TLDR - Looking for people to point me in the right direction. I'd love to learn and do all of this myself but am having trouble getting the project off the ground
Good morning everyone,
Hello! I'm a longtime fan of 'tactical' RTS games like Company of Heroes, the Dawn of War games, etc. I'm planning to make a low-resource, tactical RTS map and would like some direction getting started. I did a lot of map design (mostly without custom rules) in SC:BW and Warcraft 3 but that information is way out of date in my head and I'm sadly not very familiar with the Galaxy Editor yet.
If you're interested in reading up on the broad strokes of the project, you can here
Ultimately, here's what I'd like to do:
Two custom factions, either of which a player can pick prior to entering the match (unless it's easier to just have them pick a faction once the match starts? either is OK with me)
A custom unit that builds buildings and trains the basic units for one faction. Unit summoning can be handled through 'spells' which I'm fairly confident I can pull off.
Either creating a custom resource, or renaming Minerals
Allowing resource nodes to be attacked and destroyed, and a damage type that can damage resources more than other damage types (I mostly want late game units to be good at killing resources). Ideally, resource HP would indicate the number of resources available in the node
After units die, they can be harvested for resources. However, I'd also like to implement a timer after a unit is killed, during which its resource value can only be harvested by the player who had owned it before it died.
I'd like to build a 3- part system for the Power 'resource' - a generator that works like the Xel Naga tower, a 'pad' with a set number of slots to build structures (think Halo Wars) and a series of 'nodes' or 'cable sections' that connect the two. Ideally, I'd like the player to be able to capture the generator, and then gain ownership of the nodes and pad. The nodes could be attacked and killed, and the generator could be captured. If EITHER the generator is captured or the nodes are destroyed, the entire system would 'unpower' like Protoss structures away from Pylons
Empty slots on Power pads would be able to recharge unit energy like Moonwells from WC3
many units would be able to upgrade into other units after the method of Archons or Zerglings
Some units could get upgrades that would completely change their weapon/attack type
if possible, some units would actually have multiple attacks. Alternately, I'll implement them as spells
Many upgrades and some structures would absolutely preclude other upgrades or structures. For instance, with the Gateway/Robo/Stargate model, after you build the Gateway, it unlocks the Robo and Stargate. But in this case, if you build a Robo it would not allow you to choose a Stargate, either for the rest of the match, or at least as long as you have a Robo. Also, if you research +damage you could not research +armor (these are just examples! I'm planning on implementing them in other ways in the game, but I thought these examples might help clarify the principle)
for some units, I'd like to have an effect applied as long as the unit has Power/Energy. Like, as long as the unit has energy, it deals more damage or its attack has an AoE. Then, when it runs out of Power, the effect disappears.
I'm not looking for anyone to do any of this for me. I'd love to do it myself, but seemingly simple things like creating new factions have thus far eluded me. All I'm looking for is for people to point me in the right direction
for number 2, im not sure about making a custom unit but you can give a unit the train ability and edit the command card to add in the related icons, set the command type to ability command, under that select the train ability u gave ur unit, and then under that select whatever unit it is. In a train ability, at the top of a units data is an icon part, that icon is what will need to be selected in the final part of setting up the command card. ive made a giant tank before that was used as a mobile barracks before and healed and repaired surrounding units.
for number 3 there is a custom resource but i do not know about editing their names or icons, but in triggers is where you set them to be avalibal. id use the regular starting Melee Initilization trigger for this. then you create a new action in it and in search type in resource and select show/hide resource. then you chose which resource you want to show. iirc the game can only have a max of 4 resources and i dont know how many resources you want to work with but thats how you go about unhiding the 2 extra resources custom and terrazine.
for number 4, im unsure about the last part... i figure there might be a way to tie that in somehow but i have no clue. but in the resource you want to edit, go to flags and uncheck invunurable and give them healthpoints. for making some attacks stronger agianst it go to attributes and give it an attribute you wont give to anything else in your map, for example, if you dont want any units dealing any special damage to psionic units then go through units that are psionic and remove psionic from their attribute and add psionic to the resource you want to have the attribute. then in your weapons effect add in a number on psionic. that will cause the unit to deal more damage agianst psionic targest and since only resources would be psionic then it would only be really good agianst them while just damaging others regular.
love the idea of number 5 and have messed around with a somewhat similer thing before. sorta similer anyway...
im not sure about keeping it only harvestable by a certain side for a set time but for your units you could give them a death effect that spawns in the resource you want it to harvest. it wouldnt look to good without skills in modeling and animation and things like that but for example you could have your resource model be a dead marine doodad and create a create unit effect and set it to spawn in 1 of the resource. then in the regular marine on the page you start on when you click it, it has effects on its main page and in death effects add in the create unit effect that spawns the dead marine resource. then when the marine dies he will die in whatever animation it is and will also spawn in the dead marine resource. it will look kinda odd and without the skills or knowledge would have a ton of exact same marines everywhere and it wouldnt make sense for tanks or the like... but thats a basic idea on how one could do that.
for 6, i always have trouble getting capturing to work right. but and example to do what you are wanting sorta. take a pylon and for the example we will have it neutral since its idealy what you want and give it the capture tower ability from the xel tower but in target filters for the ability remove exlude structure and change that to allow, and give it a build ability. for example will give it protoss warp in ability and do the same as with the train ability i explained earlyer adding in the buildings in the command card. so now say on the map there is the neutral pylon, you walk a unit to the nutral pylon and it is captured and on ur side. now clicking on it with its build you can build whatever you have it set to build, since it cant move it can only really build at things touching so idk about the scale or footprints you would use but structures around it would keep it under your control until they where all destroyed at which point it would go back to neutral.
although actually i can think of one way you could do the pads and cables though that i can think of is copying the capture tower ability a couple of times changing ones filter to require something that only the tower would give off (say psionic) and requiring structure and the other copy to require something that only the cords would give off (say summond) and require structure and make a network of them out from the core. so say the pylon is just a supply depo raised with small supply depos that are lowered leading away from it ending in 6 bigger scaled lowered supply depos. the supply cords would use the first copy capture tower ability and the filter would instead have require psionic and would give out summond (examples) and the 6 larger pads would use the 2nd copy and instead filtered for summond. so you capture the depo core and it has the psionic attribute so that goes down the cords activating their summond attribute for the person who owns the core to the pads at the end. the 6 larger depos at the end that give off a powerfield like a pylon and have the build ability and ui changes needed. you would need to set what buildings you want there to be specifically build there. for example copy the barracks and on its page give it the behavior poweruser go to built on and select whatever your larger depo pad would be called and in the larger depo pads ui you would add the building same as with the pylon earlyer and the unit that trains units before that so that the pad could build structures ontop of itself.
Then when you capture the core depo its psionic attribute activates the cords and their summond attribute activates the pads at the end. the pads give off a power field and the buildings that they can make need a power field. so say the enemy comes in and kills off your core guards, the cords should lose the psionic they needed which should cause them to fall back into neutral and cause the pads at the end to become neutral w/o the summond attribute which should shut off the power field being owned by you causing your buildings on it to depower. im unsure about destroying the pads to lose the core however. if it was just one pad connected to the core then i could sorta work out a way where the buildings destruction resulted in lose of the core. but baring that there is likely a way to do that with triggers but i try not to go into "if not or if so and" or whatever it is.
for 7, create a search area and apply behavior effect and a behavior that is a buff. make the search area something that is the size of the pad, tbh thats alot of hit and miss trial and error. then set the effect of the search area to the apply behavior effect. and in the apply behavior effect select the behavior made to be applied. in the behavior made go to modifications and go to unit tab and at the bottom is a regen area and increase the number for energy and it will regen by an extra that amount.
ive done number 9 before but for some reason alot of the times it would fail on me. you give a unit 2 weapons, one is basic and one is the one u want it to use after the upgrade. set the one you want to use after as hidden and disabled in the flags. then create a new upgrade in the upgrade tab of the data editor (so much work im sorry) and in its effects you select weapon and select the basic weapon and go to flags and chose the flags hidden and disabled and set them to true, then select the weapon you want to upgrade to and do the same except change the flags to false. that should turn off the original weapon for the unit and turn on the upgraded weapon. but tbh i had a whole lot of problems with it. for some units it would work like a charm. my research would be done and my units would be using their new weapons while forgetting the old ones. but then for others they would just stay disabled and dispite everything looking the same as the other they would refuse to use the new weapons. alot of times i get hit or miss moments like that...
for 10, ive sorta done that. i have a carrier in my current map that fires multiple archon blasts and a mothership that fires at 2-3 targets at a time. i think. you give the unit the weapons you want it to use and in the options for them you uncheck linked cooldown. im not sure how it works exactly, when they where all the just copys of the original they all seemd to fire on the same target but i changed their range to be slightly different. one has a fairly large range while one has a fairly short range and a couple take up some spots in the middle. then when it flys over targets it fires on multiple targets at a time. atleast i think it does.
11 is interesting, for it you go to requirement tab and make a new requirement. it might be best to search mothership requirements to get an example of how to doit. say with Stargate as example you would go to requirements and in under Use you would add in And and under that Not under that Count Unit Robotics Facility, under that constant 0. and add another And under the original And and under the new And do Count Unit, Gateway, Constant 1. and after that right click and duplicate it and go back into the requirement area and change around stargate to robotic facility Then in the probes build ability you would select Stargate and Robotics Facility you would go to their requirements you would go to the requirements you made and select the one for the respective building. Now when you build the gateway it will unlock stargate and robotics facility but if you build a stargate you shouldnt be able to build a robotics facility and vice versa.
for number 12... ive had hell with this in my latest project... i never understand validators... i can tell you what i did... create lots of stuff. i did it for shields and i had a basic system of full shields, half shields, and depleted shields. i had to make the 3 behaviors since they apply the effects, and i had to make 2 abilities to reapply the behaviors after the unit ran out of shields. I had to make 3 apply behavior effects. in full shields behavior i set its expire effect to the apply half effect and for half i set it to apply depleted. i had make a number of validators for the behaviors and abilities. the abilities i had to copy off of zergling reconstittion becuase i couldnt get autocast to work right...
i would put the abilities and the full behavior on a unit such as a zealot.
for full shield i gave it a remove validator of comparing vitals, greater than or equal to, fraction, .5, shield
for half its the same except less than .5 and i gave it another validator thats compare vitals, greater than or equal to, current, 1, shield. although that could be outdated
for depleted its the same as the outdated validator except its at less than one.
for the ability to reapply the behaviors the half ones validator is compare vitals, current, equal to, 1, shield, and for the apply full ability its compare vitals, equal to, fraction .5, shield. without them being listed as equal to they just stood around enemies unless they attacked them.
i gave the full behavior the modification of +1 shield armor, half had -2 shield armor, and depleted gives a +2 in all forms of damage.
as much hell as that is im going to do something similer with terran and zerg, zerg units at full will likely have slightly more armor again, then at halfway will have increased healing, then when... was going to say when depleted but that would be based off their life and depleted would mean dead so ill have to make it not depleted exactly lol. but when depleted they will have even less armor but will have a much increased attack and movement speed.
i havnt worked out what to do for terrans yet as terrans are all over the place. id really prefer just one type of buff for them but protoss have shields that engulf all of them while zerg have their regen, terran is just all over the place and dont really have anything that binds all their units together. ill come up with something, probably something similer to the zerg one due to auto stims and fight or flight reflexes humans have when about to die.
one thing i might recomend with a more tactical map, maybe maybe not. ive made tactcal maps before (none finished) but i would give my units a supply sorta. like tie weapon use to energy so that when they fire it cost a small bit of energy and give all units a pool of energy. terrans would need to be arround a barracks or a supply depo to restock on ammo or a supply truck, zerg would need to be on creep to regen or atleast regen faster and protoss would need to be around a pylon to recharge their weapons. idk you might like the idea so i thought id Protoss it out there.
im sorry for how long and rambly and horribly done this post is. im afraid my part about how to make the core cord pad thing might have been overly complicated written or at the least wasnt written straight enough and instead just generalized how to doit. on the upside you wanted to learn how to doit yourself somewhat so my basic ramblings should sorta somewhat get you atleast lookin in the right spots. sorry... best of lucks :D
Edit: ive spent forever typing this only to learn that this was asked about months ago... sorry...
Well the power grid system was made for the custom race team project for this site a long time ago along with lots of brainstorming for a custom race. Just use those old assets.
I also have a capture system that only needs minor updating to work under my data assets.
TLDR - Looking for people to point me in the right direction. I'd love to learn and do all of this myself but am having trouble getting the project off the ground
Good morning everyone,
Hello! I'm a longtime fan of 'tactical' RTS games like Company of Heroes, the Dawn of War games, etc. I'm planning to make a low-resource, tactical RTS map and would like some direction getting started. I did a lot of map design (mostly without custom rules) in SC:BW and Warcraft 3 but that information is way out of date in my head and I'm sadly not very familiar with the Galaxy Editor yet.
If you're interested in reading up on the broad strokes of the project, you can here
Ultimately, here's what I'd like to do:
I'm not looking for anyone to do any of this for me. I'd love to do it myself, but seemingly simple things like creating new factions have thus far eluded me. All I'm looking for is for people to point me in the right direction
Thanks a ton!
My current project: SCRAP (Scavenge, Collect, Reclaim, Attack, Prevail)
Would like to help you out there, sent you a PM
Thanks so much!
My current project: SCRAP (Scavenge, Collect, Reclaim, Attack, Prevail)
i can try to give some advice for a few.
for number 2, im not sure about making a custom unit but you can give a unit the train ability and edit the command card to add in the related icons, set the command type to ability command, under that select the train ability u gave ur unit, and then under that select whatever unit it is. In a train ability, at the top of a units data is an icon part, that icon is what will need to be selected in the final part of setting up the command card. ive made a giant tank before that was used as a mobile barracks before and healed and repaired surrounding units.
for number 3 there is a custom resource but i do not know about editing their names or icons, but in triggers is where you set them to be avalibal. id use the regular starting Melee Initilization trigger for this. then you create a new action in it and in search type in resource and select show/hide resource. then you chose which resource you want to show. iirc the game can only have a max of 4 resources and i dont know how many resources you want to work with but thats how you go about unhiding the 2 extra resources custom and terrazine.
for number 4, im unsure about the last part... i figure there might be a way to tie that in somehow but i have no clue. but in the resource you want to edit, go to flags and uncheck invunurable and give them healthpoints. for making some attacks stronger agianst it go to attributes and give it an attribute you wont give to anything else in your map, for example, if you dont want any units dealing any special damage to psionic units then go through units that are psionic and remove psionic from their attribute and add psionic to the resource you want to have the attribute. then in your weapons effect add in a number on psionic. that will cause the unit to deal more damage agianst psionic targest and since only resources would be psionic then it would only be really good agianst them while just damaging others regular.
love the idea of number 5 and have messed around with a somewhat similer thing before. sorta similer anyway... im not sure about keeping it only harvestable by a certain side for a set time but for your units you could give them a death effect that spawns in the resource you want it to harvest. it wouldnt look to good without skills in modeling and animation and things like that but for example you could have your resource model be a dead marine doodad and create a create unit effect and set it to spawn in 1 of the resource. then in the regular marine on the page you start on when you click it, it has effects on its main page and in death effects add in the create unit effect that spawns the dead marine resource. then when the marine dies he will die in whatever animation it is and will also spawn in the dead marine resource. it will look kinda odd and without the skills or knowledge would have a ton of exact same marines everywhere and it wouldnt make sense for tanks or the like... but thats a basic idea on how one could do that.
for 6, i always have trouble getting capturing to work right. but and example to do what you are wanting sorta. take a pylon and for the example we will have it neutral since its idealy what you want and give it the capture tower ability from the xel tower but in target filters for the ability remove exlude structure and change that to allow, and give it a build ability. for example will give it protoss warp in ability and do the same as with the train ability i explained earlyer adding in the buildings in the command card. so now say on the map there is the neutral pylon, you walk a unit to the nutral pylon and it is captured and on ur side. now clicking on it with its build you can build whatever you have it set to build, since it cant move it can only really build at things touching so idk about the scale or footprints you would use but structures around it would keep it under your control until they where all destroyed at which point it would go back to neutral.
although actually i can think of one way you could do the pads and cables though that i can think of is copying the capture tower ability a couple of times changing ones filter to require something that only the tower would give off (say psionic) and requiring structure and the other copy to require something that only the cords would give off (say summond) and require structure and make a network of them out from the core. so say the pylon is just a supply depo raised with small supply depos that are lowered leading away from it ending in 6 bigger scaled lowered supply depos. the supply cords would use the first copy capture tower ability and the filter would instead have require psionic and would give out summond (examples) and the 6 larger pads would use the 2nd copy and instead filtered for summond. so you capture the depo core and it has the psionic attribute so that goes down the cords activating their summond attribute for the person who owns the core to the pads at the end. the 6 larger depos at the end that give off a powerfield like a pylon and have the build ability and ui changes needed. you would need to set what buildings you want there to be specifically build there. for example copy the barracks and on its page give it the behavior poweruser go to built on and select whatever your larger depo pad would be called and in the larger depo pads ui you would add the building same as with the pylon earlyer and the unit that trains units before that so that the pad could build structures ontop of itself.
Then when you capture the core depo its psionic attribute activates the cords and their summond attribute activates the pads at the end. the pads give off a power field and the buildings that they can make need a power field. so say the enemy comes in and kills off your core guards, the cords should lose the psionic they needed which should cause them to fall back into neutral and cause the pads at the end to become neutral w/o the summond attribute which should shut off the power field being owned by you causing your buildings on it to depower. im unsure about destroying the pads to lose the core however. if it was just one pad connected to the core then i could sorta work out a way where the buildings destruction resulted in lose of the core. but baring that there is likely a way to do that with triggers but i try not to go into "if not or if so and" or whatever it is.
for 7, create a search area and apply behavior effect and a behavior that is a buff. make the search area something that is the size of the pad, tbh thats alot of hit and miss trial and error. then set the effect of the search area to the apply behavior effect. and in the apply behavior effect select the behavior made to be applied. in the behavior made go to modifications and go to unit tab and at the bottom is a regen area and increase the number for energy and it will regen by an extra that amount.
ive done number 9 before but for some reason alot of the times it would fail on me. you give a unit 2 weapons, one is basic and one is the one u want it to use after the upgrade. set the one you want to use after as hidden and disabled in the flags. then create a new upgrade in the upgrade tab of the data editor (so much work im sorry) and in its effects you select weapon and select the basic weapon and go to flags and chose the flags hidden and disabled and set them to true, then select the weapon you want to upgrade to and do the same except change the flags to false. that should turn off the original weapon for the unit and turn on the upgraded weapon. but tbh i had a whole lot of problems with it. for some units it would work like a charm. my research would be done and my units would be using their new weapons while forgetting the old ones. but then for others they would just stay disabled and dispite everything looking the same as the other they would refuse to use the new weapons. alot of times i get hit or miss moments like that...
for 10, ive sorta done that. i have a carrier in my current map that fires multiple archon blasts and a mothership that fires at 2-3 targets at a time. i think. you give the unit the weapons you want it to use and in the options for them you uncheck linked cooldown. im not sure how it works exactly, when they where all the just copys of the original they all seemd to fire on the same target but i changed their range to be slightly different. one has a fairly large range while one has a fairly short range and a couple take up some spots in the middle. then when it flys over targets it fires on multiple targets at a time. atleast i think it does.
11 is interesting, for it you go to requirement tab and make a new requirement. it might be best to search mothership requirements to get an example of how to doit. say with Stargate as example you would go to requirements and in under Use you would add in And and under that Not under that Count Unit Robotics Facility, under that constant 0. and add another And under the original And and under the new And do Count Unit, Gateway, Constant 1. and after that right click and duplicate it and go back into the requirement area and change around stargate to robotic facility Then in the probes build ability you would select Stargate and Robotics Facility you would go to their requirements you would go to the requirements you made and select the one for the respective building. Now when you build the gateway it will unlock stargate and robotics facility but if you build a stargate you shouldnt be able to build a robotics facility and vice versa.
for number 12... ive had hell with this in my latest project... i never understand validators... i can tell you what i did... create lots of stuff. i did it for shields and i had a basic system of full shields, half shields, and depleted shields. i had to make the 3 behaviors since they apply the effects, and i had to make 2 abilities to reapply the behaviors after the unit ran out of shields. I had to make 3 apply behavior effects. in full shields behavior i set its expire effect to the apply half effect and for half i set it to apply depleted. i had make a number of validators for the behaviors and abilities. the abilities i had to copy off of zergling reconstittion becuase i couldnt get autocast to work right...
i would put the abilities and the full behavior on a unit such as a zealot. for full shield i gave it a remove validator of comparing vitals, greater than or equal to, fraction, .5, shield for half its the same except less than .5 and i gave it another validator thats compare vitals, greater than or equal to, current, 1, shield. although that could be outdated for depleted its the same as the outdated validator except its at less than one.
for the ability to reapply the behaviors the half ones validator is compare vitals, current, equal to, 1, shield, and for the apply full ability its compare vitals, equal to, fraction .5, shield. without them being listed as equal to they just stood around enemies unless they attacked them.
i gave the full behavior the modification of +1 shield armor, half had -2 shield armor, and depleted gives a +2 in all forms of damage.
as much hell as that is im going to do something similer with terran and zerg, zerg units at full will likely have slightly more armor again, then at halfway will have increased healing, then when... was going to say when depleted but that would be based off their life and depleted would mean dead so ill have to make it not depleted exactly lol. but when depleted they will have even less armor but will have a much increased attack and movement speed.
i havnt worked out what to do for terrans yet as terrans are all over the place. id really prefer just one type of buff for them but protoss have shields that engulf all of them while zerg have their regen, terran is just all over the place and dont really have anything that binds all their units together. ill come up with something, probably something similer to the zerg one due to auto stims and fight or flight reflexes humans have when about to die.
one thing i might recomend with a more tactical map, maybe maybe not. ive made tactcal maps before (none finished) but i would give my units a supply sorta. like tie weapon use to energy so that when they fire it cost a small bit of energy and give all units a pool of energy. terrans would need to be arround a barracks or a supply depo to restock on ammo or a supply truck, zerg would need to be on creep to regen or atleast regen faster and protoss would need to be around a pylon to recharge their weapons. idk you might like the idea so i thought id Protoss it out there.
im sorry for how long and rambly and horribly done this post is. im afraid my part about how to make the core cord pad thing might have been overly complicated written or at the least wasnt written straight enough and instead just generalized how to doit. on the upside you wanted to learn how to doit yourself somewhat so my basic ramblings should sorta somewhat get you atleast lookin in the right spots. sorry... best of lucks :D
Edit: ive spent forever typing this only to learn that this was asked about months ago... sorry...
@bcasteel85: Go
Well the power grid system was made for the custom race team project for this site a long time ago along with lots of brainstorming for a custom race. Just use those old assets.
I also have a capture system that only needs minor updating to work under my data assets.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
I can give advise on terrain if you need!
Marie T. Freeman If you're too busy to give your neighbor a helping hand, then you're just too darned busy. https://www.facebook.com/wargirlmaps.maps
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