Staredit Network

I'm planning on adding a new little neat feature. At the top of the page, we'll have a "DID YOU KNOW... " thing where it gives a minitip for everyone to go with staredit (naturually, because we're a map making website). I thought it'd be really cool and unique.

Please post as many tips as you can think of, as I am out of ideas!

lm blank right now, but users should submit a tip, and show only 1 daily. That way it would be a 'Tip of the day'.

Its randomized. So the more tips I get the more better it looks

The countdown timer is actually faster with the game speed on fastest, but waits arn't.

The amount of units that can be created in a location is not restricted by the locations size.

When Starcraft Wordwraps text it loses it's color. To color it properly figure out where it wraps to the next line and make a new line there (with the enter button). Then make a new color mark for the next line.

A map tile is 32x32 pixels. Placement errors give the units location in pixels, so to find where the unit is misplaced divide both the numbers by 32.

There is no location 63. Technacly it is the 64th location (counting 0) and that location is reserved for "Anywhere".

Map revealers are considered units. They will satsisfy condidtions such as "Player 1 brings 1 'units' to location 1.

(U)Bolt_Head is cool.

When using the Move Location. If there is no valid unit for a location to center on, then the location will move to the center of the area it was instructed to move to. (normaly anywhere)

Triggers owned by All Players and the Forces run seperatly for each player at differant times.

To delete doodad doors in SC-Xtra first line up a new door exactly on top of the one your trying to remove (the box will turn red). Right click the deselect placement of the door then left click then press delete.

Thats all i got for now.

Death Counts, if not on Hyper Triggers, will take three seconds to load when using a map online.

Hmm, how about this one (very useful):

An easy way to center text, without having to manually and painstakingly align it with white space, is to use the '' character. AKA the 'back' character in the Starcraft X-tra Editor.

I'll think of more as they come to mind.

EDIT-

• (doh, bolt beat me to this one) When setting the player owners of triggers, remember that giving a trigger to 'All Players' or any force of players (with more than one member) is the same as copying that same trigger to each player individual seperately. They will not activate just once for the whole entity (unless the group is comprised of only one player).
• All dark swarm, disruption web, mineral patch, and vespene geyser units by default belong to P12.
• Cool trick: Pylon glows and zerg creep are both placable in a map editor. Either Starforge or SCMDraft work well for this. They will only be asthetic, though, as they are placed as sprites and won't function in the game. The pylon glow, though, could be used to produce a nifty "heavenly" or "underwater" effect, if used correctly.
• Cool trick: If you want to make a believable looking "heat wave" or "water blur" effect, then simply place a lot of floor hatch units around the desired area (with small locations directly over each one), disable them (at their locations), then cast a cloak detector over them for about 200 or so milliseconds, remove it, and then finally have a trigger to constantly toggle their doodad states (with hyper triggers). The hatches will become cloaked, and toggling their doodad states will make them display their opening and closing animations rapidly, thus producing a "jiggling" on the terrain beneath them.
• If you move a bunker loaded with units to another location in the map, the units placed in them will still fire from where they were originally were located, regardless of where the bunker is/was placed.
• All units inside of shuttles/dropships/overlords, scarabs in a reaver, nukes in silos, and interceptors in a carrier will satisfy the "brings unit to location" trigger. Units in a transport will be treated as "air only", though.
• Burrowed units can be placed/moved underneath buildings and other units.

EDIT 2-
Hmm, if we start to get a lot of tips, it might be fair to give credit to each person who submitted them.

EDIT 3-
You should have tips that link to things like the list of each unit's kill score, all possible disableable/cloakable units, and even some of the map trick's from bolt's compiled list.

I'm not going to put peoples names in the quote (conserve layout space), but I'll keep this topic open, so people can see where it came from.

I added all of tux's (except the first).

Coko, I didn't add yours because it doesnt make sense and you cant place powerups on all terrain

Hmm, i thought you could, will test it, i know its not all terrain, "whoops", but i thought if on an edge it will be moved to the somewhere it can nearby, starting from Top Left.

You can place powerups directly on any ground 'men', causing them to have to move out of the way like an SCV on top of a finished building, but they won't place over buildings, impassible terrain, mineral/vespense resource nodes, or other powerups. As far as I know.

"Spelling and Grammar. Nothing makes a worse maps for someone who starts placing "Maranes" or "Ghasts". 1337 and "internet shortforms" like "u r stupid" "i r good" and "ph34r" are out of the question. Make your map understandable. Its not fun to have to read text thats not thought out!"

It's ironic how the tip about spelling and grammar has the mistakes in them already. "a worse maps", "thats not thought out", etc.
Just gave me a chuckle.

Here's some tips:
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Don't ask for hacks, because you won't find them here. We only provide Anti-hacks.
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The most played maps are simply made. Try making a more complex map that Battle.net will enjoy.
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The best place to look before asking questions are the Tutorials section and the Map Making Tricks and Help Archive.
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Staredit Network is byfar the best mapmaking website. Try coming here before you ask questions elsewhere.
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Be sure to make your map noob-friendly. Many people will NOT want to play your map if it's too complex and does not have instructions that stick in their head. Sure, you know everything, but think of other people.


Bleh that's all for now.

I personaly don't like maps with all the leet characters like the D deathknight uses and A and stuff with acent marks. Its ok as the first letter in a few words but it looks like crap when people use it for everything.


(I you include this you will need to reword it of course)

Also, To whom it may concern. If you are looking for credit for your Mapmaking tips then your better of not submitting any. Some times creadits can get annoying. Which brings me to the next tip.

-Don't over emphasize your name. Spelling your name out in terrain or haveing tons of units named after you is out of the question. As fun as it may be giveing all your friends units in your maps, it makes the map look unprofessional.

Caution: When using a corsair hero (Raszagal) or the extra hero HT (alderis), remember that they use the same attack damage variables as their regular counterparts (normal corsair and Tassadar HT, respectively), so changing one will also change the other. The only known way to get around this is to set the starting attack upgrades higher/lower for the different players who use them (protoss ground attack and protoss air attack, respectively.)

Frankly, I think we need to revise some of the tips there are right now. Some seem to have spelling/grammar issues, inaccurate or incomplete, or else just seemingly opinion rather than solid fact, like a few of those telling you what you must do with your maps, etc.

EDIT- Ok, I'll give some specific examples:


Generally good advice, but if, say, you have a long briefing, you might want to reward the players for actually reading it by putting strats or tips in it, for instance. Plus 'secerts' and 'breifing' are typos.

Or...

Should be...


And maybe this...

Could use more clarification...

Refrain from over emphasing your name, or that of friends. Although it may look "cool" it will not, normally, fit the style of the map genre. Try and make it professional to look at, for anyone playing it, not just a way to impress your friends.

There's a difference between a StarGATE and StarPORT. A lot of people call them the same name, which ticks me off, because I'm weird.

Unbeknown to the a majority of people, these is a limit to Sprites/Doodads/Units/Strings on your maps, and in game.
256/256/1064/1024
(Not Sure On Details)

Tip(everyone should know, I learned this the Hard way )

Always make a Back-up of your map Before you protect it!!

When using those unused units and structures to make your map flashy, make sure they don't drop you from Starcraft

Here's a tip:

You can actually make 1x0, 0x1, or 0x0 locations with StarEdit! It's very simple, and can be useful for when you want to tell if a unit is occupying the same space as another (above or below, meaning burrowed or flying). To do this, simply open StarEdit and turn on Location layer (Ctrl-L) and the grid (Alt-G). Then move the point of your mouse to a pixel directly on the grid. If it's a horizontal line, the location you create will be 1x0. If it's a vertical line, the location you create will be 0x1. If it's at the exact point where the grid lines intersect, you'll create a 0x0 location. You can double-click on the location while it's selected to change its name and properties, but after you switch to another layer, select another location, or create a new location you will never be able to use it again. So make absolutely sure you want this location before you deselect it. You don't want to waste any unnecessary strings.

Please, Yoshi, reword this until it makes sense .

The max number of units is 1600, although SCXE allows for 1650. Where'd you get that figure?

Oh thats what the deal is with those 0 sized locations in Staredit. Personaly i would suggest using starforge to resize the locations. Then you can do things like 1.5x1.5 or .25x.25.

Do 0x0 Locations work? Like do units satisify the bring condition and things like that?

Edit: Now that i think about it i know exactly why it dose that 0x0 type thing. Because if you click just once in the editor while in the location editor it picks a sqaure to place the location in and sizes it to the corners of that sqaure. And if you click the border you havn't quite clicked in ither of the sqaures so staredit doesn't know where to create the location. Its kinda a odd bug and its not like it is impossable to fix it.

(excuse my non-programer's programing logic) ha ha.

I don't know if they work, Bolt, since I just figured out how to place them earlier today. I hadn't even had time to test 'em before I rushed to contribute to this thread. But for all intents and purposes I don't see why they wouldn't work. At the very least you can center them on a unit and be sure that no other units will be in that location.

Alright I'll try to throw these all in tommorow