• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 13:12
CEST 19:12
KST 02:12
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Team TLMC #5 - Finalists & Open Tournaments0[ASL20] Ro16 Preview Pt2: Turbulence3Classic Games #3: Rogue vs Serral at BlizzCon9[ASL20] Ro16 Preview Pt1: Ascent10Maestros of the Game: Week 1/Play-in Preview12
Community News
Weekly Cups (Sept 8-14): herO & MaxPax split cups2WardiTV TL Team Map Contest #5 Tournaments1SC4ALL $6,000 Open LAN in Philadelphia7Weekly Cups (Sept 1-7): MaxPax rebounds & Clem saga continues29LiuLi Cup - September 2025 Tournaments3
StarCraft 2
General
Weekly Cups (Sept 8-14): herO & MaxPax split cups SpeCial on The Tasteless Podcast Team TLMC #5 - Finalists & Open Tournaments Weekly Cups (Sept 1-7): MaxPax rebounds & Clem saga continues #1: Maru - Greatest Players of All Time
Tourneys
WardiTV TL Team Map Contest #5 Tournaments Maestros of The Game—$20k event w/ live finals in Paris RSL: Revival, a new crowdfunded tournament series Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament SC4ALL $6,000 Open LAN in Philadelphia
Strategy
Custom Maps
External Content
Mutation # 491 Night Drive Mutation # 490 Masters of Midnight Mutation # 489 Bannable Offense Mutation # 488 What Goes Around
Brood War
General
BW General Discussion [ASL20] Ro16 Preview Pt2: Turbulence BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ ASL20 General Discussion Playing StarCraft as 2 people on the same network
Tourneys
[ASL20] Ro16 Group C [ASL20] Ro16 Group B [IPSL] ISPL Season 1 Winter Qualis and Info! Is there English video for group selection for ASL
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Muta micro map competition Fighting Spirit mining rates [G] Mineral Boosting
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Path of Exile General RTS Discussion Thread Nintendo Switch Thread Borderlands 3
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion LiquidDota to reintegrate into TL.net
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Canadian Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread The Big Programming Thread
Fan Clubs
The Happy Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! [Manga] One Piece Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Linksys AE2500 USB WIFI keeps disconnecting Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread High temperatures on bridge(s)
TL Community
BarCraft in Tokyo Japan for ASL Season5 Final The Automated Ban List
Blogs
The Personality of a Spender…
TrAiDoS
A very expensive lesson on ma…
Garnet
hello world
radishsoup
Lemme tell you a thing o…
JoinTheRain
RTS Design in Hypercoven
a11
Evil Gacha Games and the…
ffswowsucks
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1410 users

Extra time for switching targets.

Forum Index > BW General
Post a Reply
1 2 Next All
Xiphias
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Norway2223 Posts
April 04 2015 06:27 GMT
#1
Greetings to my friends playing the best game in the world!

I am currently working on the Starbow mod that you may or may not have heard of. It is a fan-made expansion to Brood War in the SC2 engine (unfortunately) and as such, we have encountered many issues when trying to recreate some of the finesses from Brood War.

One of these, seems to have very little technical information about it, although I think it is noticed and recognized by most.

In Brood War, if a ranged unit, and maybe melee as well, killed a unit or lost its target, it would spend more time than it's regular weapon cool-down (attack speed) to shoot on a new target compared to firing on an existing one.

This behavior seems to be the most noticeable with dragoons, siege tanks in siege mode and reavers.

Does anyone knows how much extra time each unit's weapon needed to switch targets compared to firing upon the same unit over and over?
aka KanBan85. Working on Starbow.
TelecoM
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States10675 Posts
April 04 2015 07:14 GMT
#2
Thats a good question, i'm not sure how that would work....I would also be interested in knowing this just to know, sorry I can't really answer the question.
AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
Probemicro
Profile Joined February 2014
3708 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-04 08:01:27
April 04 2015 07:53 GMT
#3
related

Most Starcraft units have pre-attack animation sequences that must be played before the actual attack occurs. For the Marine, it is "holding up the gun". For the Hydralisk, it is "opening the mouth".

For most units, there is only one pre-attack sequence. All subsequent attacks do not require the unit to go through the sequence again. For the Marine, once it holds up its weapon, it does not put it down again. For the Hydralisk, once it opens its mouth, it doesn't have to open it again.

The exception is when the unit has to change targets. If a unit's attack target changes, it must go through its pre-attack sequence again. This phenomenon is most prevalent for the Photon Cannon, whose tower goes up and down constantly as it acquires new targets.
404AlphaSquad
Profile Joined October 2011
839 Posts
April 04 2015 08:09 GMT
#4
It is so hard recreating all the little finesses in BW and the hardest part, actually noticing them.
aka Kalevi
Xiphias
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Norway2223 Posts
April 04 2015 08:14 GMT
#5
On April 04 2015 16:53 Probemicro wrote:
related

Most Starcraft units have pre-attack animation sequences that must be played before the actual attack occurs. For the Marine, it is "holding up the gun". For the Hydralisk, it is "opening the mouth".

For most units, there is only one pre-attack sequence. All subsequent attacks do not require the unit to go through the sequence again. For the Marine, once it holds up its weapon, it does not put it down again. For the Hydralisk, once it opens its mouth, it doesn't have to open it again.

The exception is when the unit has to change targets. If a unit's attack target changes, it must go through its pre-attack sequence again. This phenomenon is most prevalent for the Photon Cannon, whose tower goes up and down constantly as it acquires new targets.


Nice article. That was enlightening. The question remains though, how much time does it take for a unit to start the pre-attack animation?

And it seems that all units have this, even if they have no visual animation, like the reaver.
aka KanBan85. Working on Starbow.
Freakling
Profile Joined October 2012
Germany1529 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-04 13:53:21
April 04 2015 08:44 GMT
#6
Cannons, and also dragoons, certainly have particularly slow pre-attack animations.

The other effect you are looking out for is probably the influence of the unit command (idle/attack/hold position/attack) on the attack rate and initial attack time.
It has something to do with the order in which the BW engine runs through different unit behaviour checks over the course of multiple frames or something like that.
If I remeber correctly, units on patrol command have an immidiate first attack (minus aforementioned pre-attack animation, of course), but slightly slower attack rate afterwards, whereas units on attack command have the full attack rate, but slightly delayed initial attacks (not sure where idle and hold position lie in the spectrum, but I guess hold position has pretty fast initial attacks, because you can use it for muta and dragoon micro quite effectively).

There is an article about the finer details somewhere, I think it was at the BWAI page (whatever that is actually called) somewhere ; if not, maybe it was Staredit.net, but my best bet for detailed documentation about game mechanics would be the former.

EDIT: I think this is it:
https://code.google.com/p/bwapi/wiki/StarcraftGuide#What_are_the_differences_between_Stop_and_Hold_Position?
It's actually explaining the difference between stop and hold position, but I think patrol and attack also make a difference in how quickly the first attack is issued (patrol micro beats attack micro)...
Freakling
Profile Joined October 2012
Germany1529 Posts
April 04 2015 09:15 GMT
#7
Also interesting:

https://code.google.com/p/bwapi/wiki/StarcraftGuide#Why_is_the_cooldown_always_different?

https://code.google.com/p/bwapi/wiki/WeaponTypes
reminisce12
Profile Joined March 2012
Australia318 Posts
April 04 2015 09:44 GMT
#8
question: was this design intentional by the scbw devs?
Piste
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
6179 Posts
April 04 2015 11:10 GMT
#9
On April 04 2015 17:09 404AlphaSquad wrote:
It is so hard recreating all the little finesses in BW and the hardest part, actually noticing them.

indeed, the awesomeness and balance of this game was output of luck and few patches, and rest of it from the map designing.
Freakling
Profile Joined October 2012
Germany1529 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-04 13:54:54
April 04 2015 13:47 GMT
#10
On April 04 2015 18:44 reminisce12 wrote:
question: was this design intentional by the scbw devs?


That is probably mostly a semantic question, i.e. it depends on the exact definition of the word "intentional" you go by in your question:

Deliberate decisions, made to achieve some aim (i.e. get it to work in one way or another): yes, definitely!

Carefully weighed versus all alternatives, considering all the consequences?: Well, you wish, ... like anthing in the core of the BW engine was devised this way...
2Pacalypse-
Profile Joined October 2006
Croatia9510 Posts
April 04 2015 14:10 GMT
#11
On April 04 2015 20:10 Piste wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 04 2015 17:09 404AlphaSquad wrote:
It is so hard recreating all the little finesses in BW and the hardest part, actually noticing them.

indeed, the awesomeness and balance of this game was output of luck and few patches, and rest of it from the map designing.

"Luck" would imply that the developers had no idea what they were doing and sort of just got lucky... which I don't think is a fair assessment at all. Did developers think of all the possible scenarios and little things/bugs that makes the BW what it is? Of course not. But it's also obvious that a lot of thought and effort was put into the design, which makes this incredible depth possible in the first place.

Perfect example of this is in this very thread. They could've made this cooldown before shooting much simpler and same for all the units or even remove it completely. But they consciously added it because they thought it would add more depth to the game, even though they didn't predict every possible consequence of this (out of which one consequence was getting your goons stuck ><).
Moderator"We're a community of geniuses because we've found how to extract 95% of the feeling of doing something amazing without actually doing anything." - Chill
reminisce12
Profile Joined March 2012
Australia318 Posts
April 04 2015 15:46 GMT
#12
yeah luck only augments the game, the core design of the game is what separates it from other games and makes it a legendary game. The uniqueness of the three different races, the unit design and synergies they have with one another.
Randomaccount#77123
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States5003 Posts
April 04 2015 17:32 GMT
#13
--- Nuked ---
DepressedOne
Profile Blog Joined September 2014
United States190 Posts
April 04 2015 22:10 GMT
#14
why don't you make a BW expansion in the BW engine?
Me sad.
TelecoM
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States10675 Posts
April 04 2015 22:56 GMT
#15
On April 05 2015 07:10 DepressedOne wrote:
why don't you make a BW expansion in the BW engine?


Please refrain from trying to answer this question.
AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
Foxxan
Profile Joined October 2004
Sweden3427 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-05 00:20:19
April 05 2015 00:18 GMT
#16
Good find xiphias.

On April 04 2015 17:09 404AlphaSquad wrote:
It is so hard recreating all the little finesses in BW and the hardest part, actually noticing them.

Indeed
vOdToasT
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Sweden2870 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-04-15 06:01:23
April 15 2015 06:01 GMT
#17
Does anyone knows how much extra time each unit's weapon needed to switch targets compared to firing upon the same unit over and over?


Every unit has a different pre attack animation. It's a different amount of frames. The dragoon has more than half a second. You'd have to test every unit with a stop watch, or with frame measuring software.
If it's stupid but it works, then it's not stupid* (*Or: You are stupid for losing to it, and gotta git gud)
ggrrg
Profile Blog Joined September 2009
Bulgaria2716 Posts
April 15 2015 07:49 GMT
#18
On April 04 2015 17:44 Freakling wrote:
Cannons, and also dragoons, certainly have particularly slow pre-attack animations.

The other effect you are looking out for is probably the influence of the unit command (idle/attack/hold position/attack) on the attack rate and initial attack time.
It has something to do with the order in which the BW engine runs through different unit behaviour checks over the course of multiple frames or something like that.
If I remeber correctly, units on patrol command have an immidiate first attack (minus aforementioned pre-attack animation, of course), but slightly slower attack rate afterwards, whereas units on attack command have the full attack rate, but slightly delayed initial attacks (not sure where idle and hold position lie in the spectrum, but I guess hold position has pretty fast initial attacks, because you can use it for muta and dragoon micro quite effectively).

There is an article about the finer details somewhere, I think it was at the BWAI page (whatever that is actually called) somewhere ; if not, maybe it was Staredit.net, but my best bet for detailed documentation about game mechanics would be the former.

EDIT: I think this is it:
https://code.google.com/p/bwapi/wiki/StarcraftGuide#What_are_the_differences_between_Stop_and_Hold_Position?
It's actually explaining the difference between stop and hold position, but I think patrol and attack also make a difference in how quickly the first attack is issued (patrol micro beats attack micro)...


Afaik, hold position and patrol command both result in the pre-attack animation being started right away, since the unit does "remember" the target it had acquired beforehand. Stop command requires the unit to first acquire a target before starting the pre-attack animation. If I remember correctly, the same applies to the a-move. I'm also pretty sure that there is no difference in the attack rate of units after the initial attack no matter what command was used.
Chef
Profile Blog Joined August 2005
10810 Posts
April 15 2015 13:14 GMT
#19
On April 04 2015 18:44 reminisce12 wrote:
question: was this design intentional by the scbw devs?

Kinda like asking if they made the movement speed of vultures different from other units on purpose Somebody had to enter those numbers, and it would have been simpler to keep them the same across the board. But whichever people came to this decision to make units act slightly different was very likely doing so because they liked giving units individual personalities. Someone made the opposite decision with SC2, and attempted to homogenize many values in order to make large armies easier to control, so players would get less frustrated. You have to remember BW was designed before there was ever a pro scene of people dedicating 10 hours a day to practice the game, so it was designed mostly with messing around in mind, low apm users (though they wouldn't have called them that), and people who are just playing for fun and want all the wackiness possible. Nowadays you have to design for people who want their games to look like pro games, and get angry when they don't, if you're making a competitive game. You also have to design a lower learning curve for young adults who buy and play all kinds of games with their no-kids incomes, so a game with a lot of frustrating idiosyncrasies that lose you games when you try to play it competitively is potentially going to scare a lot of people off.

StarBow is an interesting effort, but I think ultimately kind of confusing. It's like you wanna design a whole new game, but you're going to make your game in a custom map in another game over the course of 4 years instead. Then again I guess that's what DOTA is.
LEGEND!! LEGEND!!
iLovePolandKurwa
Profile Joined April 2015
14 Posts
April 16 2015 23:09 GMT
#20
On April 04 2015 18:44 reminisce12 wrote:
question: was this design intentional by the scbw devs?



no way
1 2 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Monday Night Weeklies
16:00
#23
RotterdaM447
Harstem424
TKL 234
IndyStarCraft 181
PiGStarcraft129
SteadfastSC107
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
RotterdaM 447
Harstem 424
TKL 234
IndyStarCraft 181
PiGStarcraft129
SteadfastSC 107
UpATreeSC 63
MindelVK 40
Codebar 16
StarCraft: Brood War
Calm 3816
Sea 1359
EffOrt 1285
Shuttle 1126
Stork 346
firebathero 281
ggaemo 264
Rush 214
Hyuk 150
hero 89
[ Show more ]
Mong 88
Dewaltoss 77
JYJ77
sas.Sziky 58
Mind 48
zelot 38
soO 29
Rock 17
Movie 16
Noble 15
SilentControl 14
yabsab 13
ajuk12(nOOB) 12
Terrorterran 11
sSak 9
Shine 9
Hm[arnc] 7
Counter-Strike
ScreaM980
flusha156
Other Games
tarik_tv20912
gofns13445
B2W.Neo884
ceh9520
FrodaN495
Beastyqt405
crisheroes291
Lowko280
Fuzer 236
XaKoH 189
KnowMe92
QueenE84
Trikslyr67
Mew2King49
NeuroSwarm48
Organizations
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 18 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• OhrlRock 1
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• sooper7s
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• Migwel
• intothetv
• LaughNgamezSOOP
StarCraft: Brood War
• FirePhoenix6
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
• BSLYoutube
Dota 2
• masondota2710
• Ler83
League of Legends
• Jankos1465
• Nemesis1365
Other Games
• Shiphtur253
• imaqtpie32
Upcoming Events
OSC
6h 48m
Sparkling Tuna Cup
16h 48m
Afreeca Starleague
16h 48m
Light vs Speed
Larva vs Soma
2v2
17h 48m
PiGosaur Monday
1d 6h
LiuLi Cup
1d 17h
RSL Revival
2 days
Maru vs Reynor
Cure vs TriGGeR
The PondCast
2 days
RSL Revival
3 days
Zoun vs Classic
Korean StarCraft League
4 days
[ Show More ]
RSL Revival
4 days
[BSL 2025] Weekly
5 days
BSL Team Wars
5 days
RSL Revival
5 days
Online Event
5 days
Wardi Open
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

BSL 20 Team Wars
Chzzk MurlocKing SC1 vs SC2 Cup #2
HCC Europe

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 3
BSL 21 Points
ASL Season 20
CSL 2025 AUTUMN (S18)
LASL Season 20
RSL Revival: Season 2
Maestros of the Game
FISSURE Playground #2
BLAST Open Fall 2025
BLAST Open Fall Qual
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1

Upcoming

2025 Chongqing Offline CUP
BSL Polish World Championship 2025
IPSL Winter 2025-26
BSL Season 21
SC4ALL: Brood War
BSL 21 Team A
Stellar Fest
SC4ALL: StarCraft II
EC S1
ESL Impact League Season 8
SL Budapest Major 2025
BLAST Rivals Fall 2025
IEM Chengdu 2025
PGL Masters Bucharest 2025
MESA Nomadic Masters Fall
Thunderpick World Champ.
CS Asia Championships 2025
ESL Pro League S22
StarSeries Fall 2025
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.