I'm stuck on one of the strangest glitches I've ever encountered, and I don't know what's going on. I need help.

Scenario:
- I have a Corsair and a 1% HP Raszagal hotkeyed to #2
- I have a Corsair and a 100% HP Raszagal hotkeyed to #3
- The Corsair is in the battle area
- The Raszagals are far away
- To cast a spell, I press hotkey 2 or 3 and cast Disruption Web. It causes the Raszagal to move, determining which spell, just before the Dweb is cast by the Corsair.
- I center location on the Dweb and do my spell stuff

Special Notes:
- The VERY FIRST trigger that runs in the ENTIRE map checks for a Disruption Web, then displays a message for the player if it exists.
- The Corsair has a naturally built in queue for Disruption Web that it keeps track of during the Dweb cooldown, hence why some of the subsequent Dweb inputs come out delayed

The Problem:
- I cast spell 2, then cast spell 2. This is pretty consistent.
- I cast spell 2, then cast spell 3. This is pretty consistent.
- I cast spell 3, then cast spell 2. Based on your timing (it doesn't have to be immediate, like it happens when I wait a good second or so), spell 2 will NOT be cast. The Corsair will turn though, and it SOUNDS like another Dweb is being cast. Naturally, it would seem like there's something wrong in my triggers for one of the spells.
- For testing purposes, I changed spell 3 such that moving the Raszagal set another DC, so it did not execute the actual spell 3 (dweb just gets removed, nothing happens). Going from spell 3 to spell 2 then seems to be fine, so the problem appears to be in my triggers for spell 3.
- The kicker though is that the first trigger of the entire map that checks for Dweb and displays a message is NOT run when it failed switching from spell 3 to spell 2. As in, the first trigger doesn't even DETECT a single Dweb when it failed, which would seem to indicate it's NOT a trigger problem and actually due to the Corsair itself not firing for some strange reason. This is a contradiction with the last bullet point.

Halp. I'm stuck. I've attached the map if it'll help, but my triggers are an absolute mess. Look at Player 2's stuff if you do open it up.

Attachments:

I've tested it a bit and I can't confirm your behavior. Instead I found this out:

- The web is always cast if you use the same control group
- The web fails reliably if you switch the control group and cast right at the end of D.web cooldown. You can even put the same units in different control groups, the problem will still happen.

You should test if the behavior I describe is still true for a map with no triggers whatsoever. I suppose it is. It just seems like one of those many glitches StarCraft is known for. It seems quite similar to the zerg stacking, which has been patched a while ago, since it requires timing of an ability and control groups.

If it's NOT happening on a map without triggers then I'd assume your rapid explosions have some effect on it, which would explain your 2nd last bullet point. Try disabling those and check again. If it turns out that the explosions interefere you can try to tweak your explosions so they don't interefere.

If you can't then I would just accept it as a bug of SC. This happens ONLY if you cast it the wrong time, and there's no harm done in just recasting. People will understand that it's SC's fault, not yours. Just mention it in the briefing under known glitches or something.

Thanks for the help NudeRaider.

The behavior you're describing is the one I'm talking about. Except, it fails much more often when going from a red spell to a blue spell. AND it doesn't have to be immediate. If you time it right, about 1 second or so after the red one starts, you can fail a blue spell more than once in a row. I've actually gotten it to cast 1 red and fail 2 blues (with a slight window between casts) before through precise timing.

I'm not sure about the Dweb failing with no triggers now. It's possible that the red explosions helped me time it better, so when I tested without it I couldn't really tell.

For reasons why it could fail, the hotkey thing you described COULD be it. I remember the burrow stack and nydus cancel methods due to hotkey lag. If that's the case, I need to think up some way around it. It's the current most likely reason for this dumb glitch. Another possibility is that the waits are somehow screwing up and ignoring the display triggers (unlikely). There's also the chance that a sprite limit was hit (really really unlikely).

Finally, I can't just accept this glitch. I specifically want to encourage players to switch between the red and blue spells. As in, Red Blue Blue Red Blue Blue, using the blue spell to attack while red is still waiting. If it keeps glitching like this, players will instead just use red or blue, which I do NOT want. I need to find a reliable way to fix this, or another work around.

Update on status.

Obama just recommended that I try checking energy loss. For some reason I never thought to do that.

Apparently, when the Dweb fails on switch, energy IS TAKEN but the DWEB NEVER SHOWS. It's looking to be a Starcraft glitch. Whether it's hotkeys or not I need to test a bit more somehow.

No, you describe a different behavior (of the same problem):
What you were saying is that it is ONLY happening from spell 3 to 2.
What I am saying is that it happens with ANY spell combination (even same), as long as you use different hotkeys.

This is an important difference as it leads different conclusions.
Unfortunately I can't offer a solution or workaround at the present time. I'll post again if something comes to mind.

EDIT:
I don't see how that would help. Firstly you would need EUDs which bring their own problems. And secondly you can, however, detect the energy loss, but not where the player was aiming at, so the spell still fails.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Dec 25 2008, 2:31 am by NudeRaider.

I think it fails more often from red to blue, probably because timing it is easier. I can't reliably get it to fail from blue to red, so you may be right.

As for the energy loss, it indicates that it's a Starcraft Corsair related glitch.

I also modified my map (not uploaded) so that instead of removing Dwebs, it gives them to player 2. Building a SCV gave sair 100% energy and removed Dwebs for P2. That way, I confirmed that the Corsair was indeed screwing up (unless I somehow missed a remove or kill trigger, which is highly unlikely as I checked it over a few times via Ctrl+F).

I'm not exactly sure how to confirm if it's a hotkey related problem, or a Corsair specific one. Even worse, I can't think of a good workaround for this. D: Suggestions are more than welcome as I'm stuck. I didn't anticipate THIS kind of glitch.

First of all you should find out if it's the explosions interfering (which I doubt).

And once that has been ruled out we can think about workarounds. Since you need both hotkeys and Corsairs to make the system as powerful as it is, it doesn't really matter which one is the cause. Most probably you need a new system. I even suspect it's the specific combination of web casting and hotkeys.

You could also test what happens if you use defilers instead. Although you probably don't want to use them, it could give us information about the cause of the problem.

Gah, now I think it's my triggers again. I made a test map with 2 Rasz and 1 Corsair. I tried for several minutes and couldn't get it to fail once. The dweb did delay at times though. I then opened up my RPG map, tried it, and got it more than 50% of the time. It's possible that the red explosions helped me time it, but given my success rate that's pretty unlikely now too.

I'm freaking lost.

I'm thinking that SOMETHING, be it a trigger or another unit located on the map or even an AI script, is interfering with the Corsair. I've already removed p1 and p3's trigs and I can still get the failure. I'm going to start removing P2 non essentials and see where that gets me.

Have you removed the explosion effects?

I'm slowly removing non P2 stuff first, a little at a time so if it is an external thing I'll know which one it was. The explosions will be removed AFTER I confirm it isn't a non P2 related item.

EDIT REMOVED ATTACHMENT

EDIT FIXED ATTACHMENT

I have found what may be one HUUUGE contributing factor to the glitch, and most likely the actual reason.

Sairs are apparently like Valks. Dweb won't show up if there's too many animations going on at the same time. In my map, I had like...20+ firebats continually attacking a lurker in order to splash two DTs and obtain their shield animations. I had like...9 or so Zerglings attacking 9 or so Dark Archons. I had 4 Corsairs attacking 4 Cocoons. I had Reavers blowing up and storing scarabs. I had Zerglings attacking medics. Etc. Apparently, when you Dweb at the right moment when there's too much going on, stuff screws up. The reason why Red to Blue was so hard was that exploding powerups count as an animation, so if you Dwebbed during an explosion it would mess up. If you delayed it towards when the explosions got faster, it was even easier to get.

Attached is a test map showing what I'm talking about. You don't even need the Raszagals. Cast Dweb with your sair, note the powerups it makes, note your energy loss, build SCV to remove powerups and restore energy. Now make a probe (it creates 510 lurkers that attack each other) and then immediately start dwebbing. Note the lack of powerups AND the loss in energy.

A workaround for this is going to be ridiculous. Even IF I removed the powerup explosions, the Dweb will have a high likelihood of screwing up as the actual gameplay will contain quite a few enemies. If you take into account their attacking animations well...I'm in deep trouble.

DAMNIT DWEBS.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Dec 25 2008, 7:04 am by SelfPossessed.

You have to differentiate.
There's explosions - counting to the general sprite limit. Which is somewhere in the thousands afaik.
And there's attacks / spells. Those count towards the weapon sprite limit which is 100. Valks are cutoff as soon as 80 attack sprites are active the same time.
This may be a contributing factor for occasional out-of-the-line failures, if you have so many attacking units. You can easily test that by not letting them attack and see if that changes anything. Zerglings btw. don't add to the sprite limit, as the attack animation is part of the unit animation and thus not adding to the sprite limit. This is the same for all melee units.

When you have 500 lurks attacking you will rarely manage to cast a dweb at all.
But thats definetely a different problem because in the map you attached you NEVER (at least not that I noticed) get a failed cast for the first attempt and NEVER for the 2nd if you haven't changed hotkeys.

EDIT:

Removed attachment

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EDIT:

I tried the move Rasz back via invert locs, but I still can't get it to screw up on dwebqueue. It appears that something external is affecting it.

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I think that the sprite limit is only a contributing factor, not the only one. I reduced the number of sprites and units on the map and, although it may just be that I'm tired, it seems that the failures are fewer. Or maybe I'm just being hopeful. Basically, I did several trials with 1 Red then 1 Blue. Sometimes, the Blue was delayed, but it DID come out if you waited. This is most likely due to the sprite factor that I hopefully fixed (big battles might be a problem though).

Take a look at the attached version and see if I'm just hallucinating or if it's actually harder to fail (it's still possible mind you). Dweb is set at 10 energy. Building a SCV sets the energy back to 100%. You can use that to tell if it failed or not. I set explosions to continuous for testing purposes; I found that it had no effect on failure rate.

My guess is that I had two types of failures in the older version (one due to attacking sprites) and I eliminated the sprite error one. I'm still left with the other, which is most likely due to hotkeys.

To Test:
Oh I just thought of something to test at some later date. In the dwebqueue map, I couldn't get the Dwebs to fail without lurks, even while switching. This MIGHT be because the Rasz were not being moved as early as they were in the actual spell casting map. It's possible that moving a unit in the hotkey grouping (canceling its stuff) before the Corsair cast its Dweb is causing the error. I'm a bit tired now, so I'll do it when I'm not so angry at Corsairs.

Questions:
1) Any thoughts on how to confirm if it's hotkeys or not? I tried changing hotkeys with two groupings of Sairs on the previously attached test map and I couldn't get it to fail without the Lurks. It might just be a timing issue though as I don't have the explosions to work with.
2) Also, do you think this test version is acceptable? If you don't immediately Dweb after a switch, it works really well. It requires some training though as the delay with the Corsair means you can't wait for visual confirmation before switching.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Dec 25 2008, 7:03 am by SelfPossessed.

Just to make it clear: Removing units and sprites does nothing as you weren't near the total sprite limit.
Removing attacking units is what could improve the situation, but this is also highly unlikely . Because as far as I can tell this never happened anyway during my tests. And IF it has happened then in less than 5% of the failures.

You may be right Nude, but I still think a large portion of the fails (more than 5%) are due to the attack limit. Just TRY the attached map in this post (I fixed it up from the last one).

I just realized...I was incredibly close to the attack limit. I forgot to invinc a few spider mines so my Random Suicide Scarabs were pounding away on them and I JUST fixed that (the one in THIS post should be fixed). That was 22ish units continuously attacking for no reason when P2 DIDN'T activate her spells, more when she does as additional Reavers and Scarabs are created to attack. Plus the 39 Firebats I had continuously attacking (now at 16). Plus the 2 lurkers (now swapped with a spider mine that won't fight back). Plus the 4 Corsairs. Plus the couple of units in the battle area attacking.

I've reduced it drastically and it seems to work pretty well. Again, it probably won't solve everything, but it SEEMS TO HELP A LOT. Just try it.

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I will. Tomorrow.