Hey guys, me and some friends have been trying to figure this out for a while, so I figured it was time to bring it to a forum. Please have noob mercy.

We're mostly melee/TvB players, and we've been wanting to make some custom scenarios for ourselves. We don't have problems making levels or anything, but what we WANT is to be able to control everyone's start location. I figured the simplest way to do that is just make a UMS game, so that everyone's start location can be controlled. The problem is that the default triggers and setup of the StarEdit seems to not work at all. Whenever I try to play the map as a UMS there aren't even slots for other players at all.

I've used the editor before to mess around with, and make some simple UMS games. I've started some bigger projects, too, but never finished. So I'm not a COMPELTE noob to StarEdit. I just can't seem to do something as unbelievably simple as make a regular melee map that works in UMS.

Thanks so much to anyone who can help out!

I don't know if I've understud but I've made a map that is playable both melee and UMS (I don't know how to put a link but you can find this map in this database: its title is (8)FA$TE$T CHE$$).

Hey, thanks for the quick reply.

My problem isn't simply that I can't play the map as both a UMB or a melee. I'm pretty sure you can always do this. What I'm trying to do is create a UMS map that will play exactly like a melee or TvB, except for the fact that I can control who starts at what location (as opposed to the standard random start in melee and TvB games). My main problem is that even though the triggers look like they're set up for just a default game when you leave them as is, the game never seems to work that way for some reason.

Also, I tried to take a look at your map in the editor to see if you did anything differently, but it wouldn't open...

Uncheck Random Start Locations under Forces, and when you first create a map in SCM Draft 0.8.0, there's the option to have default Melee Triggers.

Thanks a ton for the advice. I'll try that!

Okay, I tried that and it worked great, but now I have another problem: The computer doesn't do anything. Nothing at all. They just sit there, and don't even run away when I attack them!

You need to run AIs for them, have the correct AI correspond with the correct player type, and use different AIs depending on how hard you want the computer.

Awesome, thanks!

One last couple of questions (sorry for wasting so much of your time).

1) What would you recomend as the setting to activate an AI script? I've currently set it to "0 game seconds", hoping that it only needs to be activated once...

2) Any recomendations about the scripts. There are shitloads of them and I don't really know what's what. Do you know which is the default melee gametype script? And is there a list somewhere of what they all are and what they all do?

1) use 'always' and dont preserve the trigger

I know Insane is the hardest, someone posted the Melee AI on Maplantis I think, can't remember or find the post, I think it's Custom though.

Well now I have a new problem (arg!)

Now it makes me instantly win as soon as the game starts. I haven't done ANYTHING except add the AI script trigger...

Can I see what triggers are currently being used?

Yeah, sure!

Trigger("All players"){
Conditions:
Always();

Actions:
Set Resources("Current Player", Set To, 50, ore);
}

//-----------------------------------------------------------------//

Trigger("All players"){
Conditions:
Command("Current Player", "Buildings", At most, 0);

Actions:
Defeat();
}

//-----------------------------------------------------------------//

Trigger("All players"){
Conditions:
Command("Non Allied Victory Players", "Buildings", At most, 0);

Actions:
Victory();
}

//-----------------------------------------------------------------//

Trigger("Player 4","Player 5","Player 6","Player 7","Player 8"){
Conditions:
Always();

Actions:
Run AI Script("ZHIx");
}

//-----------------------------------------------------------------//

Try to make it set all computers to not ally victory, and have the computers set all the humans to non ally victory too.

I'm not sure I follow... do you mean to edit an existing trigger? Or make a new one? Or to just do that under forces?

Nope, new trigger, I'm too lazy to actually figure out the action you need...

Well, I couldn't figure anything else out (I couldn't figure out what you suggested) so I tried to just place actual buildings and drones for the computers. They actually started doing something, but they were in imbicile mode (you know how they sometimes glitch up in normal melee? Where they don't really build up much at all and just mine forever). So I don't know what's happening. I figure the AI script must not be working, or something...

Which AI are you using, are you using it under Run AI, or Run AI at location, and yes, you need to preplace buildings for players not with the User Selectable, they will disappear in normal Melee, so don't worry.

I'm using Run AI Script (not at location) and 'Expansion Zergn Campaign Difficult' as the script (it sounded official, and all I was looking for was the standard script)

Try out Custom, Campaign AIs tend to have to have the correct buildings preplaced to work.