I have a game where every player has a teleporter in his base. Currently, it teleports them right to the center of the map. I would like the player to be able to choose this location.
Here's what I have thought about so far:

• Use a beacon with Place COP - but it only works for first 5 mins
  
• Invincible Arbiter with no attack and use its recall - but it will cloak units (any way to disable it's cloaking ability?)
  
• Use some invincible unit and center location on it - opponents can see where player is planning to teleport
  

[EDIT]
The solution for a mobile teleporter using a dropship is on post #32.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 6 2008, 5:31 pm by planckscnst.

EDIT BY ESPONEO: This post contains incorrect information. It has been quoted for archival purposes.


Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jul 3 2008, 9:07 pm by Esponeo. Reason: Fixxxx

How about an invincible observer.

Or if that isn't applicable, a cloaked hero wraith with a damage of 0.

If you have air (or ground, for that matter) open, you can use mobile grids to move the teleport location wherever you want it. If you don't have those, but your map is small and you have the locations to spare, you can use locations of varying lengths plus rows of burrowed units along either side combined with the fact that locations aren't moved off the edge by triggers to set up a fairly easy fixed grid system. Either way, a quick center view + text crosshair will allow the player to see where they're moving the destination location to.

Permanently cloak a queen(or almost any other unit for that matter..) by disable wait 0 enable wait 0 enable wait 0 order and then that unit can be the one that they use to select teleportation spot.

Thanks everyone for the input!

So I tried some stuff... Place COP is the coolest, but it just doesn't work after 5 or so minutes: the ability goes away even if you keep making new flag beacons. It had the advantage of being an obvious "put me somewhere" type of interface. It was also impossible to place it in a spot where it would make unplaceable unit buzz. And finally, it was instant; the player didn't have to send a unit somewhere and that was pretty cool.

Using another unit is going to be difficult since there are some important triggers that occur when a player has 0 men. I'd have to rewrite all the triggers to say commands 0 marines + commands 0 firebats + commands 0 ghosts + ... commands 0 ultralisks... and so on except for the special unit. That would be a real pain.


What if I use a probe and have the player warp in a pylon at the spot he wants to teleport to, center the teleport location on the probe, then remove the probe and the pylon.

Another idea is provide a shuttle or dropship. The player loads one or more units into it. The teleport location is always centered on the dropship. When the player unloads the dropship (he brings a unit to the location), a trigger teleports all the rest of his guys. This also has the advantage that the location will not be centered on an unplaceable spot.

Does the player always have that special unit? If so, you can just use when the player has 1 men.

Wow I'm an idiot! Why didn't I think of that?

Okay, I think I will have to settle on using a unit. Specifically, I'll use a critter. Air units just don't work. It's too easy to get the location stuck over a cliff and it really screws things up. It would be nice if I could use a devouring one since it's the fastest ground unit (as far as I'm aware), but I'm already using it in the game, so it will have some attack power.

I did some searching and experimenting, and it looks like it really isn't possible to keep the "Place COP" ability going through the game.

I also tried just a little bit with the shuttle idea (my second favorite), but I can't figure out how to trigger it. The shuttle itself triggers the "brings 1 [any unit]..." so I did "brings 2...", but that triggers when I'm trying to load the shuttle too. Is there any way to detect that a shuttle has unloaded some units?

Disable the air flags of a location (double click on it then disable the three air flags) and it'll only detect ground units, and thus it'll no longer trigger the bring condition when the units are uploaded. Otherwise it'll detect the units even if they're inside the shuttle.

Okay, so I still have the problem of the trigger happening during the load.
This is the closest I can get...
---
bring at least 1 unit to groundTeleportLocation, hasLoaded is not set -> set couldBeLoading, preserve
---
couldBeLoading is set, bring at least 2 unit to airTeleportLocation, bring 0 to groundTeleportLocation -> set hasLoaded, clear couldBeLoading
---
hasLoaded is set, bring at least 1 unit to groundTeleportLocation -> clear hasLoaded, move [any unit] from Anywhere to groundTeleportLocation
---

This still has the problem of possibly messing up - especially if the player has other air units. Also, if the player has only air units, he can't teleport.

I think I got it!

Give the player a shuttle and load it with a civ. Center a ground-only location on it. When the player brings 1 civ to the ground-only location, put him back in the ship and move all units to the location.

Bam! I think that's it. I'm going to try it out now...

Actually it works fine until 10 minutes of Fastest game play.

Okay, here's the problem. I can't tell the civilian to load into the shuttle (I think). I can only tell ALL the units in a location to load up. So it kinda works... except that some of the other units get loaded into the shuttle when they are transported even though the order says run the "enter transport" ai script THEN move all units. If I put in a wait such as this: run AI script, wait 3000ms, move all units. Then it just doesn't move the units because by that time the civ is in the shuttle and the trigger isn't active anymore.
Here's the code:

If you center a 1 pixel x 1 pixel sized location over the shuttle, then run there the aiscript, the only unit that will be affected is the one under the shuttle. So it'll only reload the civilian. You'll need hyper triggers if you're not currently using them already.

PD: What happened to the trigger bbcode? It doesn't work anymore?

The 1x1 area works mostly. If the shuttle is on the move and you click on the wireframe to unload, the civ gets left behind and the other units may or may not be teleported. If you load other units in the shuttle then unload the civilian, the units (other than the civ in the shuttle get stuck there. Even if I then do the trick of unloading the civilian on the move so it doesn't trigger the teleport , I have a shuttle with units that won't respond. They won't unload - this is a big problem; it basically puts that player out for the rest of the game. Has anyone experienced this problem before?

Just tried setting the hangar count for the shuttle to 1. It didn't work - it can still pick up the normal amount of units. Also setting the cloaked property didn't work (I suppose the unit has to already be cloakable for that to work).

Hangar count only works for reavers and carriers. Not even for vultures or transport ships. But you can upload 8 civs into the shuttle so it is always full if you don't want the player to upload more units.
When you drop the civilian while the shuttle is moving the AI should be fast enough to reupload it and it shouldn't be left behind. Are you using hyper triggers?.

When you detect a civ on the ground:
Teleport the shuttle onto the civ => shuttle stops.
Then center an 1x1 pixel (not blocks) location on the civ and execute enter transport ai at 1x1 pixel.

Alternatively you could use one of the 2 available vultures. With the upgrade they're even faster than a ling.

I am using hypertriggers. I'm also using the interceptor/scarab on player 15 hack - I think that is what is causing the problem.

I tried the 1x1 pixel location, and the trigger is activated, but the AI script doesn't work.


Trigger("Player 1"){
Conditions:
Bring("Current Player", "Terran Civilian", "Player1CivDetect", At least, 1);

Actions:
Run AI Script At Location("EnTr", "Player1CivDetect");
Move Unit("Current Player", "Any unit", All, "Anywhere", "Player1 teleport loocation");
Center View("Player1 teleport loocation");
Preserve Trigger();
}