Now that the new patch is out, someone should check if this still works.

The patch didn't change any AI scripts so it seems to work fine. I'd be more concerned about EUDs and Sprites (one of my maps with larva crashed once with the new patch, but was fine otherwise) being modified.

Scuze me i R noob,

So basically what you did was make a reaver with 10 damage attack a unit... BUT you got rid of being able to see the reaver and its scarab exploding. The only thing left is just the scarab dealing damage? right? And to get the 20 dmg u just moved 2 scarabs instead of one?

Okay cool, Theirs one thing i don't know that is probly really simple but im just really noob. What is custom kills? I don't think i've ever heard "Custom" before... what is it? someone explain to me pl0x? So I know how this works completely.

In fact, he's making reavers attack a unit and teleport their scarabs under the unit you've MC'ed. Once under them, he sets an AI so the scarab attack the unit that's over it and it makes it deals damage
Custom means like "specialized"... since I'm french, I had hard times finding what means that word too at start, but then, it became essential >.<

Ah sorry payne but i still dont understand. Custom score?

so lets say u get a kill, your kill score goes up by w.e amount. How would it work for "custom" ?

Custom isn't affected by gameplay. Just think of it as a free death counter.

Ah okay thats what i was thinking, how come no one ever speaks about custom? It sounds so useful...w.e ty.

It's used often!
Let's say you want to show the number of lives left for many players at the same time using a leaderboard, you'll use the Custom value

I actually used to use that for variables before I knew about death counts.

News for everyone who is planning on using this system:

I have found that each trigger loop a scarab is under a player-owned unit, it has around 50% chance to deal damage to that unit, whereas a computer-owned unit will get damage all the time. I've tested on 2 different maps and 3 different units, so I guess this result is quite reliable.

Well, units take 50% damage from a scarab if they are moving away from it, so perhaps that's the cause? The OP said that units flee when attacked under this method. Perhaps ordering them to "stop" instead of "move" would fix this problem.

I tested on stationary targets.

This is an interesting method, but to me seems to roundabout and difficult to bother using.

Though I am not sure, this is most likely because there is a nearby enemy unit that the Scarab prioritizes its attack on. As in, you move the Scarab underneath the player's unit, but there's a nearby enemy with higher priority, so the Scarab moves (but doesn't attack the player unit) to attack the other enemy unit instead.

If that isn't the reason, then I'm actually rather curious as to the 50%. I can't see why a unit owned by human player would be so different from a computer controlled one. I've tested the system on human owned units before and it worked fine.

To each their own then. The system really isn't that complex when compared to existing ones (see the monster FRAGs), and it offers a lot of versatility in spells. The most difficult part is ensuring that there are always Scarabs that aren't about to die available, especially when you need a large number of them. If you're worried about the Reavers taking up too much space, you can always stack them via the null tile.

There are no nearby enemy units to attract the scarabs - the victim unit is in a separate 'arena'.

Check out my map I posted in my "Direct Damage" topic in the UMS Assistance forum, maybe you'll see something I don't know of and find the problem. You are the creator of this, after all.

Well it certainly does fill a niche.

I don't see it being useful where exactness is important, but come to think of it there are some cool ways to utilize it. For example "if you walk on the spikes, the spikes will hurt you"

It's direct damage. There are an infinite plethora of potential applications.

A basic one would be in a RPG or even AoS maps. Use grids (mobile, coordinate, whatever) and make a pattern (can be a line, a circle, a star, whatever) of explosions. Move X number of Scarabs under each explosion based on how much damage you want to do and remove them 1 trigger cycle later. Woohoo. You now have cool looking spells that work on enemy computer units too.

The only drawback to using it on an AoS map would be that it becomes a 2v2 instead of a 3v3. You'd need two computer players, one as the Reaver owner and one as the Scarab owner. Note that Scarabs won't attack burrowed P9-11 units for some strange reason. If there was another way to implement this system with fewer Reavers, then we may see a new generation of AoS maps.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 20 2008, 11:46 pm by SelfPossessed.

Quick bump. People have been asking me about the storage system. I have provided one example in the attachment in the original post. Hopefully this will help reduce the number of questions.

EDIT: Found some glitches on it that occurred because of how I was trying to reduce lag. I'll fix it later, but the concept remains the same.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 11 2009, 7:18 am by SelfPossessed.

Could someone PLEASE help me? :S
http://www.staredit.net/topic/5954/last/#special

Ooh, cool. One excellent thing about this system is accuracy. Since it's splash damage, the further away from your target you aim, the less damage it does. In your example map, clicking directly on the machine shop did 5 damage; clicking beside it, I was able to get it to 1 or 2 damage.

This has obvious advantages, the top on my list being that aiming actually behaves realistically.