Chapter Two: Fundamental Unit Statistics

Reference: Arsenal III: Units Editor: Advanced

Special Ability Flags [check boxes]: These check boxes tell Starcraft whether or not to give a unit a certain property. If you check a box, the unit will have that property. If you uncheck it, it will no longer have that property. Most of the properties here do exactly what they say they do (i.e., Detector gives the unit the ability to detect cloaked units), but some are a little less obvious. Here are some explanations:

• Building - This property, as it suggests, makes the unit a "building." Basically, that means it can not move around like "men" and is usually stationary (Terran buildings can fly of course). Resources like Mineral Fields also have this property. That is because they are "structures" of a kind. Giving a unit this property basically makes them a stationary, non-"man" unit.
  
• Addon - This property makes this unit a Terran add-on building. Checking it will not give you the ability to automatically attach this unit to a Command Center or anything, in fact, it probably will have no noticeable effect unless you allow a CC to build it with Stargraft. It basically only "works" for buildings that are already add-ons. (Disabling it on a current add-on will have the CC try to build it "normally" like an SCV would)
  
• Flyer - This property gives the unit the ability to fly. In other words, it can walk over all other units and all types of Terrain. However, simply checking this box does not make the unit "look like" it is flying. When not moving, it will still look like it is on the ground and will not be elevated above its shadow (you have to tweak the images.dat and iscript.bin to correct that). Still, it will have the ability to fly just as much. Any unit can be given this property without any major problems.
  
• Worker - This property tells Starcraft that this unit is a "peon" type man (like an SCV, probe, or drone). It is probably used for internal purposes and thus does not have a noticeable effect give you give it to, say, a marine.
  
• Subunit - This property makes the unit a "sub-unit," or, in other words, part of another unit (like the tank turret to the tank body). It is only used for the "turret" units such as the tank turret, Goliath turret, and siege tank turret. To have a sub-unit properly placed on a unit, you also require altering the images.dat properties of the base sprite.
  
• Flying Building - This is the property that allows Terran buildings to fly. You can give it to any building, but it will not give it a button you can press to make it lift off (that requires Stargraft editing, and an additional iscript animation if the building doesn't already have one). You can disable it on Terran buildings so they may no longer lift off (they will retain the lift off button, but pressing it won't do anything).
  
• Hero - This property makes the unit a Hero unit. Basically, a Hero unit gets a white wire-frame box when you select it instead of a blue one. It also gets all it's technologies (like spells and abilities) automatically researched for it. That's why Heroes like Raynor (vulture) start out with spider mines and Tassadar (templar) starts out with Psi Storm and Hallucination before you even research them. This property can be given to any unit. The Hero property will not prevent you from building a unit (i.e., a Hero marine can still be trained at a Barracks, it will just automatically start with Stimpack now).
  
• Regenerates HP - This property makes the unit slowly recharge its hit points just like Zerg units. It does not speed up shield recharging. Any unit can have HP regeneration.
  
• Animated Idle - This property is kind of unknown. (the iscript handles idle animations)
  
• Cloakable - This property is what allows wraiths and ghosts to cloak. While you can give it to any unit, the unit will not receive a cloaking button so it really will have no effect. You can disable it on wraiths and ghosts (or their Hero counterparts) to prevent them from using their cloak ability. They will still maintain their button, but it won't do anything.
  
• 2 units in 1 egg - This property is what makes 2 zerglings or 2 scourges come out of one egg. You can apply it to any zerg man to have it spawn 2 units for each egg (i.e., if you check it on an Ultralisk, you'll get 2 Ultralisks from each egg they hatch from). It does not double the cost of the unit, but will double the food the unit(s) need (since there are 2 of them now).
  
• Neutral Accessories - This property is for powerups. It basically allows the unit to be picked up by any worker type unit.
  
• Resource Depot - This property makes a building a resource depot. A resource depot is a place where workers can return resources to, like Command Centers, Nexus', and Hatcheries.
  
• Contains Gas - This property makes a unit contain vespene gas (like vespene geysers, refineries, assimilators, and extractors). I don't believe it will have much effect on other buildings since only those buildings can be built on top of a geyser anyway.
  
• Robotic Unit - This property makes Protoss units "robotic." Some spells only effect robotic units.
  
• Detector - This property allows a unit to be a "detector" and see cloaked units (like observers and missile turrets). It also displays detector under the unit's name when you select it in the control panel.
  
• Organic Unit - This property tells Starcraft that the unit is "organic," or living (like marines, zerglings, and zealots). This is opposed to non-organic units like tanks and scouts. Basically, is property determines whether this unit will be affected by certain spells or not. For example, maelstrom only effects organic units. So, if you check this box, the unit will be affected by maelstrom. (This property only applies to men, not buildings)
  
• Creep Building - This property makes it so you mush build the building on creep, like most Zerg buildings. It will also get a creep "outline" around it even if it's not on creep (like zerg buildings when all the creep around them it gone). Any buildings may have this property.
  
• Unused - This is unused. It doesn't do anything.
  
• Requires Psi - This property requires the unit to be built in a PSI field, like that produced by pylons (the blue ellipse). If the building is not in a PSI field, it will become "disabled" and not function (like Protoss buildings when not in the range of a pylon). You can give this property to any building. You can also disable it on Protoss buildings so they can be built anywhere.
  
• Burrowable - This property allows the unit to burrow. However, it does not give the unit a burrow button; to do that you must use Stargraft. You can disable it on, say, a zergling so it will no longer be able to burrow. It will retain the burrow button, but it won't do anything.
  
• Spellcaster - this property gives the unit an energy bar (mainly for spell casting units like a ghost or templar). All magic bars start out with 200 magic. If specifically upgraded, it will increase to 250. Any unit may have a 200 point mana bar.
  
• Permanent Cloak - this property makes the unit permanently cloaked like dark templars. There is no way to decloak the unit. This property can be given to any man. NOTE: Permanently cloaked units will not regenerate energy.
  
• NPC/accessories - this is another powerup property. It allows the powerup to be picked up by certain players' workers (defined by starcraft). For example, the flag has this property checked, so as to determine whose workers can pick up the flag in CTF games. If Neutral accessories [See above] is also checked, then it can be picked up by any player's worker.
  
• Morph from other unit - This property is for zerg units like Guardians and lurkers which morph from other units (a guardian morphs from a mutalisk and a lurker morphs from a hydralisk). Giving a unit this property will not automatically make it come from some other unit.
  
• Large Unit ??? - Kind of unknown.
  
• Huge Unit ??? - Kind of unknown.
  
• Auto attack and move - This property makes the unit automatically move up to and attack enemy units that it can sees and attack. Almost all men have this property checked. It is usually combined with the Attack property below.
  
• Attack - This property makes the unit attack enemy units that are within its range. Most units have this property combined with Auto attack and move above. Some buildings like missile towers only have Attack checked because they can not move.
  
• Invincible - This property makes the unit (you guessed it) invincible. That means the unit can not be attacked and can not be the target of any spells or any other action. The unit basically becomes invulnerable (it also makes Starcraft no longer display its hit points).
  
• Mechanical - This property defines the unit as a machine type unit. If the unit is also Terran, that means SCVs can repair it (like Terran buildings, tanks, and vultures). If it is a man unit (non-building) it means it can be the target of certain "machine" spells like lock-down. Any unit can be made mechanical.
  
• Produces Units - This value is kind of unknown.