I wish I'd found this thread before spending a couple days basically doing the same thing you did, but I guess the experience is good and your file did help me clear up a few nagging issues.
I'm actually working on a somewhat different problem, making squads of units with a leader that can replenish it's squad members up to a point but can also assign those members independent tasks. By tinkering with the Broodlord, replacing the Broodlings with Vikings I've managed to make Followers who will stay close to their Leader by default, but may be assigned to tasks within a range determined by the "Leash" variable of the Broodlord's hangar ability. As soon as you set them to move to anything not a unit, however, they head right back to their leader (which is exactly what I want).
There are still two issues I can't seem to resolve, though:
First, when the leader is killed, the followers all go kaboom too, which I definitely don't want. Unfortunately, I can see a number of reasons why this could be unavoidable but I still feel like there should be some way to make the followers into free units or somehow have the leader become a kind of ghost that can't attack, take actions other than move, or be seen my other players but would still keep the unit alive. I don't have a good enough grasp on behaviors or triggers to know how to go about this. A push in the right direction or some ideas as to which are likely to be dead ends to save me some time would be greatly appreciated here.
Second, it'd be nice to be able to program in an "everybody attack here" ability. This seems to work with the leader's standard attacks, but only when the followers are close by which is acceptable, but not optimal. Any ideas are appreciated here too, of course.
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@zifoon: Go
I wish I'd found this thread before spending a couple days basically doing the same thing you did, but I guess the experience is good and your file did help me clear up a few nagging issues.
I'm actually working on a somewhat different problem, making squads of units with a leader that can replenish it's squad members up to a point but can also assign those members independent tasks. By tinkering with the Broodlord, replacing the Broodlings with Vikings I've managed to make Followers who will stay close to their Leader by default, but may be assigned to tasks within a range determined by the "Leash" variable of the Broodlord's hangar ability. As soon as you set them to move to anything not a unit, however, they head right back to their leader (which is exactly what I want).
There are still two issues I can't seem to resolve, though:
First, when the leader is killed, the followers all go kaboom too, which I definitely don't want. Unfortunately, I can see a number of reasons why this could be unavoidable but I still feel like there should be some way to make the followers into free units or somehow have the leader become a kind of ghost that can't attack, take actions other than move, or be seen my other players but would still keep the unit alive. I don't have a good enough grasp on behaviors or triggers to know how to go about this. A push in the right direction or some ideas as to which are likely to be dead ends to save me some time would be greatly appreciated here.
Second, it'd be nice to be able to program in an "everybody attack here" ability. This seems to work with the leader's standard attacks, but only when the followers are close by which is acceptable, but not optimal. Any ideas are appreciated here too, of course.
Thanks in advance to anyone listening.