SC2Mapster

Three days of messing around and I can't seem to get this Instant AOE spell to work.

I'm making a large, acidic explosion instant for a zerg unit. I just want to be able to press the Hotkey, and boom, acid spews from the caster.

I first got the "Target must be enemy" warning. So I set Stats: Range - 0.

Now I get the warning, "Friendly unit cannot be target."

Every tutorials I've found are all about Passive Aura/AOE's, but none for instants. I'm still new at this, so I think I'm lacking in how to search effectively for the answer. Any help or a useful tutorial link would be appreciated.

I believe this is what your looking for.

http://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/development/data/16179-must-target-a-unit/

Thanks! But I still am getting stuck! Now I press the ability button/hotkey and nothing happens at all.

Is there ANY instant-effect tutorial? I can't find seem to find a single one.

I actually could not find one either but I can look again later today. Can you just copy the baneling ability and set it to do-0-damge/not-kill the baneling?

The only things you would need to do would be

• Create Damage effect
  
• Set Damage Amount
  
• Specify an Area, remember to set the Radius and Fraction parameters
  
• Specify a Target Filter (otherwise you hit allies, yourself, missiles, invulnerable units etc etc...)
  
• Set the Target field to Source Point (this should fix the "Target must be enemy" error)
  
• Create Ability, type Effect - Instant
  
• Link to your Damage effect.

and add an appropriate Actor of course, but I would worry about that, once the damage is working.

@ Sab - I tried that actually! But I think my own imcompetence led to that not working so well. I'm better at building from the ground up than modifying pre-made abilities. Good suggestion though.

@ Kue, thanks a lot. Haven't tried it yet, but I think your simple breakdown has let me see my errors. I'll let you know soon how it works out. Should I make a separate EFFECT - Search Area for this ability? Or just the damage and use the embedded Search Filters therein?

This site is great. My friends and I are so amped for this map to work. Thanks to all of you.

Quote from ElWarmachine: Go

Should I make a separate EFFECT - Search Area for this ability? Or just the damage and use the embedded Search Filters therein?

That depends. Both work and have their advantages. If you use a search effect, you can easily execute multiple effects on your targets via a Set effect. This can be used to apply secondary effects, like a slow or damage over time.
If you use a damage effect, you can easily specify multiple damage areas with different damage factors, this is useful for causing more damage the closer you are to the center of the explosion. If you need both, you can combine the 2.

Heh, you have 2 posts total, but already 3 in this thread. Forum bugs ftw :D

@Kue, Outstanding. I'm learning so much.

So, I got it all working. I did manage to get the Baneling Model to work, too. But even though I'm not using the Baneling EFFECTS, the attack is still causing the unit to harm himself. I'm sure I can figure it out with some tooling around, but if there's a quick fix let me know.

And what part of Germany are you from? I was stationed there for 3 years.

Tried that. Just says something along the lines of "Caster cannot be targeted." I'm going to re-make from scratch and see what happens.

Where is "Target Filter?"

I see Search Filters, Target Sorts+, Target Impact Location, Search: Search Filters....

@DrSuperEvil: Go

Still nothing. Will keep trying to mess with it.

Switch to XML view and paste all the content of your damage effect, so we can see, whats wrong (or just attach an example map)

@Kueken531: Go

I don't know how you guys read this sh*t. lol But please enlighten me if you can.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> <Catalog> <CAbilEffectInstant id="CorrosiveBurst"> <EditorCategories value="AbilityorEffectType:Units"/> <Cost> <Vital index="Energy" value="100"/> <Cooldown TimeUse="3"/> </Cost> <CmdButtonArray index="Execute" DefaultButtonFace="CorrosiveBurst"/> </CAbilEffectInstant>

<CActorAction id="CorrosiveBurst" parent="GenericAttack" effectAttack="" effectImpact=""> <EditorCategories value=""/> <On index="0" Terms="Effect.Stop; FromEffectTreeDescendant" Send="ActionImpactPhysics"/> <On index="1" Terms="Effect.Start; FromEffectTreeDescendant" Send="ActionImpact"/> <On index="2" Terms="Effect.Stop; FromEffectTreeDescendant" Send="ActionImpactPhysics"/> <On index="5" Terms="Effect.Start; At Caster" Send="Create"/> <On Terms="Abil.CorrosiveBurst.SourceCastStart" Send="AnimPlay Attack Attack,Default"/> <LaunchAssets Model="CorrosiveAcid" Scale="3.000000"/> <Missile value="CorrosiveAcidImpactModel"/> <ImpactMap index="None" Model="CorrosiveAcidImpact" Sound="Aberration_Death"/> </CActorAction> <CActorSound id="CorrosiveBurstSound" parent="SoundOneShot"> <EditorCategories value=""/> <On Terms="Abil.CorrosiveBurst.SourceCastStart" Send="Create"/> <Sound value="Brutalisk_Roar"/> </CActorSound>

Check this sh*t out. This wasn't all red before.

Would the IGNORE FILTERS help with this problem?

@Kueken531: Go

So, I finally started from scratch and remade the ability!

It works fine now! No friendly damage! I think I was doing things out of order, and that's what muffed things up.

Also, I used Validators instead of Filters so far. I know I still have to figure in missiles, dead, stasis, etc, but it does for now.

Final question for this thread. I need to attach an Actor in the form of an acidic explosion to it. Where to from here?

You have multiple options to do so. Easiest would probably be creating a new Model actor, based on ModelAnimationStyleOneShot (careful, we need the one without spaces). Change the Art - Model field to some acidic explosion you like, then open the Events + and add the following event:

• Effect.YourDamageEffect.Start
  
  • ->At Effect
    
  • Create

Other options include an Action actor, which can be easily set up to use impact models, sounds, damage models attached to units which got hit etc. You can take a look at the Siege Tank's Sieged Attack to see, how this is handled. Its slightly more complicated, though.