Baradé's Ray 1.0

[Devalut]

Very cool!

Using github is a brilliant idea too.

 

[hemmedo]

isi it possible to make it work the way it does in diablo? caster channels and only able to turn around without moving?

 

[Barade]

I was thinking about that too. I might be able to catch and interrupt move/target orders and only change the facing and could add a boolean flag for that.

 

[Antares]

I was thinking about that too. I might be able to catch and interrupt move/target orders and only change the facing and could add a boolean flag for that.

I made a spell like that. I added a second, hidden channeling ability based on Channel to the hero when the original spell is cast, then whenever a movement command is given, it is replaced with casting the hidden spell at the target location.

To get the hold-down-right-mouse-button to change direction of the laser behavior, you'd need a click-and-hold system.

 

[Barade]

How exactly does it work in Diablo? You hold a key for the spell and then ordering with the mouse will only rotate the caster? When you release the key the spell stops? I do not need to cast a new spell when the order is given but only rotate the hero. The ray will change the direction automatically to the facing of the hero.

 

[Antares]

Hope I'm remembering this right, been ten years.

You can bind a spell to the left- and right-mouse-button or to keys. Whatever key or button you bind it to, as long as you hold it down, your character will stop and channel the laser in the direction of your mouse-cursor.

You could make it so that holding down the spell hotkey makes the hero fire it, but you have to solve the issue that different players have different hotkey layouts.

 

[Barade]

If you keep a key pressed for a spell it will be cast n times again and again by Warcraft III. I could just add a timer like 2 seconds or 1 second which checks if you still restart casting it (holding the key down). Then I do not need to know the hotkey but it would be limited to the spell's hotkey.

For attacks I could try adding mouse bindings but it will take some time to add this.

At least I got an option which stops the hero and only changes the hero's facing when ordering movement somewhere.

edit:
Update:

• Frost Ray, Fire Ray and Frost and Fire Ray spells require holding their key and allow aiming with the mouse cursor like in Diablo III now.
• Fix exploding barrels.
• Increase the damage by ray spells.
• Escape key allows reviving and refilling your heroes.
• Refactoring and some optimization of code.
• Library requires MouseUtils.
• Custom libraries TreeUtils and MathUtils as clear requirements for the system.

 

[maddeem]

These massive if/then trees is not ideal. Why not store valid abilities in a hashtable so that this check is O(1)? It would also condense a lot of your code.

public function IsValidAbility takes integer abilityId returns boolean
    if (abilityId == FROST_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == FIRE_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == HOLY_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == HARVEST_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == LOOT_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == WATER_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == DRAIN_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == FROST_AND_FIRE_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == CHAIN_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == MANA_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == RAISE_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == POISON_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == CHARM_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == NEUTRALIZATION_RAY) then
        return true    
    elseif (abilityId == HEX_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == RESURRECTION_RAY) then
        return true
    elseif (abilityId == WIND_RAY) then
        return true
    endif
    return false
endfunction

 

[Antares]

It could be worse

Yea, you can use a hashtable for the checks and for the effect calls a function interface. I also think that you should make it easy for the user to define their own on-hit callback. I'm thinking that the vast majority of people will want to use a damaging ray with flashy special effects attached to it and maybe some secondary effects like debuffs etc.

 

[Barade]

I can provide some kind of struct RayType with function callbacks. Need some more time/work. It just grew this way.

For the moment, you just have to modify for example:

public function OnHitUnit takes unit caster, unit target, integer abilityId, real duration returns nothing

I want to support multiple abilities per ray type in the future since you could have different hero/unit/item abilities with the same ray times.
I would need some function like

function IsLootRay takes integer abilityId returns boolean

with the current version.

I can refactor it using some RayType struct and making the T struct public as RayData or something:

struct RayData // exists already as struct T in library Ray
      integer abilityId
      unit caster
      unit target
      real duration

      ...

endstruct

function interface OnHitUnit takes RayData r returns nothing

struct RayType
      string casterEffect
      string hitEffect
      boolean mouseAiming
      OnHitUnit onHitUnit

      ...

endstruct

function AddRayType takes integer abilityId, RayType t returns nothing

I was also wondering if there were any standardized TreeUtils and MathUtils on Hive/which are used in other systems rather than my own libs.