How to make a unit hard to select, but not impossible.

[darwin]

I have a 3rd person boat mini-game in the works. I put the players camera behind the boat, so that wherever they click, the boat turns in that direction. They actually don't have the boat selected (they're selecting an invisible unit elsewhere on the map), so they will never have to manually select the boat.

Problem: when the players right-click, they will sometimes hit the boat itself, which means nothing happens and the boat doesn't steer.

Solution: I want to make the boat very hard to click on. I can't give it a locust ability because enemy units (not players) need to be able to attack it.

Is there some way to modify the ease with which a unit can be selected? I can do some modelling (e.g. adding attachments, sound effects), but I don't have any experience moving nodes around or anything.

 

[louie999]

I dont think thats possible as those kind of things are hardcoded to the game,but then again i might be wrong.

 

[Faith]

I believe you can use the locust ability on a unit initialized into a variable and then order specific units to attack it, no?
Perhaps I'm wrong but at very least it would be something to look in to.

 

[Chaosy]

You can force the owner of the boat to instantly deselect the boat once selected. This wouldn't apply to enemies.

 

[Maker]

How about

Game - Disable selection and deselection functionality (Enable selection circles)

You can still select units with triggers.

Or

Remove Locust Partially Events Player - Player 1 (Red) skips a cinematic sequence Conditions Actions Set u = (Random unit from (Units currently selected by Player 1 (Red))) Custom script: call UnitAddAbility(udg_u, 'Aloc') Custom script: call UnitRemoveAbility(udg_u, 'Aloc') Unit - Turn collision for u On // You might not need this Unit - Add Bear Form to u Unit - Order u to Night Elf Druid Of The Claw - Bear Form Unit - Remove Bear Form from u

Now you can not select the particular unit with your mouse, but you can target it with abilities. Hide/unihide it to restore it to normal.

 

[rulerofiron99]

Open up the model in Magos (war 3 model editor) and make the extents smaller.

Or, make the boat unit's model a very small transparent box (the size that you want it to be clickable), and add the boat's model as a special effect to the unit's origin.

 

[darwin]

Some great ideas, guys thanks.

Faith, I should point out that locust abilities cannot be attacked, so I'm afraid that won't work.

Chaosy, I do actually force them to deselect, but it cancels out the order; meaning you right click ahead to turn but instead select the ship...and hence do not turn.

Maker, good to hear from you again! I suppose I could remove selection ability... I really don't need it because I use triggers to force the player to select the controlling unit. I'll try that as it seems the most simple. The bear form trick I've never heard of before, but I'll keep it in mind if the deselection doesn't work.

Rulerofiron99, I think I could do that. One question, if I killed the unit would the boat model that is attached to the transparent cube play its death animation? Would it tilt to the side when ordered and so forth?

Thanks all; +rep all around.

 

[rulerofiron99]

It should be able to do both. The side tilting is based on the invis unit that you use, and whether or not it can tilt. If it doesn't work, you might need to attach it to the chest or head instead of origin.

 

[darwin]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.