SC2Mapster

Okay,

so I'm trying to have two kinds of spine crawlers. One of them is the stock spine crawler and works perfectly. The other is a duplicate with different stats. However, when I duplicate the spine crawler, after duplicating the turret, the missile and having every field in every actor point to the correct thing, I still have problems. When the duplicated Spine Crawler attacks, the attack animation is played, but it's all wonky. The tentacle attacks the target, but when retracting it doesn't go back to it's original position normally, it instead drags itself backwards, keeping its head pointed at the ground until it gets close to the base of the spine crawler, then snaps back into its default position instantly.

Basically, it animates, but the animation is wrong.

Has anyone ever run into this? Is there some kind of guide to duplicating spine crawler, because I thought I understood actors well enough until this happened...

@nagnazul: Go

An additional explanation; the duplicated spine crawler, when attacking a large building like a hatchery, will not poke the outside of the building and pull back - instead, it will clip through the building to attack the center of the building, then move back into its default position.

Quote from zeldarules28: Go

Couldn't you use the same turret, actor, and everything but just make it stronger? Well it still needs its own actor I guess, but you can duplicate that one.

I am duplicating actors, that's what's causing the problems. The duplicated actors don't behave correctly.

I've tried going step-by-step, only duplicating the barest minimum and checking after every change. I can't get both spine crawlers functioning properly at the same time - whenever I create a new projectile unit and assign it to be used, the spine crawler's attack animation goes wonky and starts clipping through things.

Has anyone ever successfully duplicated a spine crawler? If so, please post or PM me, you'd be a tremendous help.

Quote from DrSuperEvil: Go

Sometimes when you dupe actors the events dont dupe fully and you need to set some of the target fields manually. A good example of this is the collossus beam. With the attacking the center of the building that is probably due to wonky site operations for the impact or target. I have not yet tried to make a tentacle but I vaguely remember the one event specifying the impact target.

Also look up the Uberlisk Tutorial since they seem to get the tentacles working.

I repeated what you did and found that under the SpineCrawlerAttackMissile (Unnamed) Copy actor you need to change Hosting - Host Return - Effect and Hosting - Host Supporter - Effect to the copy of the Launch Missile effect to get it working. I am still trying locate the cause of your visual problems

Been using homology studies and found under the Actor SpineCrawlerAttack (Unnamed) the far bottom event Effect.ImpalerTentacleLM.Start>At Caster>Create is one of the causes.

The SpineCrawlerAttackMissile (Unnamed) actor is a fault through it's communication with the Launch Missile effect. I will look into more detail tomorrow.

Are you seeing the same problem as me, though?

I do remember changing both Hosting Effects fields, and checking again they do refer to the correct effect. Same with the SpineCrawlerAttack event, the event is triggered by the duplicated effect.

Huh.

I'm still trying to fix this spine crawler animation, but all I've succeeded in doing is giving it three different tentacles. The animation is still all wonky.

@DrSuperEvil: Go

Great, thank you very much for helping me out!

@DrSuperEvil: Go

Thank you! I'll try it out right now.

@nagnazul: Go

just changed those two fields - it's a big improvement, the tentacle pokes at the right spot and retracts properly!

One small thing though - after attacking, the idle tentacle keeps staring at the same point, it doesn't do its "idle" animation and doesn't turn whenever the turret fidgets.

EDIT: it also has a hilarious effect when I unburrow the spine crawler - the head of the tentacle stays in the same spot no matter when I move the crawler, so the neck keeps stretching and stretching forever.

EDIT2: Yeah, I think the patch introduced this bug. The earlier versions didn't do this.

Edit3: Yeah, the copied spine crawler actor has a bunch of new events that point to the wrong things. Lovely....