SC2Mapster

I'm thinking about applying Hold Fire / Weapons Free to my hero. Has anyone else done this? I was trying to see what would be required by applying it to Raynor in a test map... I've got the buttons set, the ability set, the behaviors and effects set, but I'm still missing something.

Would this even work? I know there's an animation for Hold Fire on Ghosts and Spectres.. would this apply to other units, or would they simply not attack as if they were holding fire (minus the animation of putting their weapon on their back)?

@Caipa: Go

This is awesome Caipa, and I completely agree. I've been trying to create a different way to do dialogue/conversations between NPC/characters... and I'm not a big fan of the default dialog boxes.

You should do a tutorial!

@CreedLord: Go

Np, it shouldn't be that complicated of a trigger... just if you're going to have it send groups, and only if the groups equal a certain size, you have a few more things to do. You're on the right track though, use the Unit Enters Region event, Wait for Condition (under actions), check Condition - if units owned by player (or units in unit group) living == x number, Then send them to attack x location.

One of the best ways I learned was by looking over the Campaign maps and seeing how the Blizzard devs set up their games.

@Mienk: Go

Nice.

Have you found any Conversation tutorials?

@CreedLord: Go

I dunno what kind of map you're doing so it's a little hard, but I'll try.

To make things easier on yourself, make player groups and unit groups. In all my maps I have a few triggers that start on Map Initialization which just run background stuff, like creating groups. Make a trigger like that... Event > Map Initialization, Event > Add Player to Player Group. You have to create the variables for this first. So if you have 8 User players, create 8 groups and 8 actions, name them P1,P2,P3,P4, etc... choose Player Group as the variable type and leave it "empty".

What you may also want to do is create a Unit Group, or several... so that when a unit is created, it's immediately added to the Unit Group. Create variables for Unit Groups the same way as for player groups. Name them whatever you want. ie: P1 Marine Group

So, now you can say:

Event > Unit - (Unit (Number of Living units in "Unit Group") from "Unit Group") Enters (Entire map)

Conditions > (Owner of (Unit (Number of Living units in Unit Group) from Unit Group)) == x number of units

Actions > Issue Order > Order Targeting Point

I can't write your map for you, but that should give you a good idea of how to work the trigger/conditions... mess around with it.

@Nashadun: Go

Are you making use of the built in Conversation system, or are you doing this all through transmissions?

That's my problem... I've gotten good at doing the timing and styles of dialogue through transmissions by experimenting with portrait placement, flash/no flash and text style/sizes... but Conversations seem like they'd be much more efficient, WITH choices. lol

I need to figure them out, and write a tutorial, or find one that already exists...

@Mienk: Go

That's exactly what I was thinking... ie: run into an NPC, initiate speech. Pause all units, dialog pops up; NPC portrait in upper left, character portrait lower right, with a dialogue box middle, containing dialogue and possibly responses? This is what I was tinkering with tonight. If we're stuck with text only, might as well make it pretty. lol

I've stopped designing my TPS maps for 2 reasons, 1) the lag, and 2) I couldn't find a solution to the problem of the user having control over the camera angle, but stopping the camera from going underground/through environments.

Anyone have a solution to this second problem?

You could change the Fog of War to Black instead of grey, or increase the density. This might cause the map to not load everything... only what's within range.

@sangeli: Go

In the Data Editor under Turrets there's an "Idle" field. Try changing that to "reset." I actually haven't tried this, just a guess. Let me know if it works.

EDIT: After playing around a bit in the editor, I think DoubleElite is right. For turrets that go back underground afterwards, there are two states. ie: Perdition Turret and Perdition Turret (Underground)... use that and the default settings should be fine to make it raise and lower.

@CreedLord: Go

I think what you're looking for is: (easy answer)

Event > Unit > Unit Enters/Leaves Region

Actions > General > If-Then-Else > If > Units in Region Matching Condition, Then> Issue Order > Order Targeting Point

That should work.

In essence, your unit enters the region, if the units in the region match the conditions you set (ie: total number 5, excluding dead, missiles, etc) then issue order to attack targeting region Loc 2. You might also want to add an action "Wait for Condition" to continue checking the condition every 0.05 secs or whatever, so that the trigger doesn't just run once.

@glomby: Go

Very cool, I like how the music changes depending on area... great atmosphere.

One thing I've been struggling with in any of my maps is dialogue between characters. I think the basic system of transmissions is a little "blah"... Since, I'm guessing, most of you don't have voice actors handy, you probably do dialogue the same way I do... through transmissions, or through text crawls, dialog labels, or what have you.

So I'm looking for ideas. I was thinking about creating a kind of dialogue template with dialogs... anyway, how do YOU move the story along without speech? How do you do conversations between characters on your maps? Post pics if you'd like.

This is an excellent way to add variety and uniqueness to your maps... as others have pointed out it seems better suited for aesthetics strictly as opposed to functional cliffs. Not for nothing though, again... great way to make environments more authentic and unique. Good job.

@Ablabab: Go

I'd also love to see a tutorial on Conversation basics... so much potential there for dialoguing.