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I was playing around in the map editor a bit to try to find some effective way of attacking siege tanks ZvT and I found something surprising (to me at least) in the process:
What I wanted to do was see how effective it would be to drop your entire army onto the tanks, but when I told my overlords to unload on top of the tank position they would all clump up on top of each other and drop their units onto the exact same spot. Needless to say that's not particularly smart when you're fighting units that do splash damage.
By freak accident though, while testing various units to drop on tanks, my overlords obediently flew over to the drop point, but they kept formation, and instead of clumping up they dropped a nice carpet of units onto the entire tank area.
Turns out that (as far as I can tell) air units will respect each others airspace if they were completely adjacent to each other before you tell them to move. In my overlord case what I did was first tell all my overlords to move to a specific spot, causing them all to clump up there. After their clump they would drift apart until they all were "touching" but not overlapping. If you tell a group of overlords like that to drop on a target point they will do so in formation.
Not sure if that was particularly known to anyone but I personally was pleasantly surprised. Incidentally it only works if all your selected overlords are in "formation". If one of the overlords is misplaced the entire group will go back to clumping up. Hence it reminding me of magic boxes.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Have you tried with other units? Or is this just an overlord thing? (interesting discovery nonetheless)
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Yes there indeed is a magic box still in effect in SC2, works for all units including ground units.
The box however is a lot smaller in SC2, dunno if spells like storm can be used with this because of smart casting but its cool nonetheless.
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On May 27 2010 20:57 Plexa wrote:
Have you tried with other units? Or is this just an overlord thing? (interesting discovery nonetheless)
Not extensively. I tried it with mutas attacking thor because I figured it'd help against splash, but I don't think it works when specifically attacking a unit. At least my mutas still clumped up a bit so they could all hit the thor.
EDIT: I take that back, it's great vs thor as long as you move command your mutas into range and then attack-click the thor when all the muta are in range
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The magic box is still in SC2, but it seems to be smaller relative to the unit size. It's further ignored because people move their units in giant balls because they can.
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Magic Boxes are there for all units, so I don't think this will come as a surprise to many people. For better effect you should still order your overlords individually to drop while flying, like in BW without the "center of gravity" trick. Would be interesting to know if that trick still works but I doubt it.
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couldyou post a replay and a time please ?
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On May 27 2010 21:19 Asta wrote:
Magic Boxes are there for all units, so I don't think this will come as a surprise to many people. For better effect you should still order your overlords individually to drop while flying, like in BW without the "center of gravity" trick. Would be interesting to know if that trick still works but I doubt it.
Don't think the center of gravity trick works unfortunately. When trying to drop on tanks though I don't think that'd a smart technique to use anyways =P. I suppose I shouldn't have called it a magic box. You're right that the true SC1 magic boxes exist for all units (but are tiny). This one is more of a special air unit feature, since those units are programmed to allow for overlapping. Air units have those tiny SC1-like magic boxes as well, but this way of holding formation works outside of those boxes.
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On May 27 2010 21:33 T0fuuu wrote:
couldyou post a replay and a time please ?
Just a custom map replay to show the difference? I suppose I could~
[url blocked]
I haven't used it in a real game yet. I HAVE tried dropping my army the "all in one spot" way in the past though. It wasn't pretty.
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United States1719 Posts
interesting i could really use this
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A little off topic :You mentioned that they will drop of the units in a nice carpet. I have always wanted my drop ships to do this. All I get is that they move to the position and then stand still and drop them all off.
How can I make them move and drop at the same time? Do I have to click on the units inside the ships to force them out?
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Does this magic box dropping work if you move while dropping?
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On May 27 2010 22:14 SupremeMe wrote:
A little off topic :You mentioned that they will drop of the units in a nice carpet. I have always wanted my drop ships to do this. All I get is that they move to the position and then stand still and drop them all off.
How can I make them move and drop at the same time? Do I have to click on the units inside the ships to force them out?
I dunno about dropships... I don't even know if it still works in SC2. What I do know is that in BW, you would command your overlords to move, then tell each individual ovie to drop all units on itself.
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On May 27 2010 22:44 sudo.era wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2010 22:14 SupremeMe wrote:
A little off topic :You mentioned that they will drop of the units in a nice carpet. I have always wanted my drop ships to do this. All I get is that they move to the position and then stand still and drop them all off.
How can I make them move and drop at the same time? Do I have to click on the units inside the ships to force them out? I dunno about dropships... I don't even know if it still works in SC2. What I do know is that in BW, you would command your overlords to move, then tell each individual ovie to drop all units on itself.
Just tried it out and that worked, even for drop ships or medivacs, Thanks!
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On May 27 2010 22:14 SupremeMe wrote:
A little off topic :You mentioned that they will drop of the units in a nice carpet. I have always wanted my drop ships to do this. All I get is that they move to the position and then stand still and drop them all off.
How can I make them move and drop at the same time? Do I have to click on the units inside the ships to force them out?
1) Issue a move command past the drop location with any SC2 transport unit
2) when the transport is at the position you wish to start the carpet drop press unload and click on the transport unit.
The transport will continue to fly to its move location and drop units simultaneously.
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You can also do that on multiple units as a Shift+ command. It looks like
1: Send your dropships/ovies/prisms to where you want to begin dropping (move command), and in your cute magic box pattern.
2: Before they get there, press shift+D (unload) and then click each of your ships while still holding Shift.
3: Either give them another shift+Move before they get to the drop location or give them move commands once they have started to drop units. They will continue to move in the path you specify while dropping units once per second.
Speaking of dropships, I want to start trying to use Warp Prisms more as Protoss. They seem oft neglected for a unit which can drop a Colossus in your base, then immediately reinforce it.
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Does this mean doom drop has been reduced by a couple actions now?
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Not really, but you can take those actions at your convenience now (on the way to his base, rather than once you've dropped and you'd rather be microing your army instead of your dropships).
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On May 28 2010 01:23 Kratisto wrote:
You can also do that on multiple units as a Shift+ command. It looks like
1: Send your dropships/ovies/prisms to where you want to begin dropping (move command), and in your cute magic box pattern.
2: Before they get there, press shift+D (unload) and then click each of your ships while still holding Shift.
3: Either give them another shift+Move before they get to the drop location or give them move commands once they have started to drop units. They will continue to move in the path you specify while dropping units once per second.
Speaking of dropships, I want to start trying to use Warp Prisms more as Protoss. They seem oft neglected for a unit which can drop a Colossus in your base, then immediately reinforce it.
Wow nice find, I didn't know that. Guess we have our "center of gravity" drop equivalent back completely now.
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EPT
