[Trigger] Sensor Tower-like radar for Warcraft 3

[IronBladeClan]

I want to make a system that is reminiscent of (but not the same as) Starcraft 2's Radar, but I don't know how or if it's possible. Would someone be able to make this for me? I feel like it'd be useful to other people as well.

I've found examples and requests for this from 15+ years ago, but they all use the ping system (which has some problems I describe further down), and I was wondering if modern advancements since then could do a better job to make things appear similar to the normal minimap unit display, if not identical.

Some existing ideas or partial implementations I've found that don't do what I'm imagining:

• Searching Radar System | HIVE (uses pings)
• Radar Detect and Lost System | HIVE (uses pings)
• RADAR System | HIVE (uses pings)
• How to make a SC2 Radar System | HIVE (doesn't use the ping system, but isn't actually an implementation either, just an idea description)

This is my ideal vision:

• Works in both 1.27b and 2.04 - so preferably no Lua (even though I like Lua and don't want to learn Jass...)
• Doesn't use pings (and makes no sound), but rather looks similar to how units normally do on the minimap, like the little squares
• All detected units will display as the same size, including heroes - ideally as small as possible
• Only moving units will show up, so no buildings unless they're walking Ancients
• invisible units like the Shade will also show up as long as they're moving
• ideally, the ability would work for 2-5 seconds at a time, so, it should update positions in "real time" during that period (this is one reason why pings would be bad, since they'd go crazy when the units move, making lots of noise and making it hard to figure out where the units are)
• It shouldn't redundantly show friendly units or anything that's already visible (at least as far as the player is aware - if the implementation is made easier by it triggering on these things, that's fine, as long as it's not in the "final result"). Everything you can normally see should obviously still be visible ofc, just not visibly duplicated
• It should only work in a certain radius from the caster, that can be adjusted dynamically (example: 3000, but should be a variable that can be changed, e.g. to 4000 if some other condition is met)
• Ideally: the radius it works in should passively display on the owner's/allies' minimap (perhaps via minimap replacement that draws a circle on the map) as long as the unit with the ability is alive (think: for Sensor Towers, only as long as that tower exists)
• Units detected should disappear from the minimap after the ability ends (if they aren't visible by some other means)
• Obviously, revealed things should only be visible to players who share your vision, like you and allies
• There shouldn't be any visible indication of a scan through fog of war on the real map (such as revealing the area) - ONLY some effect that's visible to all players who can already see that part of the map at the time the ability becomes active - perhaps something like the Dalaran purple anti-magic field thing (I think other Reveal-type abilities like Far Sight also work this way - you can't see the indicator that someone used it unless you already have sight on the area they used it on) - in that case, a sound playing when the ability activates is fine, like with Far Sight, but only for people who have vision of the visual effect/some part of the map that's within the radius of effect (and are near enough to it that the sound physics system would make the sound audible)
• It should show detected units on the minimap as either a) the enemy team color or b) the exact color of the player they belong to (ideally adding both would be nice, since I can't decide which one I want, and other users might want to use one coloring scheme or the other that's different from me)
• Bonus: the color of detected units could change to match when you toggle your ingame player color settings (the colors you toggle next to the formation toggle by the minimap)
• Bonus: I wouldn't actually mind if some red dummy indicator shows up on the real map when the units are in fog of war, in particular if that makes the implementation easier, but I kind of like the positional fuzziness the minimap-only display gives, so having this would be more like an "acceptable" compromise rather than something actually desired - but other users might want it, so, I guess it could be an option