I’ve been playing Stetmann to get to P2, and I forgot how good some of his units/upgrades were.
Obviously the Zergling shield is great, but the Lurker ability where it rushes forward to deal damage on its path is surprisingly good for ground comps.
The only gripe I have with him is how much lag I have with him. I believe it was agreed to be because of his Stetallites. The solution is to get a better computer that can process this CPU usage, like Stukov, but I would like the devs to focus and fix this issue, again also including Stukov, after all this time.
Would be hard to fix Stukov as each of his infested has their own pathing AI, but hopefully it can be easier to fix Stetlag.
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As far as I understand it, it seems to be based on how the units interact with the Stetelites, with the engine being made for competitions it’s very accurate and tries to get things as close as possible.
So with the idea of rewriting the engine to work on late 2010s hardware instead of late 2000s hardware out the window, perhaps a good solution would be to limit the amount of times the game checks if the units are properly under the effects of the Stetelites.
Basically, my theory is if they only called in every couple of seconds there should be much less a load on the CPU. Obviously this would mean that they’d benefit outside the zone somewhat, but it being a calm coop experience I don’t see this really being an issue. Maybe it wouldn’t make much a difference, but it makes sense in my head at least.
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If that’s the case, I wonder how differently Stetallites are programmed from Creep Tumours that give bonuses. If someone, say Kerrigan, planted a bunch of them, why don’t they cause lag like Stetallites?
I like the idea of the CPU not checking as often as it should, instead giving a lingering effect of the bonus until it’s checked again.
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Again, take with a grain of salt, but I’m pretty sure creep is baked into the game engine. So it’s less computer intensive, since it’s not applying a buff in so much as it’s just using the unit’s “on creep” values instead.
In Kerri’s case, I’d be willing to guess it just applies an upgrade to said creep values for units as soon as the game starts. It would be no different from Combat Shields giving Marines 10 hp.
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I’ve been playing Stetmann for a while now and the thing that causes the lag, are the buffs from stetelite overcharge, ie. the attack speed, shields and energy regen.
In my experience it especially seems to be connected to the size of the units that are being buffed (shields especially), i get the most lag when playing with an Abathur partner with huge units, altho the locusts from swarm hosts probably affect it too, but i get more lag with Abathur’s late game army, than i do with a Stukov partner with hordes of infested.
I’m told it’s a result of both players. Aka, if your partner has crappy hardware then that will also affect you, which does seem to be the case considering the same mission and commander ran run butter smooth for me at times but really chug at other times. Not sure how this happens.
Wish I did get royalties for Stetlag 
. Wishful thinking but yeah please fix it.
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I could start calling FaerrLagg if you’d like, could confuse the youngins though.
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That Stetlag is the main reason why me and my buddy stop playing him. If one of us plays stetmann, the other should not pick han&horner and stukov since these 2 commanders also can cause lag.
I think it’s setup dependent as well. My laptop has no problems with H&H and Zagara, but Stetmann and Stukov lags pretty bad. Stetmann is the worst.
Greatly increase radius of satellites (less satellites, units pass through less auras from different satellites).
Make satellites invulnerable (amon AI will no longer constantly give attack commands on satellites and then recalculate pathing towards your bases).
Replace prestige 1 with something actually interesting.
Right now Prestige 1 for stettman is reducing lag and tedious satellite spreading… that should be baseline quality of life for default stetmann.
Edit: yes your game lag in coop depends on your partner pc hardware.
My friend has weak pc and with him its horrible playing stetmann or stukov.
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Make satellites invulnerable ( amon AI will no longer constantly give attack commands on satellites and then recalculate pathing towards your bases ).
I didn’t know that Amon’s AI constantly gave attack commands on Stetallites. I thought it was just a simple attack move towards a location, and if a Stetallite is in the way, they simply attack it along the way. Compared to Contaminated Strike’s Fear where if you use it, the enemy wave does not attack move towards your base after Fear is over. Unless I’m recalling incorrectly.
kerrigans malignant creep affects unit regeneration. it even affects allied protoss units. the stetalites applies a constant buff but, all of stetmanns units use unique skins. skins usually disabled when playing with the number of players present in co-op, in multiplayer. think that is what is causing the lag. one option is to make the skins only appear to players that have set graphics settings on high or more.
You see it as a simple attack move but the AI recalculates priorities and pathing for every unit every time it enters or exits combat.
Since stetmann has so many satellites across the whole map Amon often comes into conflict with them.
And since sc2 uses only one CPU core for many calculations such as pathing it all breaks down to a crawl.
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It’s unlikely that it’s the GPU causing the intense lag for the majority of people, it’s extremely unlikely that it’s the skins causing the issues as well. A different model is just a different model, it’s not like it’s rendering the new model on top of the old one.
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There is a number of things that contribute to the Stettlag. The first is the Stettellites. Second is on-activation and particle-heavy abilities (Adrenal Glands + Hardened Shield, Cluster Buster Rockets, etc. etc.) Having to render all of the Stettzones and run all the constant calculations is what causes the lag.
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From what I notice most of the lag comes from a few things. Specifically zerg commanders and enemies.
Zerg creep, the more it is spread the worse the lag gets. Similarly more hatcheries can add to the lag. Both I assume are due to extra units, being creep tumors and larvae. Some units themselves can be extra problematic if they attack very quickly or have special effects.
Especially considering that most other commanders use different skins and have no issues. What’s more, disabling Stetmann’s skins is not even remotely possible, as his units are completely different units with their own default models… Nor would it be desirable in the slightest, as it would ruin the theme on low graphics.
The models are not the problem; either the means by which things are calculated and rendered must be optimized, or Stetallites must be given super-cloak. If neither of these are done, there will be no solution to the problem.
I do have one question, though; why do regular Creep Tumors cause less of an issue?
Because they aren’t in plain sight. They’re all under a technical cloak until revealed. So the AI has to make less calculations until they spot one, kill it, move on. With Stettellites, they’re always in vision, so they want to go after anything and everything that is an enemy within range.
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Does that matter in cases where the enemy has detection? Or is there some kind of subtle distinction?
Would it make a huge difference if Stetmann’s Stetallites were given 50 health and permanent cloaking? (This would make them functionally identical to Creep Tumors.)