SC2Mapster

Ok so I am trying to simulate the Xel'Naga tower activation- why? because I want to use it to disable detection when it goes down. There is no way I know of to catch the tower capture ability for any useful purpose whatsoever beyond what blizzard created it for as far as I can tell.

So my main problem is the deactivation when hostiles arrive in the capture radius.

What I do is I use a search effect from a behavior on the xel'naga tower to apply another effect to the unit which comes in range, any unit will do as long as it's just the one- that unit is then used to determine if there are any enemies nearby and the second effect is another search that does the actual blinding.

So I am thinking I can do this with a Search effect that uses an effect with an enumerate area validator to check for enemies for the unit selected so that the second effect can do the actual xel'naga blind search.

Search for capture unit>validate if enemies are in the radius>search for targets to be blinded.

My problem at the moment is that the validator will not take reference to the capturing unit. Since the Xel'Naga Tower is the source of the effect chain I can't seem to change the reference for the validator in order to determine aspect of alliance, I can only count how many neutral units are in the area.

Close but i'm not exactly trying to change ownership- I might have to go this route in order to determine alliance but i wanted to see if there was some way to get this stubborn validator to use the right frame of reference.

Emphasis on recognizing the presence of mutual enemies from a neutral party.

My validator Contested has search flags enabled for neutral and enemy. This is because the naga tower is neutral and only sees all other player's as neutral.

I want the validator to validate for the alliance of the unit selected at the start of the effect chain so that i only have to search for enemies.

@adovid: Go

I've experienced the same problem with detection of the interact ability in one of my maps. I ended up replicating it with an ability that changed the ownership of the Xel'Naga tower.

When you say that you want to disable detection when it deactivates, are you saying that you want to allow player units to use the tower for detection, but capture by "hostile" units won't allow detection? Otherwise, detection shouldn't need to be disabled if the player is losing control anyway.

It adds a buff to detecting units nearby called xel'naga blind which disables their ability to detect cloaked units.

My main idea is to have it fire once when the naga tower goes down but for testing purposes i'm using one that's refreshed as a periodic behavior.

@adovid: Go

Ok, so it disables all nearby detection when the tower is inactive? Wouldn't you need the periodic effect to account for mobile detectors? Also, it sounds like the ownership workaround might be what you need to do. I can't think of any downsides to using that method in terms of messing up other functionality. Would that work for what you're doing?

@DrSuperEvil: Go

I think there's a field where you can choose whether the unit's color is changed along with the ownership.

@DrSuperEvil: Go

Thanks for taking a look at it. I guess ownership change is the best work around for now.

@Khalanil1: Go Mobile detectors are just as easy as any other unit to find with a search effect. Since the search effect is refreshed by a periodic on a behavior the unit would have to enter and exit the radius in .5 seconds in order to go unnoticed.

@adovid: Go

I meant that if it only fires once, any detectors that wander into the area afterwards won't be picked up. Anyway, it sounds like my understanding of what you're trying to accomplish isn't correct and you know what you're doing regarding the timing of it all.

Yea the idea is that it kind of sends a surge that blinds stuff when it goes down.

No problem :P. Thanks for your help.