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Alright, I think we are all now familiar with the concept of using Dropships as menus, but for those of us who still don't know how they work or what they are, I will explain them first.

The idea behind a dropship menu is simple, load up some units into a dropship, and when the player unloads a certain unit, run a trigger. This is useful for spellcasting in RPGs, as well as other functions.

My idea, which is really Mutilated Puppet's idea unless someone came up with it before him, is to use Buildings instead. The player gets a Robotics Facility for example, and when you build an observor, it runs a trigger. I find this to be much more efficeicent, as with the dropship menu, the units don't always unload correctly, for me anyway. You can use many different types of buildings, or use many of the same type of building, and set the HP to something like "1111", "2222", "3333", and so on to differentiate between them. I find this to be faster, as it uses all hotkeys. Also, the main time I see people wanting to use the Dropship menu is in an RPG for casting spells. In an RPG, you have precious few units to waste on menus, so this system saves for those too.

That is so true.
Sometimes in big maps which have many units, you can't spare a couple of units for dropship. Although you will have to make terrain space for this which is a bit bad i would have to say, I totaly agree that it is more efficient.

BTW: You will HAVE to make some sort of help menu for this as when you build a unit it says Build Marine not Build Spell or whatever like in wc3.

Theres a problem with this. You cant actually name the units before you build them. So it'll say "Build Protoss Observer" which doesn't really explain its function.

You have to come up with another way of displaying the function. I would recommend making the units "1-2-3" and then saying "1 = this" "2=this" and so on. I don't think even naming the actual unit themselves, but the building, is what matters. If the build speed is set to 1, you barely have time to see what the name of the unit is anyway. HOWEVER... you can also use this system to have spells that take a certain amount of time to cast, my increasing the build time.

I wouldn't say its' a better idea, but it does save units space which is a good thing. If you have the spare units then using the dropship menu is good and doens't waste space

Both are about equal if you can get a really easy way to understand which unit is which

The other problem is in things with lots of units, the bulding selection system will be affected by the 1700 unit max, whereas the dropship method wont.

I would say that each system has it's distinct advantages and disadvantages. However, the biggest reason either system would be used is in an RPG, and RPGs generally don't have units to spare. I also still can't seem to get units to unload from a dropship when I click them to, only the unit on the far right of the dropship will unload if I click on it. The others sit still and do nothing.

EDIT: DT, what the heck are you smoking? The dropship system requires 9 units minimum (at peak effectiveness), whereas the building system requires 2. The building, and the unit for about an instant when it comes out. If you use multiple dropships, that's 9 more each time. The building system however is only 2 more each time. Your agument is flawed and stupid and I cannot believe you said that without thinking about it first.

I think he means when the map is already maxed..but that usually never happens unless theres some mass spawning

both are good, both have flaws, both have advantages..agreed?

For the telling which unit casts what, you could have a beacon or something that tells you what each one does when you step on it.

You can't get them to unload when you click them, thats weird? And it isn't that hard to get them to load into the drop ship in the same order every time. You just load them one at a time easy as that.

There are of course advantages of each method, and there are more advantages to other methods that you didn't list.

I have had no problems in the past getting them into the dropship the order I want, but unloading is still a problem. The only unit that I can get to unload is the one that would be unloaded first by default if you clicked 'unload all'. Other then that I have to spam clicks on the unit and eventually, usually after 15-30 seconds the unit will finally come out. Sometimes however, it won't come out at all.

Salacious, you think of the upside of buildings, how about the downside?
Yes it is true for an rpg you will want to conserve units, but You will also want to conserve buildings! They might save units and all but most of them only build 3 or 4 units so you would have to switch to a lot of buildings, no to mention you have to create the tech tree which is also a waste of buildings.

Ya, that's pretty much it.

If you reach the unit max, you can't build using the building system but you can still drop units and reload them, so if the units max out, then the dropship system can work better.

but agian, it uses the names of units... with bouldings you can just have 1 building and have text showing wat to choose

Hmm....But lets say In the map you have more than 1 unit and have no supplys....then you can't build the unit cuase it will give you the annoying "Need more Supplies" crap....But you would think twice about this and make alot of pylons and supply deopts or ovies and such....

good point, hmmm

Ok, so you need to be able to have supplies to build the unit. I suggested using ONE building multiple times, the Robotics Facility. Unless you plan on enabling it continuously, you need at least a Pylon to keep it running, which will provide supply.

As for what DT said... I think you're going to have a lot more problems then your spells not working if you max out the units in an RPG. That should never happen and A LOT of stuff would be screwed up.

A) This system has been done, in a few (crappy) maps
B) This system has way too many problems, not the least of which is the naming scheme
C) If you have problems unloading dropships, I believe that would be user error, considering nobody else has ever had that problem, to my knowledge.

Make sure the build time in SCXE is 1/15 or build time in Starforge is 1 so it seems like an instant build time.


Well the dropship system is actually better. Always move the dropship over a 1x1 square so people can't unload more than one unit at a time.

The biggest problem of using buildings instead of dropships is that the user can't read the real unit names.

Haha, I have used the building system in an extremely old map called RaceCraft and more recently in a new racing map attempt called Star Course Racing so you are way behind salacious . The building system lets you change how long it takes a spell to cast. It's also cool because 1 of them enables you to cloak temporarily and the more ghosts you build the longer you can stay cloaked. I prefer the building system because it lets you change how long a spell takes to be in effect without messing with waits which I need in Star Course Racing for each player. Otherwise the players can fly through the barriers!

If you can spare 10x10 section in the middle of the map, and 8 cardinal points along the edge for minimap purposes (just put some white tiles and clear fog of war at the points to define them), then you could make a killer menu system with 8 options, 1 unit max, 9 locations, and remotely operable (as in, usable through a hotkey without having to have view on the area). I'll have a working implementation in my functionality demo coming soon, as I need some feedback on the idea.

The problem is that you always can't put a 10x10 section in the middle of the map...

Yeah, but it all depends on the context. For my particular instance, if you can afford to use a bit of terrain (doesn't have to be in the middle necessarily if you can get the cardinal directions marked in a different area), a few locations, some strings for menus (which you'd have to use anyway for unit names/labels in a dropship or build menu), but need to be able to do it without having view at the area (with hotkey, in other words) and without needing to build or else use many units (or unit types), then this would be a good option. Not to mention it's fairly intuitive, so you only need to remember to hotkey and click move to the cardinal spots on the minimap.

Yeah, its one of the best methods, but requieres more map resources (more locations/more terrain/...), but its true that you only need one unit.