In starcraft 2, could you make All air units move at half speed, or make yours double speed, with a nonlocalized temporary effect (For example. I cast some uber leet spell that makes unallied air units move at half speed till someone does some sort of counterspell, but otherwise lasts forever)

If I recall correctly, you can create Items that your people can wear. Can you make an item that while equip (meaning if you unequip the benefit goes away) of +x shield upgrades. (or even + to max shields, but shield ups preferable)

In starcraft 2, is it set to the same armor system as in starcraft 1? (Damage reduced per armor, minimum .5 per attack),
can you manipulate the effect of armor on certain attacks? (Deals 100% armorpiercing damage, no not like acid spores where it increases damage recieved, but something with 1 armor and something with 10+2 armor it deals same damage to),
and can you change the effect of armor from flat damage reduction to percentage damage reduction (like warcraft 3),
or percent chance to be hit?(like diablo 2)

Can you add third, fourth, etc... resource systems that are fully usable by construction? (Ie... unit costs 50 minerals, 50 gas, and 50 void essence...? Khydarian Crystals?) (Obviously would need ways to accumulate the other resources)

If you could customize the stats on your character/game/etc, what is the popular / easiest ways to do this? (imagine distribute 12 picks or something)

Thanks in advance for any answers to any of these questions that anyone gives me.
(I apologize if the color is difficult to read, I wanted to test out this color and have "important stuff" and "side notes", without using different font sizes)

1. you can adjust the movement speed per trigger for every single unit (movement speed is a property) or for all owned by a player per catalog modification.

2. Yes. The items have to have a behavior attached.

3. -yes (except the damage shields receive)
-armor changes -> weapon effects that add behaviors
-percent armor reduction (I think you can do it; I'm not sure)
-percent chance to be hit, I guess yes after patch 1.2

4. -yes, I think you can have 4 resources. But I'm not sure.

Here's some more info to add to Ahli's responses.

If you want to do it through triggers, Ahli's explanation is fine. If you're just using the Data Editor (as in you want this to be an Ability on your command card), you can apply a Behavior on all enemy air units when the Ability is used. Basically you would create a Behavior that reduces speed by 50%, create an effect with an infinite range to find all enemy units, and then make an Ability to cast it and apply the Behavior to all enemy air units. The Data Editor can seem very complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it is pretty simple to understand.

Yes, basically you would create a Behavior that increases shields (under vitals) by however much you want, then create an item unit that applies that Behavior. To put the item on your unit, you also need to create an inventory Ability, and an Item Container to hold this new item. If you need specific help, I can explain more in depth.

1. Yes.
2. Sort of. You can have weapons deal more or less damage based on the type of unit that is being attacked. There are more complicated ways of doing that as well, but they are complicated.
3. I'm pretty sure you can. As far as I know, everything that was in WarCraft 3 can be done in StarCraft 2.
4. There are ways of making damage miss, hit, and crit, but they are more complex. Unfortunately there is no easy way to do this right now.

You can use Minerals, Gas, Terrazine, and Custom Resource. You may be able to add more custom resources, but those 4 are the default ones.

Do you mean like an attribute system where you put points into stats? If yes, basically you would need to create custom Attributes (a tutorial on this can be found here) and then create a system through triggers that uses points to give them to units. There is no "easy" way to do this, really. You can do this through the Data Editor as well, though it won't look as snazzy, unfortunately.

Edit: And here is an even more expanded version than DevliNs.... just kidding, he ninja'd me.


This is possible through the Data Editor or the Trigger Editor.
The Data Editor method (Advanced) will require a Search Area effect, a Validator (air units only), an Apply Behaviour effect, and a behavior - Buff, which will modify the units movement speed by 50%.

The Trigger Editor method is a lot simpler.
Event - you cast the uber leet spell.
Actions - pick every unit matching condition owned by player group (enemies of triggering player)
a) Apply Behaviour (slow by 50%) to picked unit
b) CatalogFieldValueSet 'unit_movement speed' -50%.

You have two options now. You can create the Buff in the Data Editor - and apply this through triggers, or modify the units' actual values in the data editor. I would recommend the first method.


This is done entirely through the Data Editor.

Create an Inventory Ability and create a few Item Classes. Add these Item-Classes to the Inventory ability you created and set up the 'size' of the container. Secondly, add another 'container' to the Inventory Ability and call it Equipment. Modify this 'container' to look how you want it to, and also only add the Item-Classes which you can equip. (For example, don't add a Ammunition or Consumeable item-class to the Equipment container... you can't exactly wear a grenade or a potion?)

To create Items for your system you will need the following Data Editor objects:
Unit - this is sort of a placeholder, which allows your Hero or Character to interact with it.
Actor - this gives the unit a model, and is how it looks on the actual terrain.
Button - this gives the 'Item' a face. This is how it will look when it is in your inventory.
Item-Class - which you created already. Ie, boots, helmet, body armor, consumeable etc...
Behavior - this is what you will create to give the item its special statistics...

In your example, you want to create a Buff. Edit the Modification + field. Under the 'Unit' tab, you will find all sorts of cool things you can modify relating to the Unit object. Shield Maximum, Shield Regeneration Rate, Shield Regeneration Delay and Shield Armor are all there. Go wild!

Then you go back to your Unit object which you created for the Item. And you can add Equip - Behaviors or Carry Behaviors to the item.


Yes. In the Data Editor, find the Damage Effect for the weapon. You can set the Ratio at which each point of armor effects it. If you set this to 0, that damage effect will complete ignore armor, ie. Piercing. Or if you set it to 5 - a unit with 2 Armour will actually have 10 Armour against that attack.


These things are all possible. I just am not entirely sure how to recreate the % armour system found in Warcraft 2.

For a chance to hit. In the Data Editor, the Damage Effect object has a 'Chance' field at the very top. This is literally whether or not the damage is caused. By default it is set to 1. If you set it to 0.5, there will be a 50% miss chance on using this attack. You can then use buffs and upgrades to modify this 'Chance' when attacking different creatures etc. It is messy and not very well integrated at the moment - hopefully Blizzard are sorting this out in 1.2.0.


As far as I know you can add extra resources. But I haven't seen a map in which this is used - so I assume it is complicated or not 100% possible yet. Certainly the Trigger editor offers functionality in modifying a Player's Terrazine Gas and their Custom Resource.

I would imagine you need to create Resource objects in the Data Editor, and possibly edit a field in the Text Editor to get the Custom Resource to be called Void Essence or whatever... but further than this? I don't know.


For this question I will assume you know about the Veterancy behavior and Attribute Behaviors.

The most common/well known method of modifying a Hero's attributes is this:

Create a Behavior - Buff for each Attribute that simply adds +1 to that attribute. Under Flags - make it Hidden. Also, make the maximum stack count 255, and per caster 255.

Next you need a method to allow the characters to choose which attributes they want increased. This is commonly done through Dialogs. If you haven't used dialogs please post again and I will describe them to youl.

But simply apply the Buff to the Character and his attribute will increase, but you won't see the Buff and there can be as many as 255 buffs applied to him (per Attribute).


No problem - try looking around our Wiki.

www.staredit.net/starcraft2

Admittedly a few of your questions arn't on there, but most things are covered in a lot of detail!

Happy mapping.

Thank you all for the quick responses! (I suppose I slept betwixt the first post and now, but still feels like only twenty minutes ago )


So if I understand this correctly, I can make say three heroes, one of which will do moderate amount of damage, but is unaffected by armor (or less affected), while able to make the other two fully (or even moreso) affected by armor? If so, excellent.

I knew "Do +50% more damage to armored targets" could be put in already. I have worked on WC3 before so am familiar with some capabilities of sc2 by association, but "Armor is less effective against you" is what I was aiming for.



So Dialogs is a good choice? Based on what you say, I should add, that I was planning on:

Picking from 5 different fields of up to 12 (since 12 picks), field red, blue, green, white, black.
(ie. I Pick 3 white, 3 blue, 3 green, and 2 red, or 11 black 1 red) (cant have points in white and black at same time)
And maybe 15 other fields that could cost multiple, have pre-req's based on the first 5(like requires 3 of two colors, or five black, etc),
exclusives(like cant pick this setting if you picked that setting), etc, but have a max of 1 each.

Is dialogs the best option to do this?(Either because of ease or because of intelligence or "used to's" in battlenet)

Edit: fixed error.

I had another question. Could you make a unit cost resources over time (Upkeep) without using triggers? I wanted it to be maintenance for "Fantastical" creatures, like summoned creatures that last forever but aren't built.

Edit: Added advantage if "If you cant pay for it, it dies"

Yeah, basically when you set how much damage a weapon or effect does, you can also set how certain attributes affect it. For example you could create 3 units: your hero, an enemy marine with no attributes, and an enemy tank with the "Armored" attribute. The hero's weapon could deal 25 damage normally, but you can set it so that enemies with the "Armored" attribute take -10. Now the hero will do the maximum amount of damage to the marine, but unfortunately only deals 15 to the tank. The attributes you can choose from are: Armored, Biological, Heroic, Hover, Light, Massive, Mechanical, Psionic, Robotic, and Structure.


As for the question about upkeep, you probably can make the unit constantly remove resources as long as it is alive using effects and behaviors, but I'm not sure if you can kill it once there is no money left to pay for it without the use of triggers.

I was just testing the second method out in the Data Editor...

You can easily create a Behaviour (Buff) and link it to a Modify Player (Effect) which subtracts resources from a player. You will need to set the field : "Effect - Player + to Source" (for the Effect).

For the Buff, set the duration to -1 (infinite), the Period Count to -1 (infinite) and the Period to 1.0 (or however often you want the resources subtracted.

For the unit 'dying' when it's upkeep cannot be paid.. Triggers would be useful here. But I'd imagine it is possible through the use of Validator(s)....

Validators are something I know very little about.. a quick (5 minute look at them) reveals this:
You can use a "Player Compare Resource" validator to check that Minerals are equal or greater than 'x'.
You have to use another "Player Compare Resource" validator to check Vespene is equal or greater than 'y'.
Then you need to use a "Combine" validator to check BOTH minerals and vespene - this works exactly like a Set effect. But you can choose the Opperand. You'll want to use 'AND' in this case.


And, thats as far as I got. I would have hoped for a simple field like 'If the Validator Fails: This effect is triggered'. But no, you can only get an error message. Can't help ya more than this!

I don't mean "Armored" targets, I mean targets with differing amounts of armor, like a zealot has 1, a marine has 0, a siege tank has 3, a larva/egg has 10... If someone had researched the upgrades to get +3 armor on their unit... it would completely unaffect the damage on the attack. (Like how psi storm, feedback, etc. in sc1 didn't care about armor, although this would be a basic attack rather then a spell)

For the upkeep, I was thinking specifically using only one resource (probably gas), because the resources are going to be "Minerals = Money" and "Gas = Mana". Based on what I saw on the other forum, something about returning materials to construct something would be interesting, I don't know how well i could implement it though. I was thinking "Certain abilities are researched when you acquire the resources to get them", with the cost being overall rather then bundle cost. Maybe if I could make it so all researches by default cost nothing to start but progress is based on resources?

I was also thinking, Could you change a players color using at most triggers? I was thinking something along the lines of: You have picks and can put them into red, blue, green, white, black. Based on your picks your color would be any of those, or if combined white/black with one of the first 3, youd get a lighter/darker version, and if you combined say red and blue you'd get purple (red, blue, black = dark purple). The only conceptual problem I run into is if you do red, blue, and green. That just makes plain 'ol gray.

Edit: Can you make triggers actually change terrain or be based on what terrain things are? I was probobly going to do something along the lines of "For each beacon you control, do this" (when beacons are owned by putting buildings on them, so 0 build collision w/e.), but if I could do actual terrain triggers that would be superb. (I was planning on putting in a spell that would "Change" the terrain, either by changing the beacon from one type to another, or, if the above works, change the terrain independently)

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 19 2010, 7:11 pm by sraw531.

Armour penetration is controlled by the damage effect on the ability/weapon. It has a field which dictates how much damage is taken off for every point of armor on the unit taking damage.

For changing colours of units this is done through actors (you can do this through triggers or through the data editor). It basically involves sending a Set Team Color message to the actor. For the data editor you would do this through actor events and for triggers you can use any of the Send Actor Message actions.

Would that allow me to change the color of the PLAYER or is that the same thing? Your units all being the color is one way of doing things, but I would just as soon make all units that are made with green magic green and all things made with blue magic blue, or some such silliness.

Terrain can be affected by triggers yes but there's a certain extent which it can be controlled... I wish i could explain it further but i know for a fact that some terrain features are modifiable.

Team Color changes the colouring on a single unit as if the player had selected a different team colour. So everywhere on the models where the team colour you picked appeared will change to the new colour. There is also Set Tint which will tint the entire unit. You could change all players units to that colour by making sure all that players units received the actor message.

As far as I know for actual terrain modification all you can do is modify the height at a single point.