Probably an issue with your general beam setup, is the beam even linked to an Action actor? Also in some cases "Weapon00" isn't the same as "Weapon".
Also shoot at flying units a few times to check if the beam impact point is having the same issue, the fallback for invalid attachment scopes always is the ground beneath the unit (and if the unit scope is invalid, the bottom-left corner of the map...)
Open the Ghost model in the Cutscene viewer, press A to view the attachment points (transparent green arrows), then Shift+D to show the model data. In the data list find the attachment points (one of the top-level folders) and identify the name of the one you consider most appropriate.
If you already know of a working setup, such as the Snipe ability in this case, just copy from that.
However many you want really. SC1 Longbolt could probably work with a single phase, starting at 0 velocity with nonzero acceleration. Many SC2 missiles use an initial "Throw" phase before starting the main "Guided" motion, usually to maintain a fixed launch direction with respect to the firing craft. A prime example here is the Phoenix weapon, which curves along the wings before homing in on the target in a straight line.
If you're careful with the throw vectors and timings you could totally make a single missile trace out a full pentagram before going for the intended target though.
From the rest of the paragraph. Preexisting abilities include the Mothership Cloaking Field, Noxious Ultralisk passive poison and a few others. Most of these are a little more complex than what you need because they modify the targets' stats and are coded to be non-stacking.
If you don't mess with the Period Count field the effect will pulse forever, a Buff can additionally be made to expire based on its Duration field (again, default=infinite)
I don't understand what your "melee range" problem is, anything that walks within the search range (centered on the host unit by default in this setup) will take damage every pulse.
Standard aura setup. Apply a buff to the host unit (for a permanent effect set it on the Unit itself), then use the "Periodic Effect" field to apply a Search Area or AoE Damage effect. Make sure to exclude "Self" from the search filter or the unit will kill itself rather effectively. If you use an AoE damage effect set the impact location to a Point type scope so the primary damage doesn't kill the caster.
For temporary abilities a buff is better for manual toggles as the Behavior type ability can do just that, for fixed-duration effects you can achieve much the same with a Persistent effect applying the AoE. In general the Buff has the advantage of being closely tied to the host unit, it auto-cancels if the host dies and you can directly modify the units' stats for multi-faceted hero abilities. The Persistent has more options for messing with the periodic application, can offset the pulses a fixed distance from itself, and can keep running independently if desired.
Search vs. AoE damage is largely a matter of preference I believe, but iirc it's harder to have impact visuals on individual targets when not using the Search.
It's not possible to hard-reference any of the "regular" players in data though, so your options for applying these upgrades are preplaced units, manual research choices, or triggers.
You can still setup a central "auto-research" facility per player, but you need at least one unique identifier unit preplaced on the map to say "this unit=this player". With long-range search effects you can limit it to 1 identifier per player though and reuse it for any other system you might implement in the future.
Applying the upgrades through triggers is the simplest solution for your concrete problem.
For other options there's also the Phoenix missile which you can probably tint/reskin into a fixed-length traceline, and ofc you can scale down any of the Terran missile models for some semblance of a bullet. There's also the Archangel gatling weapon from the HotS campaign, which functions as a beam/launch model but looks like a salvo of bullets.
Keep in mind though, the ingame Marine weapon is the Gauss Rifle, which officially launches 9mm "spikes". These should not really be visible as bullets ingame, both in terms of resolution and projectile velocity.
Try an EnumerateArea validator on the effect produced by the ability, or possibly the "Smart Validators" field on the ability itself. Validators on effects further down the chain will merely block the effect, not the cast.
Use an Issue Order effect to make the unit turn. Turning is part of the Move ability, you can view all its command keys on the ability itself, Turn is "4". This uses the turning speed of the unit itself though, and afaik there is no way of turning the actual unit "instantly". Visually you can do it with actor trickery if needed.
I suggest you first apply the Issue Order, then the delay, and then launch the missile. At 0.8s fire rate and 360° firing arc with no angle-based preference the result might still look patently ridiculous, so you might want to rethink those stats or the visual design of the ability if it isn't to your liking. (infantry-launched combat drone, vertical missile launch or a central large blue energy orb to list some alternative visuals depending on the theme of your unit)
If the shield is part of the model, either said model already has the apropriate animations or you'd have to create them in a 3D modeling program (not possible within the SC2 editor!)
If the shield is a separate model hosted on a ModelAddition actor or something similar it can be done, but will require some trickery with Actors. Read up several tutorials on Hosting and Site Operations if you're not familiar with them.
I don't have any ready-made solutions handy, but hosting the attachment on a Site actor should allow you to control movement and rotation more easily. I know 2D movement is possible using MoverMove events (the Colossus beam weapon does this) and SOpRotator allows constant rotation around a fixed axis, but off the top of my head I don't recall any "turn towards point" SiteOp.
For a quick hack you can try the HostSiteOperationsSet actor event to apply an SOpExplicitRotation (and maybe offsets etc.), this will instantly switch the shield position. Then remove the SOps when the buff ends. If that doesn't work you can achieve the same by copying the actor and applying the SOps to the copy, then destroying one copy and creating the other based on the buff state.
Actually moving the shield between the two positions in a way that looks smooth, "natural" and non-glitchy will be extremely difficult from what I know on this subject.
What about the second paragraph? My custom ability has 500 range and gives a "must target visible location" error. Are you sure the nuke is not getting placed at the edge of your vision range as opposed to the actual target point?
Hook up a Range actor, set the cast range higher than your vision range, and explicitly cast once within ability range and once outside it, note the actual target in both cases. And while I doubt you'd be that negligent, remove all other units that could provide vision, SC2 doesn't check actual line of sight by default.
Do you know any concrete advantage to using a Buff over a Persistent? The need for an Apply effect and having to scroll between the "Behavior" and "Effect" tabs during future tweaking always seems like an unnecessary hassle to me, and the end result is functionally identical for "simple" setups.
Of course if your setup involves buffing the host anyway, might as well host the aura on that too.
360 arcs and unturnable units work just fine for me, are you sure there isn't some additional flag or effect causing this? I know the Nuke ability reveals the impact zone during the drop, are you sure you didn't accidentally mess that up somehow?
And of course make sure the ability is actually being cast at a fogged location, if the cast range is too short the AoE might get placed at the maximum cast range rather than giving a "cannot reach target" error. I believe there is a flag to fix this directly (Wait To Spend?), if not at least the Transient flag will work, but may also allow attacking/casting other abilities during the cast.
I think you need to uncheck Linked Cooldown on all weapons for it to work, so check that. Also review the firing arcs, the default angle is 0 meaning the weapon can only fire at something the unit is directly looking at. Also ensure none of the weapons has a "channeled" component.
I thought weapon priority worked based on the order in which you assign them on the Unit, I know it can be messed with because Blizzard did it for Thor vs. Colossus.
Temporarily disabling the weapon should work unless you mess with attack speed a lot (hero stats, a ton of firing speed upgrades etc.)
Assuming the Vessel creates the robot you can use the "Creation Effect" field on the Create Unit effect. If everything is part of one effect chain you can call up the scopes of individual effects to select targets, in this case Caster for the Scivessel and variations of Source and Target for the robot and teleport victim. Iirc the creation effect is executed with the creator as the Caster, created unit as the Source and Target will bei either the created unit or where the creation occured. Note scope assignments used to be inconsistent with these auxilliary effect fields, some used to assign the spawned unit as the Caster.
In general just try all possible combinations of scopes until you get the hang of it, and test with child effects like Psi Storm or Blinding Cloud for easy visualisation.
For your specific case probably just set the Creation Effect to a Persistent->Search->Teleport and aim the TP at Caster Point.
0
Probably an issue with your general beam setup, is the beam even linked to an Action actor? Also in some cases "Weapon00" isn't the same as "Weapon".
Also shoot at flying units a few times to check if the beam impact point is having the same issue, the fallback for invalid attachment scopes always is the ground beneath the unit (and if the unit scope is invalid, the bottom-left corner of the map...)
0
Open the Ghost model in the Cutscene viewer, press A to view the attachment points (transparent green arrows), then Shift+D to show the model data. In the data list find the attachment points (one of the top-level folders) and identify the name of the one you consider most appropriate.
If you already know of a working setup, such as the Snipe ability in this case, just copy from that.
0
However many you want really. SC1 Longbolt could probably work with a single phase, starting at 0 velocity with nonzero acceleration. Many SC2 missiles use an initial "Throw" phase before starting the main "Guided" motion, usually to maintain a fixed launch direction with respect to the firing craft. A prime example here is the Phoenix weapon, which curves along the wings before homing in on the target in a straight line.
If you're careful with the throw vectors and timings you could totally make a single missile trace out a full pentagram before going for the intended target though.
0
From the rest of the paragraph. Preexisting abilities include the Mothership Cloaking Field, Noxious Ultralisk passive poison and a few others. Most of these are a little more complex than what you need because they modify the targets' stats and are coded to be non-stacking.
0
If you don't mess with the Period Count field the effect will pulse forever, a Buff can additionally be made to expire based on its Duration field (again, default=infinite)
I don't understand what your "melee range" problem is, anything that walks within the search range (centered on the host unit by default in this setup) will take damage every pulse.
0
Standard aura setup. Apply a buff to the host unit (for a permanent effect set it on the Unit itself), then use the "Periodic Effect" field to apply a Search Area or AoE Damage effect. Make sure to exclude "Self" from the search filter or the unit will kill itself rather effectively. If you use an AoE damage effect set the impact location to a Point type scope so the primary damage doesn't kill the caster.
For temporary abilities a buff is better for manual toggles as the Behavior type ability can do just that, for fixed-duration effects you can achieve much the same with a Persistent effect applying the AoE. In general the Buff has the advantage of being closely tied to the host unit, it auto-cancels if the host dies and you can directly modify the units' stats for multi-faceted hero abilities. The Persistent has more options for messing with the periodic application, can offset the pulses a fixed distance from itself, and can keep running independently if desired.
Search vs. AoE damage is largely a matter of preference I believe, but iirc it's harder to have impact visuals on individual targets when not using the Search.
0
It's not possible to hard-reference any of the "regular" players in data though, so your options for applying these upgrades are preplaced units, manual research choices, or triggers.
You can still setup a central "auto-research" facility per player, but you need at least one unique identifier unit preplaced on the map to say "this unit=this player". With long-range search effects you can limit it to 1 identifier per player though and reuse it for any other system you might implement in the future.
Applying the upgrades through triggers is the simplest solution for your concrete problem.
0
For other options there's also the Phoenix missile which you can probably tint/reskin into a fixed-length traceline, and ofc you can scale down any of the Terran missile models for some semblance of a bullet. There's also the Archangel gatling weapon from the HotS campaign, which functions as a beam/launch model but looks like a salvo of bullets.
Keep in mind though, the ingame Marine weapon is the Gauss Rifle, which officially launches 9mm "spikes". These should not really be visible as bullets ingame, both in terms of resolution and projectile velocity.
0
I suggest you first apply the Issue Order, then the delay, and then launch the missile. At 0.8s fire rate and 360° firing arc with no angle-based preference the result might still look patently ridiculous, so you might want to rethink those stats or the visual design of the ability if it isn't to your liking. (infantry-launched combat drone, vertical missile launch or a central large blue energy orb to list some alternative visuals depending on the theme of your unit)
0
If the shield is part of the model, either said model already has the apropriate animations or you'd have to create them in a 3D modeling program (not possible within the SC2 editor!)
If the shield is a separate model hosted on a ModelAddition actor or something similar it can be done, but will require some trickery with Actors. Read up several tutorials on Hosting and Site Operations if you're not familiar with them.
I don't have any ready-made solutions handy, but hosting the attachment on a Site actor should allow you to control movement and rotation more easily. I know 2D movement is possible using MoverMove events (the Colossus beam weapon does this) and SOpRotator allows constant rotation around a fixed axis, but off the top of my head I don't recall any "turn towards point" SiteOp.
For a quick hack you can try the HostSiteOperationsSet actor event to apply an SOpExplicitRotation (and maybe offsets etc.), this will instantly switch the shield position. Then remove the SOps when the buff ends. If that doesn't work you can achieve the same by copying the actor and applying the SOps to the copy, then destroying one copy and creating the other based on the buff state.
Actually moving the shield between the two positions in a way that looks smooth, "natural" and non-glitchy will be extremely difficult from what I know on this subject.
0
@BlacKcuD: Go
What about the second paragraph? My custom ability has 500 range and gives a "must target visible location" error. Are you sure the nuke is not getting placed at the edge of your vision range as opposed to the actual target point?
Hook up a Range actor, set the cast range higher than your vision range, and explicitly cast once within ability range and once outside it, note the actual target in both cases. And while I doubt you'd be that negligent, remove all other units that could provide vision, SC2 doesn't check actual line of sight by default.
0
@FunkyUserName: Go
Do you know any concrete advantage to using a Buff over a Persistent? The need for an Apply effect and having to scroll between the "Behavior" and "Effect" tabs during future tweaking always seems like an unnecessary hassle to me, and the end result is functionally identical for "simple" setups.
Of course if your setup involves buffing the host anyway, might as well host the aura on that too.
0
360 arcs and unturnable units work just fine for me, are you sure there isn't some additional flag or effect causing this? I know the Nuke ability reveals the impact zone during the drop, are you sure you didn't accidentally mess that up somehow?
And of course make sure the ability is actually being cast at a fogged location, if the cast range is too short the AoE might get placed at the maximum cast range rather than giving a "cannot reach target" error. I believe there is a flag to fix this directly (Wait To Spend?), if not at least the Transient flag will work, but may also allow attacking/casting other abilities during the cast.
0
I think you need to uncheck Linked Cooldown on all weapons for it to work, so check that. Also review the firing arcs, the default angle is 0 meaning the weapon can only fire at something the unit is directly looking at. Also ensure none of the weapons has a "channeled" component.
I thought weapon priority worked based on the order in which you assign them on the Unit, I know it can be messed with because Blizzard did it for Thor vs. Colossus.
Temporarily disabling the weapon should work unless you mess with attack speed a lot (hero stats, a ton of firing speed upgrades etc.)
0
Assuming the Vessel creates the robot you can use the "Creation Effect" field on the Create Unit effect. If everything is part of one effect chain you can call up the scopes of individual effects to select targets, in this case Caster for the Scivessel and variations of Source and Target for the robot and teleport victim. Iirc the creation effect is executed with the creator as the Caster, created unit as the Source and Target will bei either the created unit or where the creation occured. Note scope assignments used to be inconsistent with these auxilliary effect fields, some used to assign the spawned unit as the Caster.
In general just try all possible combinations of scopes until you get the hang of it, and test with child effects like Psi Storm or Blinding Cloud for easy visualisation.
For your specific case probably just set the Creation Effect to a Persistent->Search->Teleport and aim the TP at Caster Point.