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On my way home from work today I thought of this.

Imagine just pressing a number (in this case 1-3) and the just a letter to cast a spell. Spell number one is 1+c, spell two is 2+c and so on. C stands for cast

How would you do this?

Well first it takes a few seconds to setup, then the spell system is ready as ever to use.

I made this by first letting the computer harvest some minerals with 3 different workers, then they were moved to your Spell casting area and also given to you. THere is a nearby command center. When you press "c" on the unit that's carrying minerals It will try to return them to the Command center, and then is the spell cast and the worker is moved back to its original spot.

So, please try out my map , have a look trough the triggers and tell me what you think.
Comments appreciated.

(By the way, sorry for misspellings and wierd grammar)

Not bad, but I got a somewhat more effecient method. If you played Arcania rpg then you will know what I mean. Basically the creator made it so that for you to cast a spell you simply hotkeyed the unit, and clicked anywhere on the screen. The unit would move and the spell would cast and reset the unit to the center. Click+Click is faster than your Click+button press. And somewhat simpler as well.
Your idea is very inventive however, nice job.

I dissagree, pressing a button on the keyboard is faster. But w/e.

Nice system, original idea, but I have a question. How is this better than other systems (building units, unloading units, burrowing, etc.)?

Hmm, very interesting...If you use mini-locations, would it detect the use more quickly (place two locations for each unit, one where you want it to move back to, and the other, the mini one, right on the edge, so that when it moves, it leaves the mini-location right away)? Unfortunately, I don't have the facilities to test this myself right now, but if it works the way my (sleep-deprived, caffeine-twisted, summer-breaking, and thus probably poorly-functioning) mind predicts, you might actually have a relatively fast system on your hands, since the dropship system requires a slight reload wait and the other two "click-free" systems (the only ones worth considering for my purposes) take a little bit of time to execute.

Of course, there's still room for advance in this area, because this system still requires two keypresses instead of one for every action, since for each action, a different scv must be selected...

You could do many more than just 3 spells, up to 10 with all 10 hotkeys 1-0. Simply use square terrain to make 10 spots for workers. and put a CC in the middle so it touches them all. Then you could use all probes or scvs. If you used drone you could even do burrow to get info on the spell. by easily detecting burrow. now, have a location on each little 1x1 terrain square and those are your 10 spells. I really like this. Especially burrow to get info on that spell. and then C "cast" to cast the spell. Except will you lose the hotkey? i havn't tested yet.


Oh nvm, i see how it's done. I thought you were actually harvesting the minerals. and each unit held a different amount.

Set each resource to an amount. 1-8. so that each worker holds a different number of minerals. So if you return it you can detect what spell was used.

I never said it was better. I just stated that it was easy to use.

However, even if I didn't write it before I actually do think that it is somewhat better than buying/unloading units. It is quite equal to burrowing but this system is easier to setup than the burrowing system. (Or is it?)

Why I personally think that this is better than buying units:
Because you actually see the unit's (spell's) name when you choose it. At the (ie) gateway you only see Zealot, Dragoon, Templar, Dark Templar.

Why I personally think that this is better than unloading units:
Because you don't have to move your curson to click the unit that's going to be unloaded. It saves you time as player.

Note1: These statements are just In My Humble Opinions.
If you want to critizise me for them, go ahead but that isn't what this thread is about.

Note2: I totally respect and honour the people that made these other systems. Wihout your brilliant ideas, mapmaking would never have got as far as it has today.

That's a good idea, actually. Man you're getting more clever by the minute. If only the hotkeys could tell you what spell you were gonna use by looking, though. Maybe you could set the unit HP to something unique, so the wireframe could identify the spell once players memorize it.

Otherwise, a burrow selection system could work to the same effect, without the hassel of remining minerals.

And then? How would you "re-create" the spell? The minerals are lost.
You could do it with locations. Different Drones at different locations.

Here's a good idea that might work with your system, but it will require a command center for each peon.

You can place obstacles to make the return harder. That way, each spell can have a different casting time. You can do this when the peon is gathering, too, for a delay effect. This can also be used when buying units using ie a gateway.

This gives me an idea. What if you could have a cloaked ghost surrounded by a bunch of enemies. Simply hotkey the ghost, and uncloak and the enemies will kill the ghost making it easy to detect the spell has been casted.

>Off topic<
Hey kingra i remember polishmarine. He came to me asking how to order pizza from dominos

or just uncloak so he starts attacking something =)

Lol, it's the same idea...

This system seems very similar to the way you switch weapons in deep blue.

Which system, mine or Nemus'?

Deep Blue uses burrowed units, I think. Gotta find a time to get around to playing it to see what it's all about, lol.

Generally, I think a factory-built selection system is the fastest and most efficient... once the player gets used to using hotkeys, that is. Otherwise, dropship system gives the best visual interface, and allows more options with a single hotkey (though takes time to reload and lacks hotkey unloading).



I'm going to make a table about the pros and cons of different selection types soon, to help people out when trying to decide on ones for their maps. Seems to be a widely recurring issue.

Well, your idea was to uncloak the Ghost so he gets killed. I thougt it might would be better if you uncloaked him so he starts attacking and killing a nearby unit. (He won't attack when cloaked). However, you can'y recreate the ghost cloaked with the number hotkey still on him.


Great, please do that.

Your way has 1 flaw, people can press hold position and the ghost will start to attack units. It's best to try the uncloaking method and the ghost dies as a trigger. Of course, this map is about something far different from this, but I felt like commenting.

i was wondering if i could bury it like nemus suggested and have the spell information displayed without losing my drone.

what i was thinking was having a space that is like 4x1 (lxw)
the width of the spaces are only big enough for one unit 2 pass throu at a time (being only one square of the rectangle terrain)


___
| c |
| d |
| x |
| N |

the "c" represents a unit that tanks up the whole 1x1 square
the "d" is the drone that is used 2 cast the spell
the "x" represents the location at which the the spell is activated and the drone is moved back to the "d" location
the "N" is the nexus or other drop off building

what i was thinking of doing to detect the burrow was that the unit in the "c" location would receive a constant move to location (being location "x") it will not be able 2 reach it as long as the drone is in location "d" (the drone blocks its path). When the drone burrows the unit will pass over the drone into location "x" and then the spell information will be displayed and the unit from location "c" will be reset

A bug would be that when the drone moves to cast the spell, the unit in location "c" would occupy location "d" as it would be on its way to location "x". Thus causing an unplaceable error. this could be fixed easily by in the trigger having move all of unit "c" to location "c" before having the drone moved back to location "d".

any thoughts/feedback/suggestions or bugs?

http://www.staredit.net/index.php?showtopic=18689

That might help. I'll add this system to the list shortly.