This concept was just bugging me so I went looking and found a thread a while back where someone pulled it off, they got around the usual problems by removing the real weapon effect from the tank then constantly placing an invisible unit in front of the tank at an angle opposite the camera (so in front and center of both) and telling the tank to attack it. They were using click-based attacking methods so I'm guessing the real tank's weapon was some ability triggered off of the click and ignored the weapon system entirely. This essentially gave the illusion that the tank was twisting its turret with the mouse and made use of how turrets functioned already to do it. It worked, sorta.
Quick jist: Make a new button, make a new ability and then in that ability set its effect to the search effect the tutorial had you build...I think that should do it.
@drummerboy1151: Go
Yah when that happened I knew that moment had to be preserved with video for sure :P Man I can't wait to get that map done, the AI is loads smarter (not necessarily a good thing) now just trying to debug some evil little script slayers resulting from the AI being threaded functions. Stupid threads, so nice of a concept but utterly bonkers to debug.
@Raeymunn: Go
Or directly call the effect with an effect at 'X' trigger, either way works for sure.
Takes alot more work then the tutorial gives you, the tutorial shows you have to build such an effect, to then use it with a unit would require knowing how to make abilities and hook them into units and in your case then assign that ability to fire from a mouse click. I'd say lurk moar around the tutorials section concerning direct control of units or just really spend more timing experimenting with the editor. I intend to eventually release a module that has all of that stuff integrated but its pretty important that the developers using it know how it all works at least on the surface otherwise its not very useful to them. The key points thoug is learn about how abilities call effects, how to put those abilities on units and also how you can then use triggers to call upon abilities.
I think something may be lacking in your instructions for "miss actors". I have made a collision beam, as well as a collision missile, according to the information found in the first page of this thread. I also followed the procedures to make miss actors, but neither my beam or missile will show up when there isn't a unit in the line. (When a target is available, they both work perfectly) Some interesting miscellaneous clues:
Setting the Remove Buff Effect (Or the Set effect when using miss actors) to Effect - Expire doesn't seem to work. My beam will only work when I instead set it to Effect - Final.
With the beam: Whenever there is no potential target in the line, my unit (custom stalker) fires the beam at itself... from its weapon launch point to the ground beneath its feet. When the beam DOES connect to a target, it creates another beam that attacks itself in addition to the normal beam.
What am I missing? Could someone who has gotten such things to work please chime in and help me out?
If anyone else is having a similar problem, I got it to work by using a totally different "miss" mechanic then the one described in the first post. Instead of making an extra attack actor and damage dummy, which didn't work for me, I instead made another persistent with one offset, which I set to the maximum range of my missile (in my case, (0,-9.5). For this persistent I had the period effect set to a "create unit" effect, which created an invisible dummy unit and gave it timed life. then for effect - final, I set the field to the original collision check persistent, and changed the ability's effect to the new persistent.
Thanks for the tutorial. I've tried to create an ability to this. The problem is that the beam only appears if I target a unit. The ability is named Spear and it calls the Shoot (Search Area) effect. What do you think is missing? If you would take a look at my map I wuld be grateful - thanks in advance
@MeltAge:
If you read my post right above yours, you'll see an easy solution to the problem using a "create unit" effect. If you do something like that, it should work fine.
Sorry for not responding for so long guys. In answer to the 'miss' questions, another value needs to be set, which I forgot to list, which causes your beams to produce the effect Nahotnoj described when left unaltered. I have updated the first post with the missing value.
I am also going to add an 'alternative method' to the first post for long range abilities.
Sorry for not responding for so long guys. In answer to the 'miss' questions, another value needs to be set, which I forgot to list, which causes your beams to produce the effect Nahotnoj described when left unaltered. I have updated the first post with the missing value.
I am also going to add an 'alternative method' to the first post for long range abilities.
Good to see you're back! For us who have already doen the tutorial - what other value needs to be set?
About the lon range alternative, shouldn't this replace the original method.. 'cos it's better?
Update:
I found it under "fun additions" and tried it out. It doesnt work for me. Should my ability use the search behavior? My ability is called "spear" Thanks
Checking it out for you now. The alternate method has not replaced the old one for two reasons:
1. I have not tested it myself and prefer giving people things that I know work. (Only reason I added it at all was because several people already mentioned the low range of this method)
2. The alternate method is far less precise. Because you're using a single angle to detect collision, it tends to flare outwards the farther the missile travels, so collision is a little messed up.
[Edit]: Alright, I managed to fix this thing for you. I don't know if an update occurred or if I simply missed the fact that non-periodic offsets travel differently from periodic ones. Either way, you have a bit of an issue in that a) you implemented the effect from this tutorial incorrectly into your ability and b) I made a miscalculation within the tutorial itself, which I will be rectifying shortly. Follow these steps:
Create a new Persistent Effect titled Spear Shoot (Final Persistent)
Set Period Count to 1
Set Period Durations to 0.001
Set Period Effects to Spear Shoot (Damage Dummy)
Add one Periodic Offset at 0, -10
Add your validator into the Periodic Validator Field
Set Target Location - Start and Target Location+ to Source Unit/Point
Go to Spear Shoot (Persistent):
Set the Target Offset - Expire to 0, 0
Set Effect - Final to Spear Shoot (Final Persistent)
Go to your Ability:
Change Effect - Effect to Spear Shoot (Persistent)
Go to your Action Actors and look for the following:
Effect.SpearShootDamage.Start (One of the action actors will have SpearShootDamageDummy instead)
Right click that line and 'Add Term'. Change the Term Type to 'At' and change the Sub-Menu to 'Caster'.
I think that's all the changes I made. Please let me know if it works. It's quite possible I missed something...I mucked around with your spell quite a bit to get it to work, but I think those are the only changes that I kept.
Thanks a lot for taking your time and checking out the problem in my map. It works - although when the Spear Contact buff is applied to caster, the ability cease to function. Do I really need 3 persistents and the buff, still?
PS. thanks - it's a placeholder map though, but I'll like to repeat the terrain concept .. orange fog, green/grey rocks and blue details looks nice I think.
So once its hit a unit it doesn't work anymore? Where is your Remove Buff effect brought in? It should be in your main persistent's Effect - Expire field. Yes you need all the persistents and buffs, what you DON'T need is a set effect that contains both your remove buff and the damage dummy. I believe you can get rid of that.
It seems to work as intended now. I had my set (apply buff- and do damage-effects) in the expire field of the first persistent I made. I set expire to the remove buff as you suggested. I never had a set for the remvoe buff and damage dummy. I have toyed aroudn with the Data editor some and goind to take a long look at this .. to be frank I don't udnerstand all of it. Why, for isntnace, do I need a damage dummy?
Thanks again, btw - and to give you some constructive feedback - more explanations of what each step int e tutorial does, would help. It also wouldn't hurt to learn that your ability needs to use the first persistent as effect - effect.
I'm moving on to trying out missles instead of beams, and try the longer range variant for you. I'll Let you know of my progress :)
PS. I will also attempt at making several validators that tells the missle to affect certain units with buffs, but still moves through them - while some units will collide with the missle and take damage .. but first sthings first.
Thanks. It's my first tutorial, so it's grea tto get some feedback. The Data Editor is...awkward in many cases. The Damage Dummy just gives us a proper effect to use to initialize a beam that doesn't hit anything. Beams can't be properly created through attack actors unless a damage effect has taken place (with or without a Launch Missile leading into it). Simply basing the Action actor off of a Search Area produces no result (at least in my tests). I found the simplest way to work around this was to use a blank damage effect, since they can be placed on points as well as units.
I also took the necessary steps in your reply post on how to change from missle to beam. However, my beam still appears upon impact (which is not an issue), and the missile only appears when targetting units. Do I need a second miss-actor?
Edit: I've tried a damage dummy and a seperate missile action actor, with events and launch effect accordingly, but the missile doesn't appear. Could you explain step by step how to set it up and more importanly - why?
I woudl be grateful, and would try out your long range variant also :P
Getting the missile to fire should be more or less the same as the version you made for the beam. The End Persistent should have one period, which contains a dummy Launch Missile effect, with an Impact Effect: (Dummy Damage).
The things that must be changed (in comparison to your [real] Launch Missile effect):
Switch the Impact Effect to Damage Dummy (for the same reason as the beam. An impact effect must be set on Launch Missile effects, or else they never stop. Additionally, GenericAttack Actors require a damage effect to be created.
Change the Impact Location to be Target Unit/Point (The reason for this is quite simple. When set to Target Unit (which I believe is default) the Launch Missile simply isn't created if you tell it to target a point. With a 'miss' missile, obviously we want it to target the ground instead if no unit is present.
Those are the only things I can think of. That *should* get it working. Let me know.
With a missile, you don't really even need to do anything described in this tutorial. You can just give it a periodic searcher behavior with damage and suicide on impact, make it target a point, and voila, it works.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
@wingednosering: Go
This concept was just bugging me so I went looking and found a thread a while back where someone pulled it off, they got around the usual problems by removing the real weapon effect from the tank then constantly placing an invisible unit in front of the tank at an angle opposite the camera (so in front and center of both) and telling the tank to attack it. They were using click-based attacking methods so I'm guessing the real tank's weapon was some ability triggered off of the click and ignored the weapon system entirely. This essentially gave the illusion that the tank was twisting its turret with the mouse and made use of how turrets functioned already to do it. It worked, sorta.
@KingRaul: Go
Quick jist: Make a new button, make a new ability and then in that ability set its effect to the search effect the tutorial had you build...I think that should do it.
@44 seconds, WHAT A JUKE! :)
How does one make the missile shoot by using triggers?
My guess is to make the effect an ability then telling the unit to use that ability through triggers?... am I correct?
@drummerboy1151: Go Yah when that happened I knew that moment had to be preserved with video for sure :P Man I can't wait to get that map done, the AI is loads smarter (not necessarily a good thing) now just trying to debug some evil little script slayers resulting from the AI being threaded functions. Stupid threads, so nice of a concept but utterly bonkers to debug.
@Raeymunn: Go Or directly call the effect with an effect at 'X' trigger, either way works for sure.
I'm sorry, I have completed the tutorial, but I have no idea how to make it work like in the video...
A player clicks and the bullet shoots from the unit and hits an enemy if the enemy was present.
How do I do this?
Thanks in advance.
@Raeymunn: Go
Takes alot more work then the tutorial gives you, the tutorial shows you have to build such an effect, to then use it with a unit would require knowing how to make abilities and hook them into units and in your case then assign that ability to fire from a mouse click. I'd say lurk moar around the tutorials section concerning direct control of units or just really spend more timing experimenting with the editor. I intend to eventually release a module that has all of that stuff integrated but its pretty important that the developers using it know how it all works at least on the surface otherwise its not very useful to them. The key points thoug is learn about how abilities call effects, how to put those abilities on units and also how you can then use triggers to call upon abilities.
Thanks for the tutorial. I've tried to create an ability to this. The problem is that the beam only appears if I target a unit. The ability is named Spear and it calls the Shoot (Search Area) effect. What do you think is missing? If you would take a look at my map I wuld be grateful - thanks in advance
Sorry for not responding for so long guys. In answer to the 'miss' questions, another value needs to be set, which I forgot to list, which causes your beams to produce the effect Nahotnoj described when left unaltered. I have updated the first post with the missing value.
I am also going to add an 'alternative method' to the first post for long range abilities.
Good to see you're back! For us who have already doen the tutorial - what other value needs to be set? About the lon range alternative, shouldn't this replace the original method.. 'cos it's better?
Update:
I found it under "fun additions" and tried it out. It doesnt work for me. Should my ability use the search behavior? My ability is called "spear" Thanks
Checking it out for you now. The alternate method has not replaced the old one for two reasons:
1. I have not tested it myself and prefer giving people things that I know work. (Only reason I added it at all was because several people already mentioned the low range of this method)
2. The alternate method is far less precise. Because you're using a single angle to detect collision, it tends to flare outwards the farther the missile travels, so collision is a little messed up.
[Edit]: Alright, I managed to fix this thing for you. I don't know if an update occurred or if I simply missed the fact that non-periodic offsets travel differently from periodic ones. Either way, you have a bit of an issue in that a) you implemented the effect from this tutorial incorrectly into your ability and b) I made a miscalculation within the tutorial itself, which I will be rectifying shortly. Follow these steps:
Create a new Persistent Effect titled Spear Shoot (Final Persistent)
Go to Spear Shoot (Persistent):
Go to your Ability:
Go to your Action Actors and look for the following:
Effect.SpearShootDamage.Start (One of the action actors will have SpearShootDamageDummy instead)
Right click that line and 'Add Term'. Change the Term Type to 'At' and change the Sub-Menu to 'Caster'.
I think that's all the changes I made. Please let me know if it works. It's quite possible I missed something...I mucked around with your spell quite a bit to get it to work, but I think those are the only changes that I kept.
P.S. Nice terrain.
Thanks a lot for taking your time and checking out the problem in my map. It works - although when the Spear Contact buff is applied to caster, the ability cease to function. Do I really need 3 persistents and the buff, still?
PS. thanks - it's a placeholder map though, but I'll like to repeat the terrain concept .. orange fog, green/grey rocks and blue details looks nice I think.
So once its hit a unit it doesn't work anymore? Where is your Remove Buff effect brought in? It should be in your main persistent's Effect - Expire field. Yes you need all the persistents and buffs, what you DON'T need is a set effect that contains both your remove buff and the damage dummy. I believe you can get rid of that.
It seems to work as intended now. I had my set (apply buff- and do damage-effects) in the expire field of the first persistent I made. I set expire to the remove buff as you suggested. I never had a set for the remvoe buff and damage dummy. I have toyed aroudn with the Data editor some and goind to take a long look at this .. to be frank I don't udnerstand all of it. Why, for isntnace, do I need a damage dummy?
Thanks again, btw - and to give you some constructive feedback - more explanations of what each step int e tutorial does, would help. It also wouldn't hurt to learn that your ability needs to use the first persistent as effect - effect.
I'm moving on to trying out missles instead of beams, and try the longer range variant for you. I'll Let you know of my progress :)
PS. I will also attempt at making several validators that tells the missle to affect certain units with buffs, but still moves through them - while some units will collide with the missle and take damage .. but first sthings first.
Thanks. It's my first tutorial, so it's grea tto get some feedback. The Data Editor is...awkward in many cases. The Damage Dummy just gives us a proper effect to use to initialize a beam that doesn't hit anything. Beams can't be properly created through attack actors unless a damage effect has taken place (with or without a Launch Missile leading into it). Simply basing the Action actor off of a Search Area produces no result (at least in my tests). I found the simplest way to work around this was to use a blank damage effect, since they can be placed on points as well as units.
Let me know how your experiments go.
I got the missile to work, following a very basic tutorial from Riley: http://rileystarcraft.blogspot.com/2010/06/tutorial-create-missile-weapon.html
I also took the necessary steps in your reply post on how to change from missle to beam. However, my beam still appears upon impact (which is not an issue), and the missile only appears when targetting units. Do I need a second miss-actor?
Edit: I've tried a damage dummy and a seperate missile action actor, with events and launch effect accordingly, but the missile doesn't appear. Could you explain step by step how to set it up and more importanly - why? I woudl be grateful, and would try out your long range variant also :P
Getting the missile to fire should be more or less the same as the version you made for the beam. The End Persistent should have one period, which contains a dummy Launch Missile effect, with an Impact Effect: (Dummy Damage).
The things that must be changed (in comparison to your [real] Launch Missile effect):
Those are the only things I can think of. That *should* get it working. Let me know.
With a missile, you don't really even need to do anything described in this tutorial. You can just give it a periodic searcher behavior with damage and suicide on impact, make it target a point, and voila, it works.