update: BIGGER, better and now also uploaded on EU!
Salt is a training tool which enables saving and loading the game in multiplayer matches with practice partners! It is designed to help people test out the timing and execution of all aspects of their play and I have recieved positive responses from Bronze players, pro players/casters (Qxc and Husky) and many people from all levels in between.
To use the tool a player simply types "save" or "load" into chat and they can jump to whatever point in the game they want. For a simple look at how this works and how it can be used you can watch the episode of HuskyStarcraft where he did a review/tutorial on it as part of a new series.
(note, near the end of the clip his opponent clicks on the "restart" button hence the confussion)
He does a good job of outlining some uses for this which are holding timing attacks and practicing micro in real world engagements. It is also useful to develop build orders to test out what a build order is weak against, different variations on a build order and which paths work best when transitioning, as well as practicing games where spawn location plays a role as it lets you chose which starting location each player begins at.
To use simply enter the custom maps section of Battlenet and search for "SALT" and there should be a number of the maps in the list.
LADDER / TOURNAMENT: SALT Antiga Shipyard SALT Entombed Valley SALT Cloud Kingdom SALT Metalopolis SALT Shakuras Plateau SALT Shattered Temple SALT Tal'Darim Altar
TOURNAMENT: SALT Dual Sight SALT Crevasse SALT Daybreak SALT Terminus
NOT IN COMPETITIVE USE: SALT Xel'naga Caverns SALT Bel'shir swamp (one of my own maps, not balance tested)
MORE MAPS: coming soon
If you use custom hotkeys for control groups then you will need to edit the file SALTkeybindings.SC2Banks which will be found in your banks file.+ Show Spoiler +
Start the game and it will create a default file for you, if you do not know where it is located do a search of you SC2 folder and you should find it. To change the hotkey for control group 1 to the letter 'q' find the line that says <Value string="1"/> and change it to <Value string="q"/>. all letters, numbers and F1-F12 keys are allowed.
In the future I will be looking into being able to save the game as a file so that it can be shared with others, distributed to help people become better gamers, included in help requests (eg. "Help. What should I do in this situation?") and used in tournaments in the case of a player who gets disconnected.
I sincerely hope that you all find this to be a useful tool.
Holy shit I can't believe something like this hasn't been released already. At first I thought it was going to be something potentially bannable when you called it a mod, but it looks like that's not a matter at hand.
On January 25 2012 10:47 Grobyc wrote: Holy shit I can't believe something like this hasn't been released already. At first I thought it was going to be something potentially bannable when you called it a mod, but it looks like that's not a matter at hand.
Thanks, I updated the OP to say that it is a custom game mod.
It's probably a far fetch, but could this possibly be implemented to keep track of game state in tournament games, so in case the game drops it can be reloaded? That would be pretty cool.
Can you use it to save the game after a disconnect? it would solve a lot of tournament issues if you can continue the game after the person got dropped
This is really cool. I must have wasted hours trying to practice certain builds against practice partners and having to do the opening every time we want to re-game.
On January 25 2012 11:09 Deathfate wrote: Can you use it to save the game after a disconnect? it would solve a lot of tournament issues if you can continue the game after the person got dropped
I was thinking the same thing. How awesome would it be to just reload from where the game was if a disconnect happened. The only problem I can see from that is both players might forget what was going on in the game (I mean it would take a few minutes to get everything set up again then to start in a game might be kinda like "what was I doing before I dropped?") xD.
The thread I mentioned was asking for help testing and bug fixing.
keep track of game state in tournament games
use it to save the game after a disconnect?
As amazing as this functionality would be...
At the moment the game is saved into memory and is erased if a player leaves the game. However I will now begin working on tackling this issue so that may be solved in future updates
The other problem is that one of my main design goals was that the mod should in no way impede game play. I consider that if the mod degrades the gameplay then it is a failure. Currently it takes about 1 second to save the state in the early game and in the late game it takes a few seconds. If the game were to automatically save state every 5 minutes or so then I think the small glitch in gameplay would be enough to really put the players off and get in the way of spectators watching a really awesome SC2 game.
I can imagine small scale tournaments where an observer can save the game when they want to and then after the match the game state file could be shared. That way you get to be able to jump straight into the game that you were just spectating and try your own hand at it.
EPT
