So I'm looking to cripple the vision of a player-owned observer and I want to know the best way to do it.

For players: 1-6 are human (in two equal forces), p7 and p8 are computers (each of which will be allied to one of the forces).

- I have up to around 20 seconds to cripple the unit's vision

- If blinding the unit, the unit must be blinded automatically.
- Whether or not optical flare is researched is irrelevant to me.

- If removing players' self-vision I'll need a great way to reveal some area around a marine - the marine is mobile, must not be slowed, and will never be squished against the edges of the map.
- I would strongly prefer that whatever reveals the area around the marine is not a visible unit.

Any good options for me? Thanks in advance!

Move the unit that needs to be blinded near an enemy medic. Make sure the medic has optical flare researched and that the unit you are trying to blind has at least 81(?) hp (I think). Aggravate the medic (attack it with an enemy DT or something) and it should blind your unit.

I'm pretty sure that's how you do it, unless I missed a few minor details. ;o

You can create and remove a unit within a single trigger cycle to provide vision, but the unit is not visible.

Got optical flare working, but TBH i'd rather go the no-self-vision route

Quote from Oh_Man

You can create and remove a unit within a single trigger cycle to provide vision, but the unit is not visible.

Unfortunately doing so at a location centered on the marine slows it down, violating

Quote from jjf28

the marine [...] must not be slowed

Reveal around the marine or detect? If you plan on blinding an observer it would remove it's "detection" ability.

Otherwise Demons way would probably suit your needs just fine. Although depending on your situation it may be better to move the medic instead of the observer.

No, it doesn't slow it down if it is created and removed instantly.

Only move unit slows the unit to my knowledge.

OK we established it was only if the unit is underneath the other unit then it slows it. Underneath or on top of. If it is offset, like it is when it is created, then there is no slow.

Quote from Sacrieur

Only move unit slows the unit to my knowledge.

Move unit and create unit have the exact same affect on movement behavior. Creating/removing a unit on top of the unit will slow it down just like moving/moving away will.

Quote from Oh_Man

OK we established it was only if the unit is underneath the other unit then it slows it. Underneath or on top of. If it is offset, like it is when it is created, then there is no slow.

The unit is offset on move in the same manner as create, with the exception of burrowed units.

The advantage to moving a unit is that you won't get any warning messages if the unit cannot be placed/moved (which isn't a problem in your map anyway, so it's a moot point here). The disadvantage is that it has a physical presence on the map, and using it as a vision system means that it will always be revealing wherever the MoveBack area is. Therefore, creating would be the best option.

Keep in mind if you have a trigger that just creates/removes (or moves/moves back, for that matter), your vision is still going to cut out briefly every four seconds or so, so I hope your players will enjoy re-selecting everything over and over again. There's some complicated method of figuring out which cycle refreshes vision, but if you want to go that path, it means you'll have to leave the unit there for at least one trigger cycle (meaning players will be seeing it blink in and out about every four seconds).

Personally, I'd just go with blinding the unit. Much easier, cleaner, etc.

I already recommended this to jjff last night, but perhaps others would like to see it.

The best option for you may be to parasite the unit by a vision sharing player and remove self vision. You can use blinding on top of this if needed.

So I dis a lot of testing on this subject. It seems that vision is updated every 100 frames barring optical flare resetting the counter. If you give a cloaked unit to the player at frame 100 and take it away the next trigger cycle you can essential y make a custom vision. I'm on vacation and this iz hard to type on my phone. Check the wiki for vision or search for my posts about the subject. I have an example map somewhere.

It may also be worthy to note that you can constantly create a map revealer on top of the marine, then remove all map revealers for that player, within one trigger cycle, in order to provide vision without slowing it down. Also, with this way, you can create vision for the player in any other spots you may wish.

Edit: although kaias' idea is best if you want the marine to only have true marine-standpoint vision

I wasn't aware that you could create map revealers >.>

Map Revealers can't be detected in locations though so you always have to remove them from anywhere.


Not sure if you could manipulate the left-most trick to work around that though.

Quote from Oh_Man

Map Revealers can't be detected in locations though so you always have to remove them from anywhere.


Not sure if you could manipulate the left-most trick to work around that though.

Just a slight correction, but removing Map Revealers from the "Anywhere" location won't work. You have to use "Remove Unit" (which removes all units of that type for the player) rather than "Remove Unit At Location." So no, you can't use the "left-most" trick, as you call it.

Also, the constant create/remove for a Map Revealer would still have the same issue I mentioned earlier; you'd still need a more complicated implementation (as rockz was saying).

Well my way is pretty simple and imo very elegant. I think the link is www.staredit.net/starcraft/vision. @

Quote from rockz

Well my way is pretty simple and imo very elegant. I think the link is www.staredit.net/starcraft/vision. @

Keep in mind that the Observer will still detect for you, even when you've removed self vision. If that's unacceptable, you'll have to optical flare it which will reset the 100 frame cycle.

vis.scx (38.91 kb) -- 4 hits
Vision.scx (36.24 kb) -- 21 hits

It's one of these two or both.

The parasite and create-unit methods are working well for revealing vision without interrupting the marine's selection.

However, the observer's selection is still a bit troubling...

IF: I force the observer to stay within the vision circle (staying a fixed distance above the marine)
THEN: whenever the observer gets moved behind high ground he gets deselected

IF: I force the observer to stay outside of the vision circle (" " " ")
THEN: whenever the marine moves down and vision lingers where the marine was, the observer gets deselected

So if I wanted to only update the observers' position every 49 cycles when moving down to prevent deselection, Navi (the targeting observer) would lose some accuracy (since I have coordinates I can still update the observers X position at any time, regardless, the loss in y position would take it's toll).

In addition I would have to worry about allies vision revealing Navi, causing deselection, which in itself, probably inflicts the death wound on every method except blind (revealing an area exclusively for one player would require one computer per human player, putting lame limits on human players allowed) - which if I cloak marines from other forces and put circular limits on firing range, wouldn't be so bad a solution after all.

I'll still consider using air units (shifted away so as not to slow the marine, ofc) and rockz's method for revealing the area while keeping Navi inside the vision circle, but my choice will ultimately depend on how I develop any maps using these systems.

Thanks all! ~lockable

You could also blind and parasite the observer, so that its always visible, can't detect and has an almost negligible vision radius (against the marine's, anyway). People would, however, be able to see each other's observers.