[turtles]

Hi,

I have created a Starcraft2 mod which allows a players to be able to save the game and then later load back to the previous point in a multiplayer game. The mod is called SALT (Save And Load Tool).

The idea being that I think this will be a great training tool to streamline practice with a buddy for everyone from bronze players to masters+.

Some examples of ways in which this mod can be used are:
Practice a build order
If you are not sure if you are vulnerable at a certain point in a build order you can go through it with a friend and test it against different responses without having to start a new game each time
If you are having trouble with a certain BO you can go back and practice that part of it without having to start a new game every time.

Practice holding timing attacks
have a friend do a marine SCV all in or 1-1-1 on you and save the game just before it hits, practice holding it off and then load the game back and practice it again and again.

redo battles
Have an epic 200vs200 fight? relive it and see which one of you can tip the battle in their favour better than the other person.
Lose 15 zerglings to a single baneling in ZvZ? Just load to before it happens and do better this time.

spawn positions
Some maps have advantages to races in different spawn locations. This map lets you chose both race and spawn location, then load back to the start and chose again.


I created a thread when the project was still in its Alpha stage of development asking people what they thought about it and it recieved a lot of very positive feedback.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=297534
Thank you people who were kind enough to test it out

I have released 5 maps so far with this mod
Blizzard maps:
SALT Antiga Shipyards
SALT Xel'Naga Caverns
SALT Shattered Temple

GSL maps:
SALT Crevasse

one of my own (NOTE: has not been balance tested, just one of my early attempts at map making):
SALT Bel'Shir swamp

If there is a map you would like to see have this mod then feel free to request it in the replies section.


HOW TO USE IT:
It is very simple to use.
1) In the "multiplayer" tab under "custom games" click on the button "create game".
Search for "SALT" and there will be a number of maps with the "SALT" prefix.

2) set the game speed to what you are comfortable with.

3) Get another player to join or add an AI opponent and start the game

4) Once in the game there will be icons at each spawn location on the map. Chose your
race and starting location by clicking on one of the race symbols or Xel'naga tower to
chose random. (AI location is chosen automatically)

5) You are now free to play a normal game

6) Type "save" any time to save the game state and select which slot to save to. Unfortunately control groups cannot be saved automatically but you can press the keyboard keys '0-9' to manually select which control groups to save. Click the button that says "done" and your game will resume as normal.

7) Type "load" any time you want and you can chose which saved game slot to load to. You and your opponent will now be back at the exact point as when you saved the game earlier!

Short comings / Where is this mod going in the future?
Please keep in mind that this is only the first publicly announced release of this mod. I will continue to work on it fixing problems that may arise and making it better.

Some spells with a duration or effects are not saved (psi storm, fungal growth, nukes, neural parasite, concussive shell slowness effect, corruption and probably a few others). So loading a game to mid way through a large, hi tech battle may not be 100% accurate to when the game was saved. For this reason it is better to save/load games before large engagements. This may be fixed later in patches. Note that summoned units/abilities ARE saved correctly, so force fields, point defense drones, broodlings etc all save/load correctly.

While you can play this mod against the computer, when you load back to an earlier point in the game this can sometimes confuse the heck out of the AI (such as loading back to the start of the game and the computer doing the infamous and deadly build of "6 assimilator, 6 assimilator, 8 macro nexus in main base")

I will be looking into custom AI's that people have created to see which of the custom AI's can better handle the disruption of jumping around in time.

Currently the game is not saved onto a users hard drive but kept in memory. This means that if a player leaves the game that data is erased. Now that I have the save/load functionality to the point where I am happy with it I will begin working to enable players to store their game state as a file and share it with others to play. I think this would be very good for coaches/streamers/casters to be able to share a file with their viewers that they can load up midway through a game against an opponent and try out different possibilities or as a challenge to try and turn the tides of a battle.

I sincerely hope that people find this to be a useful training tool. I do not have the connections to know if top players would find this to be useful as I would like to know how they would improve it. But whether you are a bronze or GM player and either love or hate it (as long as you can give constructive reasons as to why you hate it) then I look forward to hearing your responses.

Thank you for your time,
Turtles.
character code = 734 (US) / 601 (SEA)

Quick Comments

	Mayo:
	Flamga:	Pretty awesome man good job!
	Mox:
	Rockstar:	Good job mate ;)
	Nadir:	So amazing! Please keep this up!
	mGGDaedalus:	awesome
	nirvAnA:
	lolwut:	EPICCCCCDC
	syfChadMann:	I like Turtles

[Mayo]

Nice!
10char

[Frogmite]

For those who don't know Turtles, he's a map maker on SEA servers.

He made some of the maps used in PRACBUD Contests.

Turtles.

Welcome on sc2sea.

[turtles]

Originally Posted by Frogmite

For those who don't know Turtles, he's a map maker on SEA servers.

He made some of the maps used in PRACBUD Contests.

Turtles.

Welcome on sc2sea.

You guys used one of my maps in one of your contests? I knew you were asking but I didn't realise it actually happened.


Anyway, thanks for the welcome.

[xGKingdelete]

wow, looks awesome

[TADivinity]

Ohhhhh I remember Warcraft 3 actually had this embedded automatically (Wow...really goes to show how many steps backward they took with Battle.net 2.0...)

Could be very helpful for practice indeed! ^^

[TidaL]

would be cool for two GMs (example) to save before crucial battle than share it with public to see if a bronze (example) play can change the result etc.

It would be cool to play better or win an engagment that PuMa or MC failed to do.

[mGGDaedalus]

This could be very helpful for practice, but I'm more excited about the potential for tournament use. If there was a way to auto-save every few minutes without causing game lag, imagine how awesome that would be when in a tournament when a player gets disconnected mid-game.

Quick Comments

IcedTea:

That would be HEAPS useful.

[Rageboredguy]

Originally Posted by FaDeJoshboy

This could be very helpful for practice, but I'm more excited about the potential for tournament use. If there was a way to auto-save every few minutes without causing game lag, imagine how awesome that would be when in a tournament when a player gets disconnected mid-game.

Wow, yeah, didn't even think of that, would be so much better then either starting again or just losing because of a shitty net. Worst case scenario, in an important game (finals) an admin could just save every few minutes, assuming it doesn't lag too bad. I'm starting to get the feeling this will take over regular maps for practice and maybe even tourneys.

Very nice turtles

[ETL.Branno]

but what if it saves then 1 minute later dt show up and the opponent has no detection, if the power goes out you cant really load that back up cuz he will just get detection and thats just one example, players are always scouting for info. so really you would need to save like every second and i doubt that's even possible.

[FaDeBadger]

Originally Posted by branno

but what if it saves then 1 minute later dt show up and the opponent has no detection, if the power goes out you cant really load that back up cuz he will just get detection and thats just one example, players are always scouting for info. so really you would need to save like every second and i doubt that's even possible.

Only if that person checks the replay in between restarts, which I believe is against the etiquette if not the rules of almost every major tournament out there.

[dippa]

Originally Posted by FaDeBadger

Only if that person checks the replay in between restarts, which I believe is against the etiquette if not the rules of almost every major tournament out there.

is this really enforceable for online play though?

[mGGDaedalus]

Originally Posted by branno

but what if it saves then 1 minute later dt show up and the opponent has no detection, if the power goes out you cant really load that back up cuz he will just get detection and thats just one example, players are always scouting for info. so really you would need to save like every second and i doubt that's even possible.

Well those kind of scenarios would fall under admin discretion, maybe a reload feature wouldn't be ideal in every scenario. But I still think it would be awesome to have the option available for when it's viable.

[Rageboredguy]

I think he means what happens if the DT is revealed just before the d/c but 1 minute after the save.

One player would have one minute to get detection before the DT shows up again in the loaded game. I suppose it would be possible to use admin discretion to get to a point where neither player is at a disadvantage, but this provides a lot of ambiguity.

[FaDeBadger]

Oh right, I think in that case it would be simple enough for the admins to say it's a rematch. At the very least using this would be no worse than the current system as the admins would have to make that decision anyway.

[iM yang]

amazing idea, will definately use this, great job!

[turtles]

to people talking about tournament use for disconnects:
some bright person mentioned to me that instead of saving every 2 minutes or whatever there is actually a trigger for "player x leaves the game" which should fire when a player lags out. If one player leaves the other usually gets victory but this can be dissabled.

When a player leaves the game their units stay in the game!

So if player1 drops out due to lag then player2s game client will detect the drop and create a save point file. They can then use that file to pick up where they left off.

unfortunately units stop what they are doing when a player leaves so all player 1's units will be idle and they would probably lose their control group set up... but it's better than nothing.

This is in the hypothetical future though. There is still work to be done to get it to the point where it could do that.

[Daboo]

They had save/load for multiplayer in broodwar. Being the noobs were were, our games would go on for more than an hour with little attacks, and then we would save and continue the next weekend..bu if we though the game was too tense, or one of us accepted the other watched the replay it would be a draw

The problem with it in a tournament is that a player might check the replay in between, (it would be against the rules...but then so is copying/bitting in an exam.. ). And whats more, once a person gets disconnected, the game goes onto to the score screen, and that will give you some sort of info on the position of the player.

It would probably have to be done in code...prevent the game from going to the score screen, save state of the player and then to play again, create a game with the initial settings set to the state of the saved game. The system saves replays, so it would have information about every single thing thats happening in the game, but a disconnect really throws you out of the environment, and it's going to be pretty tough to remember exactly where you left off, if you changed rally points etc,where your units are going, how your multiple drops are getting along...do it really isnt viable in a tournament scenario.

[PiG]

This would b hawt. Excited yo!

[Rageboredguy]

Just noticed this video, i thought it sounded a bit farmiliar...

You Tube

You Tube