I used to know the triggers for cloaking (through disabling doodad state) by heart, but I don't seem to be getting them right.

I thought it went like this:

Disable doodad state at loc1
Wait 0 milliseconds
Enable doodad state at loc1
Wait 0
Enable
Wait 0
Order move to loc2
Wait 0
Move unit to loc2


This works for some units, but still crashes for some units that I know for certain should work (ie, terran ghosts and wraiths). Also, I'm pretty sure there's supposed to be a way to have the annoying rock sprite not appear. What am I doing wrong?


Also, why do some units crash in some tilesets but not others (ie, high templars crash in Space but not Jungle)? I'm currently testing in the Twilight terrain set (my current project never to be finished is Twilight, not Jungle this time).

1. You don't need to "enable" twice, it does nothing.
2. Disable doodad, wait, enable doodad, order unit to move, wait, move unit.
3. The rock sprite will appear for certain unit types, there's no way to stop it. The best you can do is disable/enable the unit somewhere out of the normal playing field so the rock sprites don't get in the way. Best to do the entire operation in an unrevealed section of the map to prevent players from viewing them, because bad sprites can still be displayed during the process and cause crashes.

When I cloak my units I do it at the top of the map so that the rock sprites dont appear on the map.

That is a peculiar memory you have. As I recall, Terran air units have their sprite portrait incorrectly rotated closer to facing downwards than the direction they are traveling, and traveling downward will display an illegal frame which will crash SC. There's lists on unit doodad states here, but this is simply for just disabling, so it is exempting more units than are actually possible.

If you are doing this in mass, you must remember that it will pick the first qualifying unit every time, so you have to change the owner or move it to a location outside of the cloaking area (loc1). Also, if there isn't much space to move, the order command may not cause the unit to set itself to a legal frame. As Lanthanide mentioned, this process should also be done completely out of view until after the unit has moved via the order command.

I've always been worried that this would cause stability issues, but I guess that's a rather baseless fear.

This is news to me, and it doesn't coexist with my current understanding of the doodad state, so I'm skeptical about your claim.

Increasing the wait time after the order action may increase your chance of success.

This happened one time when I tried battlecruisers, but it worked fine for wraiths, so far as I remember (this was on jungle tileset, I believe).

Ah, thanks... right now I'm just testing to see what units will work, but I may need to remember this later on (although I should be ok, since my main uses for this are most likely for a handful of units at most [the only thing I have planned thus far is potentially using cloaked mutalisks as "ghosts" that players get when they die]).

Does the rock always appear at loc2? And does loc2 have to be a certain position or distance from loc1?

It's true, I've tested it before, although it was a while back. Sort of like how extended player colors are different for tilesets (I've actually noticed an inverse proportion - it seems to me that the cooler extended player colors are on a tileset, the less units cloak on said tileset). Templars are the only noteworthy (IMO) example of this, but there are others. I'll test it now to be sure.

EDIT: That's odd, high templars don't appear to work now. I know for certain they did before. They were one of the first units that I did this trick for when I first learned it...

The rock appears a small distance above the unit being cloaked, so if you cloaked a unit at the top of the map, the rock would be off of the map's dimensions and therefore not visible. The "Move" action from location 2 to location 1 is not necessary for the cloaking effect, but most people use this because they are cloaking the unit in a secluded corner of the map, and need to move it to a more appropriate location when they are done.

This might be related to major patches causing this change to occur, but that's a big might. If someone has the time to downgrade and test this (or offer an explanation/confirmation with evidence), that would be great.
 

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 17 2011, 7:04 pm by Roy.

Ok, this is slightly embarrassing, but relieving...

The problem with the templar a second ago was that I had my start location set near where the templar came out at the end of the cloaking process. (For some reason, looking at the location as the unit is moved crashes, but looking after is perfectly safe)

Gimme a sec and I'll post a couple test maps demonstrating how templars can be cloaked in one tileset but not another (unless I did something wrong when testing it on twilight terrain too).


EDIT: Ok, I think I got the attachments up. Disable test 2 is Twilight, in which the high templar causes an immediate crash (I tested with a zergling to make sure I did the trigger right, and it worked fine). Disable test 3 is Space, which the high templar successfully cloaks (just be careful not to look at it before it starts moving). Disable test 4 is Jungle, in which the high templar also cloaks successfully (again, cannot be looked at until it starts moving). Also, I tried a wraith on 4, and it crashed when I looked at it (even after it started moving), so my memory of them working is probably incorrect (it's probably on my mental list of units that I would expect to work but don't).
3 and 4 also have some other experiments of mine, most notably (probably only notably), I tested how cloaked larva will create cloaked units, even if the unit you create couldn't normally be cloaked by the disabling method (this includes ultralisks, scourge bats [I think], and most notably, overlords [making them the only cloakable transport]). This works with other morphs, including mutalisk to guardian/devourer morphs (guardians can be cloaked with the disabling trigger directly, devourers cannot), high templar merges (I think, it's been a while), but sadly, NOT including drone to building morphs (also, canceling the morph while in progress will result in your drone being uncloaked).

Attachments:

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 13 2011, 3:32 am by Jesusfreak.

I don't know if it has always been coincidence, but I recall experiencing this as well.