Table of contents

Grid Systems

Grids are one of the harder but fundamental concepts in StarCraft map making. They are essential in managing specific locations set within a boundary, along with detecting and manipulating units within them.

The three most commonly used grid systems are Static Grids, Coordinate Grids, and Mobile Grids. Each of these grid systems have there pros and cons, and one, or more in some situations, may be better then the others to fit the specific conditions of your map.

Some maps, such as Reflector and Maze Generator use multiple grid systems to achieve there desired outcomes.

Static Grids

A Static Grid is a grid system that uses multiple pre-placed stationary units or locations as the coordinates of the grid. These grids, especially with unit Static Grid, are often used in conjunction with the "Give Units To Player" and "Move Location" actions to reuse locations, such as in the One Location Bound and Brontobyte Bound.

03 06 09
02 05 08
01 04 07

NOTE: "01" in conjunction with the "Give Units To Player" trigger is the first unit that will be selected. This means that if you used the trigger Give 1 Zerg Lurker owned by Player 1 at 'Anywhere' to Player 2.", the Zerg Lurker on the bottom left hand side ["01", would be given to Player 2. If you had the triggers "Give 2 Zerg Lurker owned by Player 1 at 'Anywhere' to Player 2." the Zerg Lurker on the bottom left side and the one directly above it "01,02" would both be given to player 2, then "Give 1 Zerg Lurker owned by Player 2 at 'Anywhere' to Player 1." would give the lurker at the bottom left side "01" back to player 1. Now you have a specific unit that a location can be centered on via the "Move Location" trigger.

Give Order
Give Order, is the specific way that the coordinate units of a Static Grid are selected by the "Give Units To Player" trigger. This order never changes and only requires one location, or the "Anywhere" location.

Pros

Using units as coordinates can be helpful as it drastically lowers the number of locations required as well as having the positive effect of perfect alignment of locations (as long as the unit is centered properly).

Cons

Moving a location over top of a unit, or multiple units, rapidly, will cause the users to experience "lag" or periods of high latency. Using units as coordinates, can max out a the number of units available in a map. See Map Limits.

Coordinate Grids

Coordinate Grids are systems where an X and Y value for the location of a unit are determined by rows and columns of locations. The X and Y values can be used in a trigger with bring commands to find a unit's position. This is demonstrated by Unit Coordinates which uses two locations in the X and Y format to detect where a unit is on the map. You can also detect where you click on the map with this system. This is demonstrated byFRAGS concept (BETA) This also allows triggers to operate in an entire row or column. An example of the efficiency of this system is that a 4/4 box uses 16 locations without coordinate grids, and 8 locations with coordinates. Although this location save is not large, consider 20 locations replacing 100. The drawback of this system is that create triggers cannot be used without a unit first being moved in to the desired area by a player, as any created units will never be centered on to the space in the rows and columns.

Pros

This system will use less locations and will be exponentially more efficient then other grid systems.

Cons

Mobile Grids

A Mobile Grid is a grid system that utilizes the formation of certain units created in perfect squares. After the placement of such units, the Modular Grids technique is used, except usually with a large number of locations for each unit in the grid, and the units are removed. This is done continuously at a very fast rate so that the units created a moving location will move with the target unit, thus moving the grid with the unit. Mobile Grid is an example map to demonstrate how to prefectly move a unit ( in this case ordering a Zerg Ultralisk ) in a 2x2 box with all 8 possible moves.

Pros

Uses only 1 Location in many applications. Perfectly centers a location over top of units ( if done correctly )

Cons

Can cause lag.

Perfect Unit
Units that can make perfect grids:
1.5x1.5 Air Grid: Devourer, nearly perfect: Mutalisk, Guardian, Arbiter
1x1 Air Grid: Alternating scourges and observers.
1.5x1.5 Ground Grid: Ground Mercenary Gunship, Cargo Ship

Various Orders

Create Order
2x2 ; 3x3 ; 4x4 ; 5x5

21 20 19 18 17
22 07 06 05 16
23 08 01 04 15
24 09 02 03 14
25 10 11 12 13

In the section above, "01" is the first unit created, and "25" is created last.

Removal Order/Give Order
The section below contains the Removal Order for the various mobile grid sizes. This is for use with 1 location or the location "Anywhere", in which all of the units are inside the of the location in question.

2x2

02 03
01 04

3x3

03 04 07
02 06 08
01 05 09

4x4

04 05 10 13
03 08 11 14
02 07 12 15
01 06 09 16

5x5

05 06 11 16 21
04 10 13 18 22
03 09 15 19 23
02 08 14 20 24
01 07 12 17 25

In the section above, "01" is the first unit removedgiven, and the highest number is the last unit removed/given.

Grid Pictures

This section is demonstrates Crude mock ups of what the actual grid system looks like and how it should be set up.

Static Grid

Coordinate Grid

Mobile Grid