SC2Mapster

@SoulFilcher: Go

Sounds like that could take awhile. :)

I found a lot of text entries with the id e_* which seem to be really close to what I'm looking for. There are values like "%s Damage Dealt:" and "vs %attributeType%: - the substitutions seem to not have any consistent pattern, but I believe a lot of these do appear on tooltips. I can't find anything for energy or life/health. Spent some time browsing through looking for IDs with tooltip or energy/life/health or something similar.

It's entirely possible that Blizz never expected this and they just through the value in there.

I did think of an alternate idea.. could modify all tooltips such that the first line is something like <s val=""><d ref="Whatever,Energy,Cost"> Energy</s><n/><n/>Description ...
Of course the drawback here is that you need to update the tooltips manually for all your costs and everything has to be left aligned. But it's an idea.

Quote from MasterWrath: Go

If there would be any way of doing that, it might be in the data editor, under advanced, Game UI data.

Looks to contain a lot of interesting customization.. resource/vital colors, resource icons. Doesn't seem to be anything specifically for the tooltip in here unfortunately.. or anything for the vitals' icons.

I have a custom UI with the buttons bottom center like a moba-style game. Whenever I click an ability that needs a target, all my buttons disappear. I assume this is because standard UI is trying to show the "Left mouse to cast, Right mouse to cancel" window. I'm not using that window for my game. Any way to make the buttons stay visible?

I'm trying to customize the tooltips for my game. So far I've managed to import files that override the standard background/border texture and I've used the UI Editor to create overrides for position and font style.

Next I'd like to modify the resource/vital costs so that they display as "100 Energy 10 Life 20 Minerals" rather than using the icons. And I'd like them to be colored coded using font styles.

I know I could hide all the icons but is there a way I can access whatever logic fills in the Vital0, Vital1, Vital2 etc stuff and modify it to show the name after the number?

Greetings!

Ever wonder what it'd be like to play as Starcraft hero on par with Kerrigan from the HotS campaign in a fast-paced hero defense-style map against an onslaught of evolving zerg?

For the past several weeks I've been working on a design for a game that I've entitled Orpheus. It was originally inspired by Custom Hero Defense and meant to serve as a quick, fun, build-your-own-hero-and-slaughter-tons-of-zerg-style game filled with content that players can unlock in order to keep trying different things. I've dropped the custom hero idea in favor of actual heroes from the campaign with some story line and new powerful ability choices that can be unlocked so that the same hero can be played a variety of ways.. find the right combination of skills and stats to suit your play-style or min/max to make the most powerful hero combinations possible!

I gather that most people here are more familiar with trying Alphas and Betas of games, I'm not there yet. In all honesty, depending on how work and other time commitments go, I may not get there for awhile, but this is a game that I would love to play so I'm focused on making it happen with what time I do have available. For now I'm making the design document public so that perhaps I can inspire someone else to start their own project the way Custom Hero Defense inspired me to start mine.

It's my intention to publicize the systems and units from the game through mods and tutorials that others may use to aid in creating their own games. Eventually I plan to release the map in its entirety so that others may further learn from it.

Here is a link to my design document. I would be delighted if anyone here might be interested in reading it (a lengthy time commitment, I know), in its entirety or in part, and return here to leave any form of feedback.

http://www.michaeldrotar.com/orpheus

Thank you all for your time!

@MasterWrath: Go

Again, the original post asks for the name of the region, not region by name. And it was discussed above already there's a RegionFromId function, doesn't appear to be anything for the name, surprisingly.

Quote from Lakshun: Go

Is it possible to create a map with triggers to be used by several other maps like a dll? If so, how and how to I add a reference to that map when I create a normal, playable map?

Look into how to create a mod.. File > New > Mod

Mods are everything but the map itself.. data, triggers, etc. The Wings of Liberty, Heart of the Swarm, and Campaign dependencies for maps are themselves mods that add all the base units and upgrades and such.

Your mod can expose public actions and functions that the "map" using it can then call.

Quote from Mugen245: Go

@Nurdguy: Go Its for my RPG, btw where did you learn, Or got those Scripts? :)

I just created them.. basic programming

Quote from MasterWrath: Go

@Nurdguy: Go Depending on what you want, there is a more efficient way of doing this. If you only need to look up a region by name, not the name of a region, then you can use DataTableSetRegion(preset scope, string name, region value);

Original question was specifically for getting the name of a given region...

Examine the regions in the terrain editor of the attached sample map then run it and move your marine through the regions. It'll announce when you enter/leave each one.

Also note that I'm not reporting the same names as in the editor - I don't see a way of getting those - when you set up the names in the data you can name them whatever you want.

I'm not sure I see the purpose behind this. If you explain what you're trying to accomplish there might be a better way of doing it. Especially since you have to setup an entering/leaving event for each individual region.. it might be easier to have a separate trigger for each region and then have them call another trigger or function for any shared functionality. Unless you're dynamically creating regions..

I don't see any region from name functions or triggers. There is a RegionFromId function in galaxy which is used when doing Set Variable with type Region.

I believe the IDs are simple increments from 1 to numRegions. It would be possible then to manually create an array of region names and do your own lookup in galaxy script. Seems like a lot of work, but if you really absolutely need the name...

const numRegions = 10;
string[numRegions+1] regionNames;
regionnames[1] = "First Region Name";
// ... etc

string getRegionName(region myRegion) {
  int i;
  for ( i = 1; i < numRegions; i += 1 ) {
    if ( myRegion == GetRegionFromId(i) ) {
      return regionNames[i];
    }
  }
  return "";
}

Quote from KingRadical: Go

ive also seen people add abilities to units that order the unit in the up,down,left,right directions and just used the WASD keys as the hotkeys for the movement abilities.

That's an interesting approach. That would circumvent monitoring for keyboard events. Monitoring keyboard and mouse events in a multiplayer game is not recommended.. every single key press and mouse movement is sent along with the network traffic and is essentially guaranteed to cause lag.

Quote from SoulTaker916: Go

You should do this via data, look at mutalisk's attack it bounces in a chain method 3x.

I don't believe the data editor is an option. My chain lightning bounces based on a max range, not a max number of units. For instance, if its range is set to 500 yards and it bounces 100 yards to reach a unit then it'll bounce up to 400 yards for it's next target and continue until it can't reach a unit with its remaining range.

Quote from SoulTaker916: Go

.. you would create a beam(actor or unit probably actor) at position of unit. then rotate the beam to face the first target.

I don't understand what you're saying with the beams... my understanding is a beam is an actor that stretches between points? The functions for creating an actor don't seem to indicate any kind of stretching.

I tried this:

Actor - Create actor (Archon Attack Beam) at point (Position of (Last Unit Hit))
Actor - Make (Last created actor) look at (Actor for (Current Target)) using look at type Instant Standing

I got a little archon attack effect on the first unit I targeted.. and then nothing. No beams. I'm sure I'm missing something I wouldn't expect to get a beam just from having an actor look at another. Not sure why it only appears on the first unit though either.

I have all the targeting and damage and everything else figured out. I even have a working visual I'm just not sure that I should need to create/remove units for the effect to target in order to do it.. I'm assuming there's a better way. Maybe there isn't.

If you think of a chain lightning type of ability being done in a trigger. You cast the the ability from a specific unit to deal damage to another unit, but then the first jump goes from the point of that first target yet the damage comes from your original casting unit.

In the editor I found a trigger: Environment - Deal damage using (Effect) on (Target Unit) from (Source Unit) with (X) extra damage.

If I set the source unit as my casting unit, all the beams come from him ala forked lightning. If I set the source to the last unit that was hit then the enemy is damaging their own units and the caster doesn't get kill credit.

Things are further complicated if you have a small delay between strikes and units die... you can't reference a dead unit. And if there's a mix of flying and ground units, you need the beam to come from the air or ground accordingly.

I came up with a solution that sorta works but I'm hoping someone knows a better way because this doesn't really seem quite right.

My Solution:

- Create 1 unit of type (Last Target Unit Type) at (Position of Last Target), (Ignore Placement)
- Deal damage using (Purely Visual Effect With No Damage) on (Current Target) from (Last Created Unit) with (0.0) extra damage
- Remove (Last Created Unit) from the game
- Deal damage using (Non-visual Effect With No Damage) on (Current Target) from (Caster Unit) with (Amount of Damage) extra damage

In other words, I store the unit type and position of the last unit that the ability hit so that, in case it died, I can create a dummy unit there to be the source of the beam effect so it looks like it's coming from where the last unit was (maintaining ground/air positioning as well). However, this ability must deal 0 damage or else the enemy will be hurting itself rather than the caster hurting him.

Then there's a secondary effect that must have no visual attached but deals all the damage from the casting unit so that it properly gets kill credit.

I've seen a dozen chain lightning skills made with the data editor and they don't seem to have this concern. Mine has to be created in the trigger editor due to how it bounces.

@Terhonator: Go

Be aware that a mod isn't added to a map unless it's actually used. So if you try to add triggers and things to your mod, they'll never fire.

I've started creating an "Init" function in each mod. And I open my test map and have it call the Init function. The function doesn't need to do anything, but it's sometimes helpful for creating units and things that I use when testing the mod.

I'm creating a Chain Lightning-esque ability with some pretty complicated mechanics which would be better suited to triggers. I have the basics in place, but I'm struggling with the targeting. Each time the ability jumps, I can add the target to a unit group so that I can remember what targets I've already hit. And I can pick a random target within a given range of the last target. But I'm struggling with how to pick the closest unit, not just a random one. And I'm also struggling with how to ignore units that I've already hit (I thought storing them in a unit group would work well for this.. but maybe not. Another idea would be to add a buff and look for units without the buff - I've seen that mentioned before - but I'd like subsequent casts by the same player and casts by other players to be able to hit the same units so I think a buff would prevent that).

Any ideas?

ANSWER:

Answered my own question again. I do add all units to the PreviouslyHitUnits unit group as I hit them, then when finding a new target, I do this:

Variable - Set UnitsInRange = (Any units within SearchRange of CenterPoint where player SourcePlayer matches filter Exluded: Player, Ally, Neutral, Missile, Dead, Hidden, with at most Any Amount) Unit Group - Remove all units in PreviouslyHitUnits from UnitsInRange Variable - Set TargetUnit = (Closest unit to CenterPoint in UnitsInRange)

If anyone has any alternate ideas, feel free to comment.