In my RPG that I'm making for the Last Stand Contest, I was hoping to use some stacked units in my combat system.
Exe. I have a civilian walking around, and I want a firebat stacked on top of him, so that he is able to attack.

My problem is that I can't figure out how to achieve this effect. I've looked at several maps, and I can kinda work out the triggers, but I still don't understand any of it. Can anybody help me out here?

http://www.staredit.net/files/270/

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 20 2009, 8:29 pm by zany_001. Reason: Phalanx of Light

Place a disabled sprite, the process is explained here, and in-game use the Enable Doodad State action on it, order it once, and then it should be stable, and stacked, although that is not guaranteed with all units, some units crash no matter what. Also, the stackability varies depending on the map, so you just have to test them out, I've had units stack fine on one map, then crash in another.

Are all of the effects of the disabled sprites listed there 100% accurate?

No, they are 95% accurate. (which means you should always double check them)

Alright! I got it to work now, thanks Falk.
I might have another question coming up really soon.

Their effects change between patches, and from what I've seen, depending on the map, so while usually they remain constant, like rockz said, don't rely on that map, test it yourself first, it's just a good reference to maybe get ideas in the first place, or do initial planning.

Just some words of advice if your using Scmdraft.

When you set Sprites/Unit Sprites/etc one thing that really killed me which was so obvious was that when you click a sprite and have its property window come up, you need to manual click the sprite from the list before checking the "Active/Disabled?" check box. Unlike... EVERYTHING else in scmdraft, when you click on units and get their property window up, the units themselves are already highlighted like

Terran scv(###,###)
Terran Medic(####,###)

and they both would be highlighted. With sprites they are never highlighted and when you do manually highlight them you can only do it one by one. I spent hours figuring out why my units weren't disabled because i would check the "active/disabled?" check box but since none of them where highlighted when i did that (because i assumed they were) the second i closed the property window, it was like I never checked anything.

Just throwing that out their because its something I overlooked and wasted A LOT of time on. Something so simple D:

And looking at the process crashes sc, starting with disabled sprites and all.

Well, the disabled sprites don't necessarily crash it(although they might), but the enabling almost always does.

Sorry I wasn't specific. The way i said it you could assume I'm saying ALL disabled sprites crash SC. For me it was Disabled Marines and I'm not sure if it was before or after I used a disabled Jim Raynor also.

Well, just working on a test map last night, I've figured this much out on my own.

Terms:
iscript - The file that stores animation scripts for graphics in Starcraft.
overflow script - A script that doesn't exist for a graphic. Most commonly Doodad State scripts.
opcode - An instruction in the iscript file.

Regarding changes during patches:
This trick uses constant values for each patch. The only time the effects change over a patch is when scripts\iscript.bin changes, which has been almost never.

Regarding stability:
Some overflow scripts have a random jump with a small percentage, others use an opcode that performs an action based on the tileset, but I'm sure that those don't affect the stability of the unit.

Performing the trick:
Make sure players do not have vision of the area the trick is being performed in. A hostile computer player would probably be best for anything related to enabling doodad states. Perform whatever disable/enable sequence you like, then order the unit to move or attack something. It's important that another iscript be activated to interrupt the overflow script. Otherwise, the unit will crash your game when it is drawn on the screen.

What do you mean by a script that doesn't exist? Wouldn't this script, well, not exist?

Lazy blizzard programmers didn't add checks for missing animations. So SC will still try to play it reading wrong data instead which has unpredictable results.

And the unpredictable results results in crashing SC?

More often that you'd think.

It's the most common crash.

Disabled sprite-units call the "construction animation" AKA "almost built animation".
Disabling a unit calls its own private animation.
Enabling a unit also calls its own private animation.
An exploit that trains(train unit) interceptors/scarabs instead of using its proper order tries to call the "building working" animation.
Attacking, burrowing, moving, turning, anything with the hallucinated powerup glitch follows the main graphic's iscript animations(a Drone that burrows holding a goliath turret will call the goliath turret's burrow animation).
Unused units such as cantina, cave-in, etc. don't have proper animations.
Killing units like start locations and map revealers will crash the game because there is no death animation.
Any crash that involves having to look somewhere, or a rock sprite, has to do with iscript.

The biggest fault is the playframe opcode, playing a unit frame(from GRP[graphic file]) that doesn't exist.

Is it possible to do with with a protoss unit? Like, say, a Zealot? Or will it just crash?

From what Heiney said, you might be able to use a disabled Archon fine, but other than that...more than likely crash.

Okay, I've got another question for all of you.
I've gotten the units to stack, and now I want them to cloak.
I've seen a test map by Loveless where there was a (cloaked) rine stacked on top of a Civilian. I'm trying to achieve this effect. How do I get the units to "cloak" though?