When a unit is set as a Hero, all upgrades and spells it has are made available to the unit without research. Does this mean Hero units, if unchecked as a Hero, will benefit from those same upgrades when researched (so two or more unit IDs could gain from the same upgrade)? I'm guessing they might, since the Devouring One has the same weapon cooldown as a normal Zergling and refers to the same Iscript, yet attacks as fast as a Crackling when set as a Hero. Some may not, though, looking at the Ghost's base sight range (9) compared to the three Ghost heroes (Kerrigan 11, Duran 10, Stukov 11). =o\ And then there are the Energy upgrades, which judging by FireGraft's EXE edit, all Heroes pull their Energy info from one source, rather than each individual energy upgrade.

Using Heroes is good for a mod's player units, whereas keeping the real units for the AI is ideal. The micro AI will not use abilities on a Hero, so if you want the AI to use any abilities, you must use the normal units that had the abilities. If you want to give your AI some advantages over a human player, like faster build time, lower costs, etc, then keeping your AI and Player units seperate is a must. Yet, if you also want upgrades, it'd be important to know which ones, if any, work on their Hero counterpart, and which ones that do not.

As a quick side question, anyone know whether range and attack speed upgrades are attached to the Unit or Weapon ID? I'm guessing it's Unit-based, but who knows.

Range and attack speed I think are weapon ID based. Range upgrades also affect the unit by increasing its target acquisition range.

I ran some tests.

U-238 Shells (Marine Range)
- Noticed Jim Raynor's weapon was set to a range of 10, contrary to the Marine's range of 8. I set Jim's weapon to 8. In testing, both had the same range now, but after upgrading, the Marine had the superior range. Conclusion: Range upgrade does not affect Hero, or the upgrade is based on the Weapon ID. Will need to test by giving Jim the Marine's weapon.


Occular Implants (Ghost Sight)
- Tested with both Sarah and Duran. Set both their base sights to 5. After upgrading, Ghost's sight range expanded, but neither Sarah nor Duran's did.


Moebius Reactor (Ghost Energy)
- No effect on Sarah or Duran.


Leg Augmentation (Zealot Speed)
- This is the most worrisome test. Although Fenix (Zealot) uses the Zealot graphic in Units.dat, meaning he's using the same exact Iscript, and even though he's no longer set as a Hero, Fenix maintained his upgraded speed. My next test should set the Zealot as a Hero to see if he gains the speed upgrade by default or not. If not, then this may indicate that the Hero checkbox only affects energy, tech (due to reqs), and adds the white border, while all default Heroes are either preset with their advantage like with sight and weapon range, or hardcoded with attack and movement speed upgrades.

Easiest answer is to see what the EXE Edits in FG that can edit stuff related to upgrade are. I'm almost 100% positive that it's UnitID's that they are tied to.