Energy Health Scan
Form of VHP

Very similar to my Harm Detection VHP method, is 'Energy Health Scan', for lack of a better name. EHS relies entirely on the mechanic that computer Dark Archons will only feedback a unit if doing so will kill it (for the unlearned, feedback turns a unit's energy into damage against it).

A positioned Dark Archon moving to feedback a unit means that the unit's energy exceeds its health; In essence, by controlling the unit's energy we can find the value of its health. Whenever that Dark Archon moves we merely set the energy of the target unit one increment lower and continue doing so until the Dark Archons no longer move to feedback the unit (AKA Health exceeds our controlled energy value) allowing us to derive the health of the unit to an accuracy of your lowering increment.

The greatest set-back to this is that it only works on units that have energy (Non-hero: Dark Archons won't feedback heroes). This means the only ground unit that can attack that it works for is the Ghost. Dark Archons will try to feedback from distances as great as 64 tiles, allowing them to be placed well out of play. Unfortunately, they can take as long as a second to move to feedback (this can be minimized by having many Dark Archons with movement detection). The next greatest drawback is the eighth listed detriment "Each player that has EHS done for it must have a counterpart computer slot with the EHS as their only enemy that can have a unit whose energy can exceed its health (Read: Computer required per player it is done for)".

Fortunately, ghosts are one of the most commonly used for players' heroes. With this system you'll be able to add and subtract health from the EHS unit to, for example, use a medpack that gives 10 health, create traps that explode and do 25 damage, or give players spells to cast at each other that actually do damage without using a unit to physically attack. Coincidentally, Energy Health Scan would work well with Harm Detection, as EHS is geared towards Human use, and Harm detection for enemies.

Disadvantages of Energy Health Scan:

• Very few applicable units (only non-hero energy users)
  
• Players it is done for can only own one unit whose energy can exceed it's health
  
• Virtual health must 'catch-up' to the actual health (which, when dealing with a low scale should be insignificant)
  
• Health can at best be detected to within 2 hit points
  
• Trade-off must be made between speed at which Virtual Health catches up and how accurate health is detected to.
  
• A few areas must be sectioned off (IE in the corners), where the unit being detected cannot go (minor)
  
• EHS units can have at most 250 health (Insignificant detail, as the game can scale with this maximum)
  
• Each player that has EHS done for it must have a counterpart computer slot with the EHS as their only enemy that can have a unit whose energy can exceed its health (Read: Computer required per player it is done for)
  
• The unit's normal spells cannot cost energy (unless you want it to be based on how much health it has)

Advantages of Energy Health Scan:

• Virtual Health for a specific unit (Map maker can set, subtract , and add health with triggers)
  
• Players use and retain their real health, making physical attacks still apart of the gameplay
  
• The unit can be selected to attack directly; with traditional burrowed unit vHP the player is attacking a burrowed unit, making selecting who to attack difficult and awkward
  
• Easy to trigger and implement (compared to traditional vHP)
  
• Works well with both normal attacks and spells that can damage the unit via trigger actions
  
• Can be done for Human players and Computer players, although it is most suited for classic Human Hero use

Brief demonstrating concept map (feel free to take whatever you want from it):

Attachments:

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Jan 17 2010, 6:45 pm by Kaias. Reason: added to explanation

<3 I'm using this.

If I were still using defilers (and if zerg units didn't auto-heal), I might have had an application for it...

Hmm.

Edit: Actually, scratch the auto-heal crap. I could work around that.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 17 2010, 3:26 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

I forgot to mention, the demonstration map attached is accurate to within 4 hit points (as you can see the energy in game will decrease to the highest multiple of 4 that is lower than your health). I could make it within 2 by changing one action, however, it would take twice as long to update.

Really it could be completely reversed so that the health is controlled to find the energy of the unit as a sort of identifier that unit cast a spell. If regen is completely independent, it can be compensated for in the virtual health.

This works best for the ghost, wraith, corsair and battlecruiser (attacking energy users).

I also forgot to mention the possibility of using EHS on a burrowed defiler beneath you, that enemies would attack instead of your hero, and then representing that health on your hero unit.

This would pretty much give health tracking for any hero unit you want. However, due to catch-up delays I believe it'd only work well if your Hero had a lot of health, you're okay with accuracy to within 4-6 hit points and you don't expect the hero to take a ton of damage in a very short time.

Once again, very elegant, impressive and innovative approach.
You guys won't stop amaze me D:

Or you could use regular vHP, and when the defiler dies, make another one. Of course, both of these have their advantages and disadvantages.

I'm not for sure if I'm getting this, but is your energy your health? ( life )

No, your health is your health, it just uses your energy to scan and find out what your health is.

For instance:

If you had more dark archons, wouldn't that help reduce the update time?
EDIT: I just thought of something. What if you dark archons for multiple computer players? Would that make a difference?

More Archons does speed up the process. In my initial version I had just one Archon in each corner of a 128x128 map. I modified it for the demonstration map to have 64 dark archons waiting to feedback you. There comes a point, however, where you just about reach the fastest response time a Dark Archon will give you for each tick. I might be able to increase the responsiveness shown in my demo map by moving each of the DAs back manually without giving them away to remove their AI inclinations. I don't feel like testing, however.

Also, this can be used to detect when a unit uses an ability or at least a certain amount of energy.

Manipulating energy to find health can apparently work the other way. Detecting when a unit casts a spell is one use. There could be many, many others. The only glitch is response time...

You just reminded me that I've already mentioned it in this thread, my mistake.