Hey SEN,

So, I've made a pretty nice UMS map, but when I try to watch the replay and nothing works. Some of the things do work, but then it does all of the triggers for the viewer. And so the timing is all off and then I think it just get's confused. Not to mention, it doesn't create all of the units, and I think that may be due to that player not existing in the replay. So I changed ownership of the trigger to test, and then it half worked.

Any ideas, are there tricks you guys use to get around this, or am I screwed?

You pretty much can't expect a UMS Replay to work.

Ever, in my experience.

Are there any good ways of recording a game, as an alternative to using the built in system?

Use Fraps, or any kind of video recording program. That usually works.

Grr.. Someone should invent a new replay system via 3rd party apps..

As long as you don't mess with the replay speed, it should work.

Or as long as the map has no waits, especially hyper triggers.

When the map has waits it creates extra trigger cycles which simply may be skipped when you increase speed because starcraft works in frames. On higher speeds not all frames of the replay are processed and often it's a trigger cycle.

If the map has no hyper triggers you may be lucky and can view your replay on x2 speed.

Didn't upgrades past 3 also mess up replays? But yeah, the main problem is when you up the speed, since the triggers still run at the same speed, even though the units move faster, SC replays aren't just a recording of the game, they actually completely remake it, in fact, when they first put them out, it was funny because sometimes the computers would run a different AI than they had the first time, giving you a whole new game

Recording the whole game would make hell long replay files. But that's a bug, triggers should work at the right speed.

PD: Yeah I remember the computer players doing stupid things and completely messing up the replay. Most replay bugs have been fixed though...

Did the bug fixes fix ALL replays, or only the ones recorded after the fix?

I believe it fixed all of them, as it was a reading error, not a recording error.

The replays made with one patch are usually not valid after another patch is released (because some timing and/or other stuff changes), so even if it fixed old replays they wouldn't probably work.

Replays may also be watched from a slot that your triggers don't apply to. For instance the replay watcher may be watching from Player 8's perspective when you have no triggers for it. This can also effect how it views differently. In my experience it is possible for some maps to not mess up, at least on x1 speed. It wold take some experimentation to figure out just what is making your map not replay properly, as I don't know of any definitive guide on the subject. All we have is rumor and speculation.