As I mentioned in that post, as well as in the OP, using a custom action definition and checking for whether a player is entering and leaving a region, creating and destroying a revealer based on that information, tends to bog down the game. It's not noticeable when the map is run directly, but when previewed through the editor, it can cause so much slowdown it nearly makes the game unplayable when a large number of units are moving in and out of these regions regularly.
On the other hand, the auto reveal function didn't seem to cause any sort of slowdown whatsoever.
Thanks, I'm aware of this function, but it accomplishes something entirely different. Auto Reveal will reveal and unreveal a region based on whether or not a unit is inside of the region. You could accomplish the same thing using the reveal area trigger but with a lot more work. Auto reveal is far more elegant, I already wrote custom action definitions for this in the past, but as I mentioned in the OP it really bogs the game down, at least in editor testing.
I'm really just concerned at why this is happening in general, I don't like not understanding why something is happening, more importantly, I like even less having no way to fix the issue. I would prefer not having to keep using custom action definitions, because the solution is inelegant, and slow. I guess no one has ever solved the mystery of the unknown function then?
I've been working with conversation states recently, and running into a rather annoying issue. I am able to edit everything in the general and image tab perfectly fine. However, when I try to edit any of the text fields for the conversation state, the data is simply not saved whenever I hit OK. I come back to the conversation state item, and the text field data is empty. This occurs regardless of whether I'm working with a duplicate conversation state, or a new conversation state. Editing a conversation state that already has text data (like a Blizzard conversation state) results in it reverting back to it's original state whenever it is closed.
Curious if anyone has run into this issue and figured out a way to resolve this issue?
Added a large number of tips throughout the level.
Added additional resource caches.
Added safety measures for new players on casual and normal modes.
Added map pings and spacebar events where necessary.
Added talk icons for much of the dialog.
Changes
On hard and brutal, the primary zerg opponent will now pressure both sides of Backwater Station.
On hard and brutal, zerg will now research upgrades as the mission progresses.
The area surrounding the coolant tower is now larger and more easily navigated.
Adjusted firebat intro scene to interrupt play less.
Adjusted the location of certain zerg enemies.
Adjusted the terrain and doodad layout in some areas.
Bonus objective no longer introduced through lengthy cutscene.
Adjutant now scans red zerg base to reveal the potential threat during bonus objective.
Destructible rocks no longer targetable/highlightable before bonus objective revealed.
Removed creep tumors in canyon to the right of the main base in order to prevent player confusion.
There are a lot of new things in 1.1, and a lot of small polish tweaks. But here's a list of things that have yet to make it in and will be coming in the near future.
Victory cinematic.
Achievements.
Additional tips.
Dialog adjustments. (To increase clarity, and reduce confusion in certain areas.)
Contingencies to deal with a possible exploit. ( I won't elaborate on this one unless someone figures it out before I fix it! )
Recently I discovered an amazing trigger called auto-reveal, which would reveal/unreveal a region based on whether or not the specified player had a unit inside of it. I was happy, because I had written my own script to do this in the past, and this new solution was much more elegant.
Fast forward a day, and suddenly on both of my PCs, both in my maps as well as in Blizzard maps that use the trigger I'm seeing (Unknown Function).
What's going on? I've tried rebooting, reloading the map, loading it on another pc etc. I can't get the trigger to show up anymore. SC2 hasn't updated at all since then, so I'm at a bit of a loss. Thanks so much for any help!
Yes! Expect a new beta version of Backwater Station this weekend or by Monday at the latest. I've been preparing for a job interview recently, so life has been busy. I've already made a lot of changes to Mission 02, but I'm waiting to release until all of the content is done, including the cutscenes.
For those of you who have played Backwater already, look forward to a lot of balancing tweaks to the gameplay, including a much more challenging hard and brutal mode, as the zerg enemies will now upgrade their forces over time. There will also be achievements in the new version, otherwise a lot of changes are going to be cosmetic, and polish related.
Mission 03 probably won't be making it to beta for a week or two. I'd love to be pushing these missions out faster, but I obviously don't want to sacrifice quality in order to do so. So with that said, look forward to new maps on the horizon, I'm aiming for a new mission to be out every 3 weeks or so.
PS. Good point on the critters, didn't think of that! In this case though I was indeed referring to a standard unit.
Of course haha. Things have merely been busy, and I've been focusing on polishing up these two maps before moving on. A big update to Backwater Station should be coming soon. The APC portrait will need to be added, that being said, there wouldn't be a voice regardless, because it's a neutral unit, and they don't respond when clicked last I checked?
What difficulty were you playing on? I urge you to try getting "Not a Scratch" and "No Marine Left Behind" on Brutal if you want a challenge. They can be a little tough, and getting both at the same time is very, very challenging. That being said, you're right this is the first mission, the zergling achievement will most likely be adjusted, but it won't be something too difficult.
I'm not sure about the APC issue, where specifically did you have problems? I'm aware of the spots myself, but just wondering which ones were issues for you as a player? Part of the idea was forcing the player to be aware of tight spaces and go ahead, I wanted to teach the player how terrain can enhance or diminish the potency of a force of units.
You can actually add units between setting all the points and sending the attack wave. When you set the units doesn't seem to matter, but that's how I do it. I call an action that sets the wave's target and waypoint information before every attack wave add unit/send statement. This let's me make sure that they units are attack the proper area.
Hopefully people who run into the weird issue of one unit being too far ahead, and your waypoints being in a spot between two paths will be able to find my findings useful, haha.
Okay. So what I learned was, first of all, remember to turn off other triggers when attempting to test something in a vacuum... I had a redirect trigger on, incase the player changes bases, that... wasn't turning itself off, but this actually didn't solve the problem, though it wasn't helping at all.
More importantly:
The AI will consider a waypoint reached when the first member of an attack wave reaches the point
The AI will recalculate it's route to the next waypoint using the CENTER of the attack wave unit group
This created the problem for me. The zerglings were much faster than the accompanying hydralisk, when they reached the first point, the hydralisk lagging behind threw the center of the group off, and after recalculating, the AI decided the fastest route to the second waypoint was THROUGH the target. It was trying to get to the waypoint all along, adding a third waypoint, between the first and second fixed the problem. I've spent way too long trying to fix this, but hopefully this helps someone else out.
I'm fairly certain I tried that as well, in fact I know I did, but I will try getting it to work in a vacuum with your advice. Maybe something else was messing it up when I tried it that way. I'll post back either way.
Edit: Got it to work in one scenario, I think I may have figured out what my issue was... Will post back soon once I confirm.
This still results in the zerg moving to the first waypoint, (backwater rear path) then retreating back to their gather point, but sending one ling to the attack target, (without going to the second waypoint) I'm totally at a loss at the moment, is it not possible to set two waypoints for one attack wave?
The issue is, it's very difficult to test if the problem is unrelated to having two waypoints. Because I'm trying to get the zerg to go - around - their target and attack from the other side. If I just use one waypoint, more or less no matter where I put it, it's going to cause them to go through their target to get there (negating the waypoint entirely) or cause them to go to it and then double back.
I'm just curious if I'm missing some arcane oddity with the way waypoints work. I've included a snippit of the trigger I'm using below. I've tried changing up the order of waypoints and targets, having only one waypoint, many waypoints etc.
Attack waves themselves work fine, but setting waypoints causes some issues. Most of the time, the AI will completely bypass the waypoints, and head straight to the attack destination. Occasionally, the AI will head most of the way to the attack destination, ignore the waypoint, then fall back to the gather point without ever attacking. Strangely.... every single time this happens ONE zergling breaks off from the main group and attacks while the rest retreat.
I'm at an absolute loss over what is causing this. I have no weird pathing problems, I've tried changing the locations of the waypoints and attack destinations, just to simple little areas in order to test, I've also tried adjusting the amount of time given for the attack to be performed, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
0
@Alevice: Go
As I mentioned in that post, as well as in the OP, using a custom action definition and checking for whether a player is entering and leaving a region, creating and destroying a revealer based on that information, tends to bog down the game. It's not noticeable when the map is run directly, but when previewed through the editor, it can cause so much slowdown it nearly makes the game unplayable when a large number of units are moving in and out of these regions regularly.
On the other hand, the auto reveal function didn't seem to cause any sort of slowdown whatsoever.
0
@PatchOne: Go
Thanks, I'm aware of this function, but it accomplishes something entirely different. Auto Reveal will reveal and unreveal a region based on whether or not a unit is inside of the region. You could accomplish the same thing using the reveal area trigger but with a lot more work. Auto reveal is far more elegant, I already wrote custom action definitions for this in the past, but as I mentioned in the OP it really bogs the game down, at least in editor testing.
I'm really just concerned at why this is happening in general, I don't like not understanding why something is happening, more importantly, I like even less having no way to fix the issue. I would prefer not having to keep using custom action definitions, because the solution is inelegant, and slow. I guess no one has ever solved the mystery of the unknown function then?
0
@designerdougm: Go
One bump, seems I always have questions that can't be answered, but hopeful.
0
One last bump. Seems I always have questions that can't be answered, but hopeful.
0
I've been working with conversation states recently, and running into a rather annoying issue. I am able to edit everything in the general and image tab perfectly fine. However, when I try to edit any of the text fields for the conversation state, the data is simply not saved whenever I hit OK. I come back to the conversation state item, and the text field data is empty. This occurs regardless of whether I'm working with a duplicate conversation state, or a new conversation state. Editing a conversation state that already has text data (like a Blizzard conversation state) results in it reverting back to it's original state whenever it is closed.
Curious if anyone has run into this issue and figured out a way to resolve this issue?
0
Bump. Just curious if this has happened to anyone on any type of action definition, and if so were you able to resolved it, and how?
0
@grenegg: Go
http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/aof/files/9-ashes-of-freedom-m2-v1-1b/
It's Backwater Station in the .zip file, the trigger in question is under...
You can see the (Unknown Function)s under the comment: Create Auto Revealers
Saving improperly doesn't seem to be the case, just because I can't view it in any map, even ones that I've never saved (I.E. Blizzard maps.)
0
A new version of Backwater Station is up!
Mission 02 "Backwater Station" Beta Ver 1.1
Additions
Changes
There are a lot of new things in 1.1, and a lot of small polish tweaks. But here's a list of things that have yet to make it in and will be coming in the near future.
0
Recently I discovered an amazing trigger called auto-reveal, which would reveal/unreveal a region based on whether or not the specified player had a unit inside of it. I was happy, because I had written my own script to do this in the past, and this new solution was much more elegant.
Fast forward a day, and suddenly on both of my PCs, both in my maps as well as in Blizzard maps that use the trigger I'm seeing (Unknown Function).
What's going on? I've tried rebooting, reloading the map, loading it on another pc etc. I can't get the trigger to show up anymore. SC2 hasn't updated at all since then, so I'm at a bit of a loss. Thanks so much for any help!
0
@Mozared: Go
Yes! Expect a new beta version of Backwater Station this weekend or by Monday at the latest. I've been preparing for a job interview recently, so life has been busy. I've already made a lot of changes to Mission 02, but I'm waiting to release until all of the content is done, including the cutscenes.
For those of you who have played Backwater already, look forward to a lot of balancing tweaks to the gameplay, including a much more challenging hard and brutal mode, as the zerg enemies will now upgrade their forces over time. There will also be achievements in the new version, otherwise a lot of changes are going to be cosmetic, and polish related.
Mission 03 probably won't be making it to beta for a week or two. I'd love to be pushing these missions out faster, but I obviously don't want to sacrifice quality in order to do so. So with that said, look forward to new maps on the horizon, I'm aiming for a new mission to be out every 3 weeks or so.
PS. Good point on the critters, didn't think of that! In this case though I was indeed referring to a standard unit.
0
@AlexO6: Go
Of course haha. Things have merely been busy, and I've been focusing on polishing up these two maps before moving on. A big update to Backwater Station should be coming soon. The APC portrait will need to be added, that being said, there wouldn't be a voice regardless, because it's a neutral unit, and they don't respond when clicked last I checked?
What difficulty were you playing on? I urge you to try getting "Not a Scratch" and "No Marine Left Behind" on Brutal if you want a challenge. They can be a little tough, and getting both at the same time is very, very challenging. That being said, you're right this is the first mission, the zergling achievement will most likely be adjusted, but it won't be something too difficult.
I'm not sure about the APC issue, where specifically did you have problems? I'm aware of the spots myself, but just wondering which ones were issues for you as a player? Part of the idea was forcing the player to be aware of tight spaces and go ahead, I wanted to teach the player how terrain can enhance or diminish the potency of a force of units.
0
@Terhonator: Go
You can actually add units between setting all the points and sending the attack wave. When you set the units doesn't seem to matter, but that's how I do it. I call an action that sets the wave's target and waypoint information before every attack wave add unit/send statement. This let's me make sure that they units are attack the proper area.
Hopefully people who run into the weird issue of one unit being too far ahead, and your waypoints being in a spot between two paths will be able to find my findings useful, haha.
0
PROBLEM SOLVED!
*/Plays victory fanfare/*
Okay. So what I learned was, first of all, remember to turn off other triggers when attempting to test something in a vacuum... I had a redirect trigger on, incase the player changes bases, that... wasn't turning itself off, but this actually didn't solve the problem, though it wasn't helping at all.
More importantly:
This created the problem for me. The zerglings were much faster than the accompanying hydralisk, when they reached the first point, the hydralisk lagging behind threw the center of the group off, and after recalculating, the AI decided the fastest route to the second waypoint was THROUGH the target. It was trying to get to the waypoint all along, adding a third waypoint, between the first and second fixed the problem. I've spent way too long trying to fix this, but hopefully this helps someone else out.
0
@Tolkfan: Go
I'm fairly certain I tried that as well, in fact I know I did, but I will try getting it to work in a vacuum with your advice. Maybe something else was messing it up when I tried it that way. I'll post back either way.
Edit: Got it to work in one scenario, I think I may have figured out what my issue was... Will post back soon once I confirm.
Edit 2: Well.... I got "a" waypoint to work,
This still results in the zerg moving to the first waypoint, (backwater rear path) then retreating back to their gather point, but sending one ling to the attack target, (without going to the second waypoint) I'm totally at a loss at the moment, is it not possible to set two waypoints for one attack wave?
The issue is, it's very difficult to test if the problem is unrelated to having two waypoints. Because I'm trying to get the zerg to go - around - their target and attack from the other side. If I just use one waypoint, more or less no matter where I put it, it's going to cause them to go through their target to get there (negating the waypoint entirely) or cause them to go to it and then double back.
0
Edit: Problem solved below.
I'm just curious if I'm missing some arcane oddity with the way waypoints work. I've included a snippit of the trigger I'm using below. I've tried changing up the order of waypoints and targets, having only one waypoint, many waypoints etc.
Attack waves themselves work fine, but setting waypoints causes some issues. Most of the time, the AI will completely bypass the waypoints, and head straight to the attack destination. Occasionally, the AI will head most of the way to the attack destination, ignore the waypoint, then fall back to the gather point without ever attacking. Strangely.... every single time this happens ONE zergling breaks off from the main group and attacks while the rest retreat.
I'm at an absolute loss over what is causing this. I have no weird pathing problems, I've tried changing the locations of the waypoints and attack destinations, just to simple little areas in order to test, I've also tried adjusting the amount of time given for the attack to be performed, etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Trigger Snippit:
PS. I've also tried making the attack location a point instead of a player group, with no change in the results.