Staredit Network > Forums > SC1 UMS Mapmaking Assistance > Topic: Making beacons totally unselectable / Alternate beacon ideas
Making beacons totally unselectable / Alternate beacon ideas
Apr 8 2026, 11:46 pm
By: Prankenstein  

Apr 8 2026, 11:46 pm Prankenstein Post #1



I have searched and scoured for a solution to this to absolutely no avail.

Context:
The map is Team Micro Arena Legends. Jungle - 64x64. I'm with the group that have maintained the map for well over a decade. Dozens of beacons are placed in order to select units. Those beacons are disabled/cloaked, so you only see the blinking overlay and you can't select the beacon. This is perfect.

Problem:
Players frequently get detectors that ruin the benefits of disabling the beacon. When detected, you can click the beacon and it's super annoying. We don't want beacons to be clickable/selectable, because they alter pathing, and in a high intensity game, that could mean the difference between a win/loss. It's obvious why this occurs, same for any cloaked unit.

Ideal solution:
If there was an EUD or other setting that would make the beacon completely unselectable, as if it's a pure sprite. From what I've searched, this does not seem to be possible without modding the images.dat file

Rejected solutions:

- Using a pure sprite: The display units that sit anywhere on the top half of the beacon, are layered BELOW the beacon, not above of it. Looks super crazy and there's no great way to position the units otherwise.

- Use other pure sprites in place of the beacons: Same problem as above and there's really no great replacement for a good ole beacon. Most the viable effect sprites crash the game and I tried the green selection circle sprite but it's too small. The start location sprite is too large. Making a circle with nuke dots wasn't bad but requires too many sprites

- Use terrain to replace the beacons: I could not find or make a good isometrical blend of tiles that looks as inviting and professional as a beacon. I could use rectangular terrain tiles but it really clashes with the rest of the map that is classically isometrical. (This is where I'm leaning personally but the rest are purists who hate the look and feel of it)



If someone could add some thoughts, ideas, or insights into this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.



None.

Apr 17 2026, 2:51 am Prankenstein Post #2



For anyone interested, I found the solution to this. It required EUD, which I find to be the only tradeoff. I used EUD Editor to accomplish it.

The gist:

Door type units cannot be selected. So I used EUD Editor to change the appearance of the "Left Pit Door" to use the "Terran Beacon" graphic.


Details (using Data Editor in EUD Editor 3):

[Left Pit Door]
Graphics tab -> Click "Left Pit Door" -> Change to "Terran Beacon" (the main visual change)
Graphics tab -> Unit Size + Create Size -> All 6 values set to 1 (this allows the door to behave like a beacon without interfering with pathing)
Map Editor tab -> Check "Unit Listing & Palette" (this is what allows door type units to even be created via triggers in the first place)


General note: Edits done to units within the Data Editor ONLY apply to newly created units, not pre-placed units.



None.

Options
  Back to forum
Please log in to reply to this topic or to report it.
Members in this topic: None.
[03:07 pm]
UndeadStar -- https://staredit.net/topic/18961/ <= wow, if there wasn't a capital letter on almost every word in the title, and a link in the signature, I may not have guesses it's an AI bot. I don't know much about map editing, but the content may even be relevant enough to be kept.
[04:16 am]
lil-Inferno -- fart screen
[2026-11-09. : 3:49 pm]
NudeRaider -- Ultraviolet
Ultraviolet shouted: :wob: maybe not replaced, just add a discord applet below the shoutbox imo
split screen. Left side shoutbox, right side discord meme channel
[2026-11-08. : 10:23 pm]
Ultraviolet -- :wob: maybe not replaced, just add a discord applet below the shoutbox imo
[2026-11-08. : 9:24 pm]
O)FaRTy1billion[MM] -- :wob:
[2026-11-08. : 6:20 pm]
Symmetry -- :wob:
[2026-11-08. : 4:53 pm]
UndeadStar -- but what would happen to the :wob: chains?
[2026-11-08. : 10:38 am]
ihjel -- The shoutbox should be replaced with a live feed of the discord so the side doesn't look as dead.
[2026-11-07. : 3:22 am]
Symmetry -- because there's also Starforge 2 and chkdraft
[2026-11-07. : 3:22 am]
Symmetry -- oh that's the one that was linked
Please log in to shout.


Members Online: O)FaRTy1billion[MM], RIVE, Dem0n, armitage