SC2Mapster

@Diablito816: Go

I will try and help.

My first advice would be to not duplicate. Make your units, actors, effects, etc.. from the 'right click' - 'add object'.

It can be done by duplication pretty easily, but only if you have a working knowledge of the data editor. Starting from scratch is the best bet.

It sounds like maybe the 'attack' actor isn't recognizing your effects. I've noticed a bug where it can happen. it's happened 2 times for me in the last few days (12+ hours a day in the editor.. secrete project.. shhh)... Maybe it's not a bug and I'm just getting burned out from duplication headaches. I quit cold turkey and make everything from scratch now :) no more problems at all.

If you made sure the impact and launch tokens are attached to your effects and it's still not recognizing your changes, delete the attack actor and make a new one. when you make a new one "add object" you only really have to adjust 6 fields. it's pretty quick (better then duplicating IMHO)

Just make sure the impact and launch tokens are on your launch and damage effects.

Art - missile is set to your projectile unit.

Launch Attachement Query is set to the bone where you want the launch effect comming from.

Launch assests+ is set to the launch model and sound

Impact map+ is set to the Impact model and sound.

that's it for making your own attack actor. :)

Hope that helps

@phoenixfire2001: Go

Yeah it's pretty fustrating. Just make backups of everything you do constantly :)

Hey everyone, I have this problem. When I morph a unit into another unit, the progress bar is there in the UI, says the word "upgrading" over top of it, but to the left of it is an ugly pinkish brown sqaure. I have another morph unit with the icon showing just fine. Spendning an hour comparing actors, units, and abilities of the 2, I can't for the life of me see any difference that would make one have an icon and the other not.

Anyone got an idea?

@Shakeslol: Go

To fix the problem regarding them not being able to be upgraded.

Click abilities tab

Select the morph ability that does the upgrade

edit the Stats|Flags field and remove the checkmark under "Wait until stopped"

Also make sure you have "Ignore Unit Cost" cheched as well or you get some funky costs errors.

@Etravex: Go

SOLUTION AT BOTTOM

I'm having a similar problem. This is the math so far:

Costs

Tower A Rank 1 = $15 to place.

Morph cost = $12 to upgrade to Rank 2.

Actually happening in game: Tower A = $15 to place, and -$3 to upgrade. yes, I get 3 minierals upgrading it.

So what I am seeing happening is the morph cost subtracted by the Placement cost = the actual cost. 12 - 15 = -3

However, from Rank 2 to Rank 3, Rank 3 to Rank 4 etc... the cost is correct. It removes the correct amount from my resources. However, the tooltip is always displaying -15 from the amount. The cost is $75 from Rank 3 to Rank 4, The tooltip displayed the cost as $60 but the amount removed from my resources is $75. The tooltip error is just for the consecutive morphs. The tooltip is correct for the actual amount being deducted/added to my resouces.

It's not just this tower, my other towers are effected like this as well.

Tower B cost = 5 to place

Upgrade to Rank 2 = $5

What is happening in game - Tooltip displays Upgrade to Rank 2 = $0 (no change in my resources) Then each consecutive upgrade is -$5 in the tooltip, but correct amount being deducted.

It's just that first upgrade. I don't understand.

Ive double checked and rechecked costs in the morph ability. compared them with the other Ranks of upgrade morph abilities, I can't find the error. I've deleted the morph ability and recreated it, still the error.

Anyone have an idea?

Edit: I've tried increasing the cost of the first morph by the amount of the tower cost. This corrects the tooltip error and the cost of the first morph, but each consecutive morph is actually removing more resources by the amount I increased the first upgrade cost. Something fishy is going on here.

EDIT #2: I've solved the problem for me, hopefully is solves it for you. The Morph abiliy [STATS:FLAGS] field needs to have a check in "Ignore Unit Cost"

@IzzoSc2: Go

lol yeah. I didn't bother spending time tweaking the launch point. Was basically showing my son what I could make in a few minutes. I have too much to do on my own map to bother perfecting the placement of the weapon on a test map. :)

@RainGame: Go

How do you set behaviors into this? I basically have 1 ability per tower ugprade and don't see the benifit of attatching a buff behavior. Ive read from various places that for upgrading single units to use behaviors, but when setting it up, my turrets just turned into unclickable, non-shooting modeless white balls.

Quote from RockJohnAxe: Go

@Covet78: Go

I would love to know this too. I too am trying to get Upgrades that only affect a single Unit, like the Turrets in Overrun! for example.

I want to be able ot upgrade each of my units seperatly.

Ok I got it working strictly in the data editor. So far I've done it with 2 kinds of towers with 5 upgardes each. Tower A and Tower B. All origonal units, actors, effects, weapons, abilities, buttons was made from scratch. I did not dublicate anything to make my funcional towers/builder. I hate all the duplication tutorial video's out there. It's really a shame because it's much easier and much less a headache just making new everything instead.

So I have my Tower A, it can be upgraded 5 times. Each time increases it's damage and the Final upgrade increases damage, range, speed, and it's effects. and it works great after some learning pains.

For each upgrade, it's actually a whole new UNIT, ACTOR (UNIT and ACTION respectively), WEAPON, EFFECTS (DAMAGE and LAUNCH). you can actually duplicate them. Just make as many as you are having upgrades for that tower. Duplicating these are fine if you made them from scratch cause you need pretty much the same things just with very minor tweeks for the effects and maybe models and some stats per upgrade. Example: Tower A will have 2 upgrades. So duplicate the UNIT "Tower A" and just rename the -

'Tower A copy' and 'Tower A copy 2' to Tower A Level 2 and Tower A Level 3

(obviously you can name it however you want). I'm really against duplicating, but if you are duplicating your own creations, you know exactly what was in there, so there's no headache.

Duplicating tips - When I had to dublicate my towers. I did it without the attachements. Meaning when I did Units, I didn't have anything checked but the main unit. All effects, weapons, abilities actors, etc.. was not checked. I just went into actors after and duplicated the actors I needed without having anything checked.

ok.. now that we have all our stuff duplicated. (UNIT - ACTORS (2 kinds - Action(weapons) and Unit(tower model)) - BUTTONS - WEAPON - EFFECTS (2 kinds - Launch and Damage (I really like projectiles in TD games)) One thing you do not need to duplicate is your projectile UNIT unless you want a different kind for the upgrades. You can change the effects in the ACTOR (Action) without changing anything else to make your newly upgraded towers look, sound and feel different from their previous iterations.

Now the only thing you need to do before you start fixing the few damage/range/speed values and linking the units to the duplicated effects/weapons/buttons is make morph abilities for each upgrade.

Under abilities create a new morph ability, you only need to input 4 fields here.

Ability Command +, -- sets up your button, pretty straight forward.

Ability Info + -- links the morph abiliy to the unit it morphs into (select the Tower unit (TOWER A LEVEL 2) you want your old tower to turn into (can also set the length of time for the upgrade here aswell)

Costs + - how much the upgrade costs.

Stats - Flags (Ignore Placement, Show Progess, Ignore Unit Cost) have everything else unchecked

It's really important you link all your dublicated effects to your weapon - your weapon to your unit - your actors to your unit and weapon - your new morph abiliy to your units, then setup the abilitiy of your unit

(UNIT TAB) Ability - Abilities + - give your unit the new upgrade tower ability (morph) Ability - Command Card + - set up your button.

If you followed the order in doing everything in the way I wrote it here, you shouldn't have any problems if you have a decent working knowledge of linking all your stuff properly. This little instruction set should work fine.

Good luck!

EDIT: Added "Ignore Unit Costs" in the morph ability STATS:FLAGS

Was just fooling around with the data editor and made a Doom Ray. Thinking of using it for one of my towers in my TD map.

@RockJohnAxe: Go

I can't figure out how to do it with behaviors. I have done it with abilities though. I just use the morph ability and just copy my turrets (easy enough sinse they are all made from scratch). Basically as it stands now, I have 2 turrets completed with 5 upgrades for each of them. Works very well with just using the "ability" morph.

However now i'm trying to put a 'progress' bar as each upgrade level takes longer and longer, the turret that is out of commision kinda sucks as there's no visual queue when it will be ready. any ideas how to put one in?

Updated: Scratch that - Now I just noticed a problem. Going only with abilities, unless I missed something, you can only upgrade the towers if they are out of combat. Once they are in combat and you hit the upgrade button on the command card, they just kinda stay there and don't even shoot. Anyone know a fix out of that?

Great post. One question though. How do I just limit the upgrade to the one turret as opposed to the upgrade hitting all my turrets when i research it?

@Gurrgel: Go

I'm trying to do something similar. Except instead of Unit's, it's buildings (turrets). When I upgrade one turret, ALL turrets get the upgrade. Basically for each new tower (and in his case unit) the upgrades are non-existant on that building (unit) that just got created (in his case, respawned)

It can all be done strictly in the data editor. I'm just still learning where everything is though.

Hey Everyone. I was wondering if anyone knew how to modify/add/remove the circle of triangles that appears when placing a photon cannon.

Basically my problem is I made a custom with custom weapons and the only thing i used related to a photon cannon was the model and placement model. Everything else is made from scratch (without duplicating) so I think it must be within the model fields as that is the only object that I didn't input myself manually.

To be clear, its the "attack range" of the turret. I put in my own attack range so this graphic (circle of triangles) when placing this turret is very misleading.

Thanks :)

@goofoffjw: Go

Awsome. I find it under (unit <flags>). I had to check the flag 'worker'

Thanks a bunch :)

Hi everyone. I was hoping someone could help me.

I created a custom builder from scratch. I can move him, build, everything. The only thing is when I was entering all the fields in the Data Editor for my builder, I couldn't find the place to put in the F1 for idle. When I test him out on a map, there's no "idle" icon in the lower left side of the screen.

Thanks in advance :)