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.
@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.
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.
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?
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.