Hi SEN! It's already 3 months since I joined here.. time really does fly, doesnt' it?
Today I brought up some facts about rescuable players I discovered some months ago. Later I thought it would be great to post it on SEN, so I'm posting it now.


Not so many people use rescuables in their maps. It's really tricky, and worst of all, it consumes a player. Besides, many triggers don't work for rescuable players. In most maps, move location, give units & P9-P12 is more convenient than that.
Because of that, rescuable has some undiscovered tricks which weren't fixed by later patches(at least that's what I suppose). Gaining control by rescuing has some clear differences compared to that by give trigger/mind control.

To list some of the most important differences and characteristics:

0. Gaining control doesn't change a unit's color.

1. Gaining control doesn't grant its new owner any related techs/abilities.

In fact, this is the greatest one. What does it mean? For example, it's like this:

I can upgrade Metabolic Boost, (zergling speed), but I didn't yet.
The computer player and the rescuable player did.

If 'give' trigger gives me a zergling (owned by them), I automatically have Metabolic Boost upgraded. All other zerglings I own have their speed increased.

However, if I rescue a zergling, it does nothing else. I still don't have Metabolic Boost finished, and all other zerglings I own remains unchanged.
Notably, 'the' zergling I rescued have an Increased speed.

Some applications:


Also, in case of overlords, if a player who have yet to upgrade Ventral Sacs gain control of an overlord with something inside, strange things happen.

Where's da Load button? Nowhere. No more unit can get in unless you somehow manage to upgrade Ventral Secs.

This may be good in a vulture control map. Raynor vultures can be faster!

2. There are some circumstances that rescuable units are not getting rescued.

I suppose that rescuing has something to do with orders. So, if a rescuable unit somehow gets another order, it no longer becomes rescuable. That's why we can't rescue burrowed units. It's not an important matter though

3. You don't gain control of any unit within.

This is another big point. Even if you rescue a bunker/transport, everything in it remains unchanged.
Look at this:

So, the sreenshot states that the bunker's owner is currently using 2 Terran supply... 2? There's a marine, a ghost, a firebat in that bunker! That should be 3.
...Right. They're within, but not owned by the bunker. So, they won't shoot even if enemy units get close.
In a case like this, you can't unload them separately. Only 'Unload all' works.

4. If you rescue a comand center, a nexus, a hatchery, a lair or a hive, you also rescue every other unit owned by that player.
(However, if what you rescued is a command center in transit, this doesn't happen)

Another interesting nature. With this, we can rescue burrowed units powerups, or even units in transports.
Remeber what you saw in 3.? So, we can have Player 1 own the bunker and Player 2 own everything inside! If Player 1 and 2 are enemies, things get really hilarious. It can be like 'omg my bunker is shooting all my troops!!'
Fortunately, a bunker can't attack itself.

Screenshots:

So, blue(me) rescued the lair..

and brown got confused.

Fortunately for him, they can be unloaded with 'Unload All'.

Like this, rescuable has some potentials to use. I also used this in my map: giving/taking away upgrades.

hat do you think?

PS: If there is any grammatical error, feel free to point out. I'm learning English these days

This is a pretty informative thread; our documentation on rescuable units is quite limited. #0, #1 and #4 are pretty common knowledge, but it's interesting how we can manipulate what does and does not get rescued.

Have you found any practical application for these quirks? I can't think of any situation where I'd want enemy units inside my bunker as a game concept.

It's very well written; there's just a few typos, such as:

• time really does fly, doesnt' it?
  
• So, the sreenshot states that the bunker's owner is currently using 2 Terran supply
  
• hat do you think?

When you use parentheses, there should be a space between the opening parenthesis and whatever precedes it (like this).

What I really wish is that there was a way for individual specific units to become rescuable, and not an entire player. Heinermann said this isn't possible, though.

This would be great for my DS map: instead of the units being given from P1 to P4 and changing teal, P1's units could remain green. If they could retain the uprades from only P1 as well, that'd be better still (so P1 dragoons would be green and have range upgrade, while P2 dragoons would be blue and not have range upgrade).

I found one for #1. I'm using it in my RPG map. There's an item that grants Leg Enhancement(zealot speed) temporarily. When its duration ends, the zealot gets removed and will be replaced with a new one(which won't have Leg Enhancement upgraded).
And as Lanthanide wrote, we can make elite units with different colors and improved range, speed, etc. It can be good when hero units have some other use.
Also, the 250/200 energy tech might be useful. Though its use is greatly situational, it has some possibilities.

Nothing else yet. Maybe it's good for making visual effects or confusing users?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 22 2011, 4:15 pm by zzt.

I can see this being used for the intro to a cooperative map. Say you rescue a Dropship from Rescuable P3, each of which contains Marines. Human P2 then rescues a Command Center from Rescuable P3, such that you now control a Dropship with an ally's units inside. You choose where to deploy, and when you unload, P2's new units come out of your dropship. So you're like the pilot for a set of units owned by P2.

I wonder... Can one create, via triggers, additional units for a rescuable player, and have those units be rescuable even if someone already rescued a Command Center or similar building from that rescuable player?

You can also give rescuable units back to a rescuable player, giving a really flashy visual and sound effect. The sound is directional and blocks out some unit attack sounds.
I think a map to demonstrate everything would be pretty good.

Even if you rescue everything by rescuing a hatchery, you can still give the rescued units back.
The fact that speed/cooldown upgrades don't transfer (but remains with the unit) allows for more tiers of units (in a micro map for example), while keeping the hero version free.
Please note that speed and cooldown are the only two upgrades that are unit-specific. See this for why.

Killing or unloading a bunker with rescuable units inside will not make them rescuable even though they are owned by the rescuable player.

Another quirk relating to rescuable players is that you can run the script "Switch Computer Player to Recue Passive.", instead of causing units in bunkers to be unresponsive, you will rescue all the units in the bunker. You also rescue the units inside an overlord as well, which means you can unload them by clicking their icon, but you cannot reload them.

(testing as I write this)

Additionally (better than the rescue command center/nexus/hatchery method), after switching computer player to rescue passive, you can ONLY rescue the units inside a transport if you move to the location they were loaded, NOT by rescuing the unit containing them! Which means you can load then move the unit, and have DIFFERENT players rescue each contained unit individually, so all the units inside the overlord/bunker/whatever can be owned by different players.

See map to find out. First rescue the overlord down below where the location is, then rescue the units inside by moving to the location they were loaded at.
[attach=8254]

Rescuable players have always been the most untested and underrated thing in map making.

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