SC2Mapster

Following the great success of my spawn Zerglings from a nearby egg spell (details here),
i wanted to add the final details today.

Now, spawning and all that works just perfectly.
What I'd like to add is that the units that are spawned there run towards the caster (move, attack move, whatever - just get there)

"Train" (eggs are using that to spawn the Zerglings) allows to add an effect.
Which I did: issue order.

Unfortunately, the only moving I get is either no movement at all or they run to the very lower left corner (I assume that's 0,0).
Which presumably means that they somehow don't have a reference to the caster, or, at least, his position when he cast it.

Originally, the ability used a search area effect...
I also tried using a persistent effect on it and do the searching from there.
Same thing though, spawning works, moving doesn't.
And all "point" and effect combinations on the issue order.
No useful result.
Obviously, I missed the one combination that works.
Or something entirely else but equally obvious.

And, as always when I don't know anymore what to look for... any ideas?

Hm...

This sounded sufficiently weird for me to try it out.
And I actually managed to find a combination that makes them attack move to the position the caster was at when casting.

Which is "good enough".

I'll mark this as solved.
Unless, of course, someone would come up with something better.

Thanks.
By the way, what's your secret? Some mysterious magical water or so?

The ability starts with a persistent effect.
Near the end, a search effect applies a set.
That set adds a behavior that changes the owner (though I'm actually not sure that one is what's doing it. But since it works, I'll just leave it at that),
it tells the egg to "train" via an issue order (that's probably the problem part, as the caster seems to change from here on, or simply disappear),
and, finally, it runs an issue order effect to "rally" (an ability on the egg) to "effect persistent:caster point".

The caster as such, for some reason, is still lost.
But the casting point, i.e. the position you were at when casting works.
Probably not the final answer but it's a workable solution.
And already a major improvement over the just-sitting-there it used to be.

As for your "mostly taught"... damn, I was really hoping for that mysterious magical water.

Problem being that, just as an example, I wanted to know what makes MULEs start gathering when cast on a mineral patch.
Turns out it's an issue order effect.
Sounds obvious I guess, but I still needed some 10+ minutes to find it.
Of course, I got curious after that and wanted to "get" the entire MULE calldown effect chain.
Which required an entire hour (who am I kidding here... entire afternoon).
And the only thing I'm really sure of is that I missed some parts here and there.

At times, it also helps NOT to look at a problem for a couple days, then get back to it :P

I'm neither super nor evil, but I'm working on it.
Expect to see an actual complete and working map somewhere around SC4.

Well, no you can't?
Dunno, there's no obvious "player" option that would do it.

Yes, I pretty much only ever use caster and target, as they most often lead to success.

Well, something somewhere is somehow missing.
As usual, I've no idea what, where or why.
My experience is more along the lines of "if it didn't work first try, it probably still won't weeks later", with nothing in between.

THERE it is!

Yeah, modify unit works with:
Modification flags: Owner
Transfer unit: (none):Caster

Unfortunately, that opens up just another can of worms.
The worm being preventing a second cast.
My search area makes sure to only target eggs that are not already training something.
To do that, its validator was looking for "doesn't have the change owner buff" from the apply behavior.
Which, with modify unit, does not exist anymore.

There's probably some way with markers to do that check.
But, well, I've yet to see anything involving markers to actually work.

I'm currently ignoring units that are currently training (i.e. have a train order).
Works perfectly.

For the moving to caster part... well, I thought if the prophet doesn't go to the mountain...
Have the trained units look for a nearby caster and walk there.

Sounds simple enough, train launches a search area, unit type validator, issue order, done.
Needless to say that one doesn't work either... they don't even go to the bottom left. Really just nothing at all.

Business as usual.

Units involved:
Queen: with an ability of type effect instant
Egg: the result of a modified spawn larva behavior
Zerglings: expected result of using the ability on an egg

Eggs belong to the owner of the hatchery that spawned them.
Can be anyone, including you, any enemy player or neutral.

Upon use, the ability runs an effect search area.
Search area has range 7, any direction, minimum 1, maximum 1 and a working error message if no usable eggs are in range.

It applies an effect persistent to whatever it finds.

The persistent effect uses a combined validator checking for unit type = egg and order count train = 0.
Seems to work as it only targets eggs that aren't busy currently (training isn't instant, it takes 5 seconds).

It runs an effect initial to change the owner of the egg to the caster.
Done with an effect modify unit with owner checked in modification flags; everything else, launch, impact, transfer being default.
Assumed to work since you do end up with Zerglings that are yours.

The persistent then continues with a periodic effect. One single effect running once.
It's of type issue order and tells (none):target to train:0.

Train is an ability of type train on the eggs.
With one option set (train01) to 2 Zerglings.
Considered working, based on the observation that each successful cast on an egg produces two Zerglings.

No other effects on that persistent.

The train ability applies an effect of type issue order on each Zergling.

That issue order is supposed to order the Zerglings to attack to, move to, or just whatever really to the original caster.

Unit+ is set to (none):target.
Seems correct as, depending on the target setting, they do indeed start to run... to the lower left bottom corner of the map.

Which brings me to target+.
I tried all caster/source/outer/... unit, point and unit/point variations without any effect, and without any result. (or perhaps there was one that said corner)

With an effect?
You pretty consistently get them to run to the bottom corner.
Occasionally they don't run at all, which I assume means they were ordered to run to their current position.