As far as I can tell, there's no way to reference a unit's random name with triggers. Depending on what you're trying to do, it may be better to randomly assign the unit a name with your own trigger than to use the Data editor. Then you can store the unit's name in a variable and later show the unit's name with a custom dialog.
Make your player-based arrays have a size of at least 16 and you won't exceed array bounds when it comes to players. I'm sure there's a more efficient way to deal with it for those of you who obsess over code efficiency, but most maps will work just fine with size-16 arrays storing player numbers.
Why is this not uploaded to EU? Also, I had to quit the tutorial early as a bug made it completely unreadable. Screenshot attached. Once I got into a game though, I thought it was pretty fun.
I don't have an EU account. Unless Blizzard changed the way publishing works and I'm simply not aware of it. When I published Xeno Crisis to EU, I had to get a friend who lives in Europe to lend me his account.
I'm not sure what you mean regarding the tutorial. Are you saying the white text is too difficult to read or did the tutorial simply stop working?
The Secret Agent ability basically "hires" a new employee for the target player that, while he remains alive and/or in the employ of your target, will cause a zerg attack wave to spawn every day and attack only your target's bar. Based on my observation of the replay, that's what happened. Now, whether I actually do a good job of communicating that effect during the game may be the real issue, and is something I will definitely be looking at over the next few patches.
It seems like there is quite a bit that isn't being properly communicated to players, and this is (understandably) causing misconceptions and frustration. Advertising, for example, causes the target customer type to appear more frequently relative to the other customer types. For instance, advertising to Upper Class will shift the spawn ratio of the types of customers toward those who prefer high quality goods. Without advertising, the ratio is something like 50% lower class, 35% middle class, and 15% upper class. After advertising to Upper Class, this ratio will shift to something closer to 25%/15%/60%. So in order to keep your stocks up, you'll need to buy more High Quality goods than the other types. The best way to take advantage of this is to stock up on a certain type of good when the price is low and change your advertising so that you target that type.
The fact that you're allied with all players doesn't really have a practical impact on the way the game plays out - or at least, it isn't supposed to. In the next patch I plan to make players enemies since that will send a more clear message about the objective of the game - which is to drive the other players out of business.
Again, I must thank you for the very thorough feedback you've provided. It seems my biggest goals right now are to add more variety and better communication/feedback to the player. Stay tuned over the next few weeks because Star Bar will not be short on updates ;)
Just watched the replay. As far as I could tell, everything worked fine. The Zerg came and only attacked your opponent... in fact, it was these constant attacks that finished him off at the end. A lot of his civilians also died at the end so maybe that's when you noticed the attacks stopped.
I see your points regarding the rating and it makes sense. However, the rating is not supposed to be the primary game decider. I think the current setup more closely mimics how bars operate in the real world - that is, the rating (or public perception) can rise or fall in a relatively short period of time and is not the biggest factor in determining success or failure. Just as a real bar's reputation may stagnate over time if it doesn't advertise or produce satisfied customers, such is the case in Star Bar - though on a much smaller time scale, of course. That's the philosophy behind the status quo, at any rate.
The strategy is basically to keep your bar afloat while knocking your opponent off-balance enough to make them lose the game. I have more upgrades planned in the next update to increase the amount of customization you can do to your bar, so that should definitely mix things up a bit. You can somewhat specialize your stock by buying up a particular quality (low, medium, or high) and advertising to the corresponding class, even if you still need a small amount of the other food and booze types to keep your rating up - but again, this also mimics most bars today who have low shelf, mid shelf, and top shelf selections to both food and alcohol products.
Here are some minor things that I think need fixing.
Vespene selling tooltip says -90 minerals.
It would be nice knowing what the arriving stock would be added to. I often forget what's coming and over buy beyond my storage capacity. Maybe add a different coloured but extended bar?
Apparently I could have an ally and us 2 just playing the map. Not sure if that's intended and when I tried hiring the secret employee to attack my ally, nothing seems to happen.
Maybe rating should go beyond 200.
I'll have to think about the Cash Out tooltip. It says -90 because that's what it costs... it subtracts 3 vespene and adds 90 minerals. I might be able to hide the cost display and show something a bit more intuitive.
As for the cargo trucks, I agree that it can sometimes be frustrating to not know what the truck is carrying. Fixing this should be easy enough.
The game should work fine regardless of the number of players. You may have encountered a glitch. You can send me the replay if you like and I can look it over. It's hard to know for sure... it could be possible that your friend fired or killed the employee immediately. Did any other abilities seem to glitch out?
I didn't want rating to go too high to prevent one player from gaining too much of an edge at any point. Capping it at 200 means that there's always an opportunity to come back, whereas a player with 900 rating could charge max markup for several days and rake in cash, further cementing his lead. Besides, with the rating too high, customers would eventually come in too quickly for supplies to keep up, causing frustrating gameplay experiences. That being said, all things are subject to balance of course, so the 200 cap may fluctuate somewhat in the future.
Most things are possible with Data, though perhaps complicated. Are you asking if it's possible to order the marines to move close to the bunker via the Data editor or if it's possible to extend the range of the Load ability? In any case, your needs might be better served in the Data forum if that's what you're looking for.
Yeah I tend to just use loops in my maps to search all or active players for certain conditions rather than storing player attributes in records. Because player counts can't be more than 14 anyway, there usually isn't a pressing need to keep things more efficient by using a direct designation and avoiding the loop. I find this helps avoid many bugs that may arise from improper player designations and other mistakes on my part. That's just my preference, though.
Are your marines right next to the bunker? If not, you'll need to order the marines to move close to the bunker first or use the Move Unit (instantly) function (though if this is at map initialization, you'll probably want the Issue Order function.) The Load ability has a finite range, so it's probably failing to load because of that.
You probably don't have the right dependencies loaded up for your map. Sounds like you might have one of the old beta dependencies loaded instead of the newer ones.
0
As far as I can tell, there's no way to reference a unit's random name with triggers. Depending on what you're trying to do, it may be better to randomly assign the unit a name with your own trigger than to use the Data editor. Then you can store the unit's name in a variable and later show the unit's name with a custom dialog.
0
Make your player-based arrays have a size of at least 16 and you won't exceed array bounds when it comes to players. I'm sure there's a more efficient way to deal with it for those of you who obsess over code efficiency, but most maps will work just fine with size-16 arrays storing player numbers.
0
I don't have an EU account. Unless Blizzard changed the way publishing works and I'm simply not aware of it. When I published Xeno Crisis to EU, I had to get a friend who lives in Europe to lend me his account.
I'm not sure what you mean regarding the tutorial. Are you saying the white text is too difficult to read or did the tutorial simply stop working?
0
The Secret Agent ability basically "hires" a new employee for the target player that, while he remains alive and/or in the employ of your target, will cause a zerg attack wave to spawn every day and attack only your target's bar. Based on my observation of the replay, that's what happened. Now, whether I actually do a good job of communicating that effect during the game may be the real issue, and is something I will definitely be looking at over the next few patches.
It seems like there is quite a bit that isn't being properly communicated to players, and this is (understandably) causing misconceptions and frustration. Advertising, for example, causes the target customer type to appear more frequently relative to the other customer types. For instance, advertising to Upper Class will shift the spawn ratio of the types of customers toward those who prefer high quality goods. Without advertising, the ratio is something like 50% lower class, 35% middle class, and 15% upper class. After advertising to Upper Class, this ratio will shift to something closer to 25%/15%/60%. So in order to keep your stocks up, you'll need to buy more High Quality goods than the other types. The best way to take advantage of this is to stock up on a certain type of good when the price is low and change your advertising so that you target that type.
The fact that you're allied with all players doesn't really have a practical impact on the way the game plays out - or at least, it isn't supposed to. In the next patch I plan to make players enemies since that will send a more clear message about the objective of the game - which is to drive the other players out of business.
Again, I must thank you for the very thorough feedback you've provided. It seems my biggest goals right now are to add more variety and better communication/feedback to the player. Stay tuned over the next few weeks because Star Bar will not be short on updates ;)
0
@Trieva: Go
Just watched the replay. As far as I could tell, everything worked fine. The Zerg came and only attacked your opponent... in fact, it was these constant attacks that finished him off at the end. A lot of his civilians also died at the end so maybe that's when you noticed the attacks stopped.
I see your points regarding the rating and it makes sense. However, the rating is not supposed to be the primary game decider. I think the current setup more closely mimics how bars operate in the real world - that is, the rating (or public perception) can rise or fall in a relatively short period of time and is not the biggest factor in determining success or failure. Just as a real bar's reputation may stagnate over time if it doesn't advertise or produce satisfied customers, such is the case in Star Bar - though on a much smaller time scale, of course. That's the philosophy behind the status quo, at any rate.
The strategy is basically to keep your bar afloat while knocking your opponent off-balance enough to make them lose the game. I have more upgrades planned in the next update to increase the amount of customization you can do to your bar, so that should definitely mix things up a bit. You can somewhat specialize your stock by buying up a particular quality (low, medium, or high) and advertising to the corresponding class, even if you still need a small amount of the other food and booze types to keep your rating up - but again, this also mimics most bars today who have low shelf, mid shelf, and top shelf selections to both food and alcohol products.
0
I'll have to think about the Cash Out tooltip. It says -90 because that's what it costs... it subtracts 3 vespene and adds 90 minerals. I might be able to hide the cost display and show something a bit more intuitive.
As for the cargo trucks, I agree that it can sometimes be frustrating to not know what the truck is carrying. Fixing this should be easy enough.
The game should work fine regardless of the number of players. You may have encountered a glitch. You can send me the replay if you like and I can look it over. It's hard to know for sure... it could be possible that your friend fired or killed the employee immediately. Did any other abilities seem to glitch out?
I didn't want rating to go too high to prevent one player from gaining too much of an edge at any point. Capping it at 200 means that there's always an opportunity to come back, whereas a player with 900 rating could charge max markup for several days and rake in cash, further cementing his lead. Besides, with the rating too high, customers would eventually come in too quickly for supplies to keep up, causing frustrating gameplay experiences. That being said, all things are subject to balance of course, so the 200 cap may fluctuate somewhat in the future.
0
Well I think it's about that time.
0
I wish the bullies in junior high thought that way! Hyuk hyuk hyuk
0
@joemart06: Go
Most things are possible with Data, though perhaps complicated. Are you asking if it's possible to order the marines to move close to the bunker via the Data editor or if it's possible to extend the range of the Load ability? In any case, your needs might be better served in the Data forum if that's what you're looking for.
0
Yeah I tend to just use loops in my maps to search all or active players for certain conditions rather than storing player attributes in records. Because player counts can't be more than 14 anyway, there usually isn't a pressing need to keep things more efficient by using a direct designation and avoiding the loop. I find this helps avoid many bugs that may arise from improper player designations and other mistakes on my part. That's just my preference, though.
0
@joemart06: Go
Are your marines right next to the bunker? If not, you'll need to order the marines to move close to the bunker first or use the Move Unit (instantly) function (though if this is at map initialization, you'll probably want the Issue Order function.) The Load ability has a finite range, so it's probably failing to load because of that.
0
0
Change the player properties in your map. Also look at the game variant... You can lock players to a certain race that way.
0
@abvdzh: Go
You could pick all units and use a damage effect instead. You can have those originate from units and players.
0
@Bareleon: Go
You probably don't have the right dependencies loaded up for your map. Sounds like you might have one of the old beta dependencies loaded instead of the newer ones.