.

Keep in mind, the numbers provided are specifically for air units created at the same location as the medic. If you create the medic at a different location than the air unit for whatever reason, you must increase the wait time in order to account for the optical flare's travel time. Even if the medic successfully casts optical flare on a unit, the unit is not blind until the projectile actually hits it, so moving the targeted unit away prematurely will result in it not being blinded.

If you want to use the 4 DC/336 MS delay, simply create the air unit and medic at the same location.

Edit: Although this is completely reliable the first time you perform this action in your map, you may find reproducing it numerous times in a row to be less so. In a worst case scenario, you can make multiple "blinding areas" to blind any number of air units right when the map starts, and then save those blind units somewhere so you can move and give them to a player when they're needed.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Oct 12 2010, 12:12 pm by DevliN. Reason: Mineral abuse.

Also units need to have 81 HP or more for Medics to blind them.

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Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 14 2011, 5:37 am by Lanthanide.