Quote from payne

Pressing 'u' is more laborious than simply moving. Why not simply making it so it toggles when you move the drone?

I don't know how he plans to cast spells, but I think that moving drone once for spell 1, shift ordering twice (quick secession) for spell 2, and 3 shift order moves for the third would be pretty neat. It could detect whether you shift ordered (for quick succession) multiple times easily and quickly, and you wouldn't need to deselect drone (and as such less sloppy).

You'd have to have armor up though, which could be a good or bad thing.

Pressing u is easy enough. Press drone hotkey with a finger, u with thumb, and then hero hotkey.

2 February, 2009
A Difference of 2 Triggers

After I read Payne's suggestion about using movement detection over burrow detection, my first reaction was that I was satisfied with what I had and that there was no reason to change it. Then, I gave it some more thought and realised that it wouldn't take much effort to try converting it, so I went in did it. It did take a bit of time to find the right sizing for the location, but only 2 triggers really needed to be altered.

I've attached a new version of the combat map to the end of this post. I removed the instructions because I didn't feel like typing new ones.

In the new map, you now have a zergling instead of a drone. I suggest you hotkey your zealot as [1] and the zealot+zergling as [2]. When you approach the enemy, move the zealot by itself like before. However, when you attack, hit [2] and right click on the enemy. This way, your zealot is still selected and you can see if you took damage without having to hit another key. It has its benefits, I suppose. Plus, I can reserve the burrowing for something else (like an action button).

On an unrelated note, I'm considering adding the Deep Blue vhp system to this map, but unlike the change I just made, that would take a lot more work to implement. We'll see how I feel about it when the time comes to put it all together.

OK y'all, lemme know what you think about the altered combat system, and I'll take it into consideration.

- q

A friend of mine, r00k, used this for his map. Simply clicking near the enemy while having the "action/spell" unit hotkeyed w/o having to type anything. Simple and useful.

@BluEditor: r00k, I remember him having problems with a bunker disabling thing, is he done with it or he still needs help?
@qPK: No time to try it out, but I'm pretty sure I'd appreciate it much more
And try to improve the Deep Blue's vHP system because it was a bit buggy: the defiler were not always right under the hero which slowed the attack of the monsters that had to move behind you to attack.

Yes but moving the defiler under the hero too fast will slow the hero's movement speed.

Quote from Vrael

Yes but moving the defiler under the hero too fast will slow the hero's movement speed.

And make it unhittable for a split moment

After testing for almost an hour, I find that movement detection has not been as good as burrow detection. There are times when you click and the unit does not move. This occurs infrequently, but often enough to bother me. I do like the fact that you can keep your zealot selected when you do movement detection, but unless I can iron it out, I am going to stick with the burrow detection.

How could a unit not move every time your order it to do so?

I did run into the same problem -- that sometimes the unit does not move. I noticed this happens more frequently on unwalkable terrain such as cliffs although I guess that wouldn't matter so much. It also happens a lot when the zealot is standing right next to an enemy and you've got the Zealot + Zergling group selected and you're right-clicking on the enemy. For whatever reason, the zergling very often does not move (maybe because the Zealot's already there?), so you have to click somewhere beyond the enemy, which means that youre Zealot is walking away from the enemy when you put his shield down. You have to redirect him or else you'll take damage.

Just one note -- it's easy to forget whether your shield is up or not, since the unsheathing noise only happens when you toggle. With the burrowed drone system, you can simply select the drone and see whether it's burrowed. With the zergling, it's a true toggle and there's no way to tell.

Quote from razorsnail

It also happens a lot when the zealot is standing right next to an enemy and you've got the Zealot + Zergling group selected and you're right-clicking on the enemy. For whatever reason, the zergling very often does not move (maybe because the Zealot's already there?), so you have to click somewhere beyond the enemy, which means that youre Zealot is walking away from the enemy when you put his shield down. You have to redirect him or else you'll take damage.

I'm sure that that is just coincidence.

Quote from razorsnail

Just one note -- it's easy to forget whether your shield is up or not, since the unsheathing noise only happens when you toggle. With the burrowed drone system, you can simply select the drone and see whether it's burrowed. With the zergling, it's a true toggle and there's no way to tell.

So use health to display stance.

Quote from Kaias

Quote from razorsnail

It also happens a lot when the zealot is standing right next to an enemy and you've got the Zealot + Zergling group selected and you're right-clicking on the enemy. For whatever reason, the zergling very often does not move (maybe because the Zealot's already there?), so you have to click somewhere beyond the enemy, which means that youre Zealot is walking away from the enemy when you put his shield down. You have to redirect him or else you'll take damage.

I'm sure that that is just coincidence.

I don't think so. It doesn't always happen around an enemy, but there are certain times when it happens a number of times in a row, in the same position. It seems that some positions are worse than others.

Quote from Kaias

Quote from razorsnail

Just one note -- it's easy to forget whether your shield is up or not, since the unsheathing noise only happens when you toggle. With the burrowed drone system, you can simply select the drone and see whether it's burrowed. With the zergling, it's a true toggle and there's no way to tell.

So use health to display stance.

That's basically assuming that he's going to use vHP. Otherwise, health might actually represent health.
Shield points actually would be a good way to represent this, since it's intuitive and its name corresponds to what you want to represent -- but that limits heroes to Protoss units. Plus, like I said, you don't really need an indicator with the burrow method.

All that said, though, the zergling version is more fluid, intuitive and easier to time. Since the burrow method involves the pressing of a button, there's a delay before you can press the button again. I've found you can unsheath and resheath considerably faster with the zergling version than with the burrow version.

No, what I meant is using health of the zergling to display whether you're in attack or shield mode.

Quote from qPirateKing

puzzle solving

I love you.

'Nuff Said.

Don't even think about it! I'll have solved everything before you would have solved the very first puzzle! >:D

3 January, 2009
Watching SC Live

I went to bed at 22:30 so that I could wake up at 3:00 and watch some live SC pro-gaming streamed from Korea. Since there are a lot of commercials, allow me to talk about some of the work I did yesterday while I wait for the action to start up.

While working on the terrain, I found that it was difficult to plan out the areas if you don't know exactly how many cities you are making or what they're supposed to be like. So, I decided I'd find some good names and write a little phrase to set the tone of each one.

I'm sure you noticed that in my map Deep Blue (sorry I keep bringing that map up) I had named the cities after different types of trees. Evergreen, Willow, Linden, Ash -- all trees. Well, this time around, I have a bit of a different theme, and one that most people probably will not catch. Here, I'll list them and let you try to figure it out:

• ---

  Flatwood - A Quiet Town by Nature
  Flatwood is a smallish village in or around a forest (haven't decided yet). The people there aren't afraid of the flood; on the contrary, they believe in letting nature take its course.
  

• ---

  Loess City - The Underground
  Former inhabitants of a mining town, the people of Loess City have decided that the best way to survive the flood is to seal themselves off in a giant cavern inside a mountain.
  

• ---

  Orovada Outpost - Last hope
  In the past, Orovada was a remote outpost with a sparse population. However, with the flood looming, many people have fled here thinking that the driest place on the island will be the safest. Access has been restricted, so many are camped outside the outpost walls.
  

• ---

  Pelan- Forgotten Village
  Somehow, this village has survived for 3 hundred years. No small feat, considering the centennial floods. The mysteries of this fishing village run deep.
  

• ---

  Sod - Humble Beginnings OR Where Legends Take Root
  This is the place where you start your adventure. It isn't particularly noteworthy, but why should it have to be?
  

• ---

  Ustochrept - City of Skeptics
  These people don't believe that a flood is going to come. Life goes on as usual.
  

• ---

  Windsor - Ghost City
  The wealthy population of this city could afford to leave the island, and, in doing so, they left this once-great city nearly empty. What remains are mostly looters and assorted characters of ill repute.

  ---

  
  

Unless you've done research on soils, you probably didn't recognise any of those names. I certainly wouldn't have. But, since I started out with worms as one of my themes, using soil types for site names was a natural choice. Sod is really the one that doesn't fit, but I think it's a good name for a town. As for the notes, those are in no way official. I just cooked them up to help me flesh out the world a bit better. Giving each one a bit of flavour helps me establish their identities later on.

- q

Yah, it was one of the rare times I actually payed attention during geography.
But I thought Loess was spelled "Löss".

Sod, wtf? How did you come up with that?

Actually, I knew about Windsor

Quote from payne

Don't even think about it! I'll have solved everything before you would have solved the very first puzzle!

You dare challenge the puzzle master? The master says to thee, bring it on my biatch.

Okay then! Lets make Kaias create an other Five Trigger puzzle and it'll be about the first to reach the end!