Here's what I need:

A small unit that can be killed by a melee attack.
-It must be immobile.
-It must not have an attack.
-Its invincibility must be togglable.
-I must be able to recreate it (not just move another preplaced one) after it has been killed.
-I must be able to transfer it between players.

I was going to use a zerg egg, but these are non-creatable. Same problem with mineral chunks and all those other funky powerups.
I also tried regular powerups (i.e., khaydarin crystal, young chrysalis, etc) but I can't disable their invincibility.
Buildings are too big.
I could use a Terran Civilian, but it would be inconvenient to keep him immobile via triggers.
Spider Mines work great, except that they are so small. You won't auto-attack, because I've set it so that a player can only attack the unit when they own it. Spider mines are sort of inconspicuous. I'd prefer something a little more obvious.

If nothing else works, I'll use Civilians or Mines. But does anyone have any ideas? Is there something obvious I'm missing?

Not really. That's pretty much what you can use, or immobilize any other units using triggers, like critters and such.

Yeah, okay. I'm using a critter now, but check out this bizarre problem.
Now that I've immobilized it using:

C:
Always
A:
Move critter to location X
Preserve

... I can't do any damage to it! What the hell??

Is it because the unit's location is somehow refreshed before the damage can be calculated? That's really weird, because the attack animations happen and everything.

EDIT: I'm giving the critter to the human player. The computer player can kill the critter fine, even using the same units that the human player CAN'T kill it with (Firebat). Any idea why?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 8 2008, 10:40 am by razorsnail.

Instead of moving the critter try to order it constantly to move to the location (order trigger action).

EDIT: http://www.staredit.net/wiki/Immobilizing_Units

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 8 2008, 11:06 am by Clokr_.

That fixed the attack problem, but when I re-create the unit, the 1x1 tile is too small so it sometimes gets created on the other side of the firebat, even when the tile is empty (I empty it every time I recreate the unit). This is fine with a teleport trigger but with ordering, the firebat's blocking it. There's also the possibility that another player could get his firebat in there at the same time and mess everything up. I tried giving the critter to P12 but the human's firebat automatically attacks it. So unless I can fix that, or, ideally, somehow get a player to attack his own critter when it's constantly moved to a location, I think I will have to use spider mines. Thanks for the link, btw.

Use the move units trigger action to clean the are before creating the critter or something like that, to ensure that there's space for it.
You cannot give units to players above 8. The trigger action will do nothing for them.

Yeah, the area's totally clean... I made the location a little bigger, but it's a really cramped piece of square terrain which I think may mess with the elevation/dimensions. Actually, one thing I could do is create it, move it into the location just in case, then let the "order: move" run preserved after that.

As for P12, whether or not the trigger actually gives them to P12, when I run the trigger, it ends up belonging to a neutral player. Now I realize that in melee, when an enemy has left the game, you still automatically attack his units, and his units belong to P12 at that point, so that's why I'm automatically attacking it. The trigger itself is owned by the human player, and I never directly create a unit for P12, so I guess that's why it works. I was remembering this thread.

I am having some other ownership issues with P12, but it doesn't matter. I'm not going to use P12 because players' units will automatically attack it.

I may try the combination of Move and then Order, unless you or I or anyone else can think of a better solution. Until then, I'ma sleep. I appreciate the help. Peace

Yeah, right. Give unit works, what doesn't work is create units for them.

Yeah, giving should work, razor, you're problem with them attacking is because units given to Player 12 retain whatever alliances they had before they were given. So if you give it to an allied player, then to Player 12, it will work just fine.

Now, you're first attempt, moving the unit constantly didn't work because since it was continually being moved, the unit attacking could not get a lock on it long enough to actually attack, but I see that you got it to work using Order, so that is no longer a problem.

Ah, I see. Okay, I'll try giving to an allied player first.

The weird thing is that when I constantly moved the unit, the computer player could damage and kill it, but I couldn't -- even though the computer and I both used the same attacking unit, and the attack animation was playing. The target unit belonged to me, but I don't see why that would make a difference.

Instead of using all of this fancy critter work, couldn't you just move an unwalkable area constantly?
or maybe i'm wrong, i think the unit might still be able to attack.

Yeah, the unit can still attack in that case.

I will do one of these:

1. Use a critter, but after recreating it, immediately move it back to its location, THEN order it to move there. That way it wont get stuck somewhere else.
or
2. Use a spider mine.

#1 looks better but will malfunction more easily, and there's always the chance that the player could beat it by either crowding the area with units, or overcoming the move order by ordering it faster.
#2 is break/foolproof but is hard to see.

3. Use a siege tank. Unsiege is the action button, instead of killing a unit. This is what I'm using now but it's slow and killing a unit is more intuitive.