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![[image loading]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11761721/depthofmicro2.jpg)
Banner credit: sagi
I'm back with another one of these, TL!
What are the exact reasons that cause units in SC2 to behave in an inconsistent manner? That's the question I set out to answer as I began learning how to use the SC2 Galaxy editor about a month ago.
After fiddling around for a while, I eventually came across and identified two major engine bugs that impose restrictions on unit movement in SC2. My video covers those bugs as well as the various editor variables I think would benefit from changes.
I want to thank Decemberscalm from the Starbow Mod team for teaching me how to use the editor and answering my many questions about it.
1) Separation radius (bug)
(Separation) radius is a variable in the editor that controls the amount of space a unit occupies, be it on the ground or in the air. Whenever two units' seperation radii overlap, they will be pushed apart by the SC2 engine's mechanic for separating units.
The way this separation mechanic was coded is the main reason we don't have moving shot in starcraft II. The SC2 engine prioritizes spreading units apart before allowing them to glide (and glide is essential to fluid air unit micro). The current implementation of the separation mechanic forces units' whose seperation radii overlap to dead stop when ordered to attack. The code that tells them to glide for a distance is interrupted by the code that tells them to spread out -- this happens whenever an attack command is issued.
2) Damage Point
Damage point is sometimes also known as a "frontswing". It functions as a delay between when an attack initiates and when the attack is actually executed and the damage is dealt. Damage point essentially allows for a pre-firing-animation to take place (the "frontswing" part). This variable makes sense to use for most ground based units.
In SC2, all air units except the mutalisk have been "blessed" with a blanket damage point value of 0.167 (about 120 ms delay). In Brood War air units generally did not have any damage point delay (the devourer being the only exception I think).
There does not seem to be any particular logic behind why SC2 employs a blanket damage point value on all air units (with the exception of the mutalisk). The simplest and most likely explanation is that 0.167 is the default value and that nobody at Blizzard bothered to question whether this value was appropriate. I quite frankly see no reason as to why basic air fighters with standard projectile attacks should be equipped with anything other than a 0.000 damage point.
3) General Weapons Bug + The Oracle
In Starcraft II, units with instantaneous attacks (tanks, oracles, void rays, reapers etc) are programmed in a way where they are not allowed to overkill targets. The units are placed in some sort of a firing queue and will all fire with micro-delays while waiting for their turn. This is done to avoid "overkilling" a target.
The overkill prevention mechanic was unfortunately not implemented ideally. It interferes with and disrupts flying units' movement when firing. When for example 2 oracles shoot at a low hp SCV that only needs 1 shot to die, only 1 of the oracles will be allowed to fire and keep moving. The other oracle will have its movement interrupted by the queueing code and will just dead stop.
***Blizz dev advisory***: Please observe that these bugs affect all air units. It's not just the oracle! This would probably affect all ground units too if they had the potential to move and shoot.
4) Turret attacks/weapons
A turret is a weapon strapped on top of a unit's body. This weapon can rotate freely and independently of whatever direction the unit's body is facing.
In Brood War turrets were designed in a way where they continually tracked targets even when the controlled unit was ordered to move (imagine the phoenix, but without the ezmode autoattack).
In SC2. Every single unit with a turret attack will have the turret reset when moving (the turret points in the direction of movement, not in the direction of the target). To me, the entire point of strapping a turret that can rotate 360 degrees on top of a unit in the first place is to have this tracking feature! I think the immortal and the tank should have tracking turrets.
(There are exceptions where tracking turrets are required by design. Certain units must be designed with 360 degree turrets. One example is the colossus. Its body and legs face all orientations at the same time, it is an omni-directional unit. So the colossus needs a 360 degree turret by design to have an orientation. Certain units may also need to have ineffective turrets due to balance.)
5) Turn Rate
Turn rate and damage point are the two most critical values for getting a shot off before your air unit runs out of "glide" distance and stops. Because air units in SC2 rotate around their axis to aim, Blizzard should take a second look at turn rates. The basic air fighters of each race should, in my opinion, have higher turn rates.
6) Lateral Acceleration
Lateral Acceleration controls how sharply units turn. When a unit has low lateral acceleration, it turns with a very wide turn radius (imagine the oracle). Lateral acceleration makes a difference in how responsive and fresh air units feel to control. This is not a critical value, but I nonetheless think the most basic agile fighters of each race should have a higher lateral acceleration.
7) Hovering Units
In Brood War there were a class of "hovering" units. Vultures were a hover-bike. Archons levitated. Probes and drones also didn't touch the ground. These units shared the same type of behavior as air units (they glided for a distance after an attack command was issued). But they still retained the pathfinding of ground units. This dynamic allowed for very interesting forms of unit micro and unit designs.
In SC2, all ground units always come to a full stop when attacking. There is a flag in the editor that reads "Slowing". This means that after a unit attacks, it should keep moving, but in a state of deceleration. This flag does not work on ground units. It only works on air units (whenever they're not disrupted by the bugs explained in the previous points).
The only way in which you can currently get a moving shot for ground units is to set the flag "Moving". Which is Blizzard's hot fix for moving shot. "Moving" basically makes the unit automatically fire while in range and under a move command (no attack command has to be issued). "Moving" is currently used on the phoenix.
Are you willing/capable to provide subtitles for my video?
I would especially appreciate someone to translate this from english into korean.
Subtitles can be done in 1 of 2 ways:
1. Send me a PM with your googleaccount (email name) and the language you want to translate the video into. I will then share access with you to my video's subtitling feature on youtube. There is already a working transcript in english with time stamps. You basically only have to do a sentence-by-sentence translation.
OR
2. You download one of the following raw subtitle files: .srt-format or .vtt-format. You then edit them yourself in a subtitle editor program and reupload them for me to download.
My test map can be tried by searching on b.net arcade: "Depth of Micro (Air)".
If you want to try tanks with a tracking turret, search for: "Starbow Unit Tester"
Reddit thread Link: http://www.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/1pkq5y/depth_of_micro_a_detailed_critique_on_the/
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Israel2206 Posts
I would love to hear David Kim's thoughts about each one of the topics you raised in the video, and whether incorporating some of them into Legacy of the Void would be possible.
Great job LaLuSh!
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Ty for that, will watch it later (now lo3), but i think it will be interesting.
I think you should formulate more in the op though, cause i think written information >>> videos but yeah
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excellent vid, apart from feeling as if i was in a seminar you make alot of valid suggestions. hopefully blizzard will take note and implement a few of your suggestions in lotv. would def. add some flair back into the game 
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I love all the BW foreign player puns. Good work as usual LuSh.
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I appreciate your effort but Blizzard showed several time that they give a shit. Overkill prevention is the greatest crap they ever implemented.
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you are so awesome when you're not angry
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On October 31 2013 08:45 TaShadan wrote:
I appreciate your effort but Blizzard showed several time that they give a shit.
In many cases they completely misunderstood what we were initially saying, but you never know.
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On October 31 2013 08:45 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
you are so awesome when you're not angry
lol
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Another thread where we compare BW to SC2. Its an interesting topic, but but will these ever end?
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Hi, I'm decemberscalm one of the data editors for the Starbow mod. I've spent countless hours experimenting with micro for the Starcraft 2 engine.
A lot of micro esque issues are hardcoded problems you can't fix easily in the editor.
Turrets have no option to simply track targets within range. The only way to do that is make them like a phoenix or diamond back where they automatically shoot, we don't want that.
I had to make a fake second weapon that doesn't shoot to accomplish this for the immortal and siege tank.
Another issue is moving shot for ground units.
It is currently impossible to give them a moving shot without making them like a phoenix. Acquiring a target will make them dead stop.
For the Starbow vulture, I had to use triggers to manually slow the unit down, 2 weapons, an extra ability that acts as a target fire. It was insane how much work I had to do to get a simple moving shot for a ground unit.
Needless to say Starbow does not have moving shots for the drone, probe, or archon because of the insane lengths you must go to to implement it.
Carrier micro was slightly improved in response to nonys video. It is still a far cry from its BW glory.
If you kill a unit, your interceptors have mabye half a second to be given a new target or they WILL return to the carrier.
In BW as long as the interceptors were not docked you could re-route them to another target.
The carrier is not fixed.
Warp Prisms have a small amount of accelleration. If you right click to pick up a unit, the warp prism may or may not go to a dead stop. This means you spend half a second getting your speed back. Micro shinnanigans is punished by this. That actual reason why they dead stop some times but not all the time has something to do with how far the warp prism is and at what angle. Still, random behavior and consistency where it should just work. The shuttle in BW has no qualms with this, it keeps its momentum. For Starbow I have told people to click the reaver, and right click the warp prism instead to avoid this issue.
Another hardcoded issue is the glaring lack of backswing.
The damage point is how far into your attack animation you swing. The backswing WC3 editor calls it is how long you must go into your attack animation before you are able to move again.
BW made a lot of use with this variable. Marines did not look like they shot their allies when kiting. Zealots are a lot more defined in how they fight.
Its not a huge issue due to how SC2 makes no use of it period, but its again another fundamental aspect of how units worked in both BW and WC3 that was basically never even implemented into the engine.
It shows a complete lack of attention to the micro aspect of the game. Turrets don't track. Instead of really beautiful zealot vs hydra micro we saw from BW due to how units are built, they opted for a lazy approach like charge, just giving free hits forgoing micro entirely.
TLDR:
-Everything micro related I do requires a crazy workaround
-Turrets are hardcoded NOT to be able to track targets
-Ground units are hardcoded NOT to be able to do a moving shot
-Carrier micro even though it was looked at it still broken and flawed
-Warp Prism suffers from random loss of momentum when picking up units
-Engine cannot do a backswing like BW and WC3 was able to
-There is a complete lack of attention to micro and unit details
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On October 31 2013 08:47 Plansix wrote:
Another thread where we compare BW to SC2. Its an interesting topic, but but will these ever end?
It goes beyond a simple comparison. All developers should take note of such things and as it would improve the game-play of their game.
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Very, very awesome. When I started playing Sc2 I realised quickly that units felt a lot more sluggish and harder to micro, but I never really understood why until after watching this video.
Also the depth to which you've analysed all this stuff in the editor is amazing.
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On October 31 2013 08:53 StarStruck wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2013 08:47 Plansix wrote:
Another thread where we compare BW to SC2. Its an interesting topic, but but will these ever end? It goes beyond a simple comparison. All developers should take note of such things and as it would improve the game-play of their game.
I know, I watched a good chunk of it and it is well done. I am just bracing for the "BW = Perfect, Blizzard ruined legacy, SC2 inferior game" circle jerk that will take place soon. Its a good topic, but it tends to bring out the least fun parts of the "community".
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Really interesting stuff. Would love to see Blizzard look into this.
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I'm curious as to whether people really want units to turn faster. I thought one of the most common arguments for Dota 2 over LoL was that the units didn't turn instantaneously.
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Loved it, great job Lalush
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On October 31 2013 08:58 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2013 08:53 StarStruck wrote:On October 31 2013 08:47 Plansix wrote:
Another thread where we compare BW to SC2. Its an interesting topic, but but will these ever end? It goes beyond a simple comparison. All developers should take note of such things and as it would improve the game-play of their game. I know, I watched a good chunk of it and it is well done. I am just bracing for the "BW = Perfect, Blizzard ruined legacy, SC2 inferior game" circle jerk that will take place soon. Its a good topic, but it tends to bring out the least fun parts of the "community".
Better brace for the truth train.
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On October 31 2013 09:01 Cheren wrote:
I'm curious as to whether people really want units to turn faster. I thought one of the most common arguments for Dota 2 over LoL was that the units didn't turn instantaneously.
His advice was for airborne fighters, nothing else.
You'd expect air units to be really agile, especially for such an esports focused game like this.
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On October 31 2013 09:02 LaLuSh wrote:Show nested quote +On October 31 2013 08:58 Plansix wrote:On October 31 2013 08:53 StarStruck wrote:On October 31 2013 08:47 Plansix wrote:
Another thread where we compare BW to SC2. Its an interesting topic, but but will these ever end? It goes beyond a simple comparison. All developers should take note of such things and as it would improve the game-play of their game. I know, I watched a good chunk of it and it is well done. I am just bracing for the "BW = Perfect, Blizzard ruined legacy, SC2 inferior game" circle jerk that will take place soon. Its a good topic, but it tends to bring out the least fun parts of the "community". Better brace for the truth train.
I wouldn't call the communities habit of fawning over BW like the second comings as truth. Its an amazing game, but the habit of a set group within SC2 community that loves to shit on the game isn't really an indicator of fact.
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EPT
