Adapting WarCraft 3 to Tides of Darkness - Misc ?'s

[Abelhawk]

A few questions for you guys. I'm making a WarCraft 2 unit set (I know others probably have, but oh well), and there are some problems I'm running into that I can't seem to fix. You're free to answer whichever one(s) you know the answer to.

1. I don't want any tooltips to appear (I'm going for super authentic WarCraft 2), so how do I get certain units to not say "Tooltip missing!"? Most of them are just blank, but the other ones are problematic and say that, even though I'd rather they not say anything. (Settled )
   
   [*] I'm just using the Mortar Team model as the Dwarven Demo Squad (I'm making the game with vanilla models completely), but how do I make it so that they explode when they die rather than just slump over and die? I made a trigger that added "Make Unit Explode Upon Death" whenever a Demo Squad is trained (I tried variations of this, such as whenever a Demo Squad is issued an order of any kind), but nothing is working. (More or less solved)
   
   [*] Is there a way to force the turtle to use its swimming animation if its movement type is Float? I don't want Giant Turtle submarines being able to walk around on land, but 'Amphibious' seems to be the only way to make it appear like it's swimming (Solved!)
   
   
   [*] Has anyone in any other WarCraft 2-esque situation come up with a good way to make an Unholy Armor spell? (More or less solved )
   
   
   [*] Anyone know if buildings on WarCraft 2 have armor? (Solved!)
   
   
2. On WarCraft 2, if you had a lumber mill, you got a bonus 25 lumber added to each load brought in. Is there a way to make that possible on WC3? Or is the only way to make the peasants carry more with a technology?
   
   [*] How do building styles work? For example, what makes a peasant build a building outside (and allow other peasants to help) when peons must build buildings from the inside all by themselves? (Same goes for acolytes summoning)(Solved!)
   
   [*] Anyone know why the Sentry Ward True Sight ability has an icon on it when it's used on anything but a Sentry Ward? I'm trying to make towers and flying units inconspicuously detect invisible submarines, but it's still showing Sammy's face rather than just being an invisible ability. Any way to fix that? (Solved!)
   
   
3. I seem to have no other choice than to make the 'Runes' spell based on placing a fake Goblin Land mine... is there a way to make a Goblin Land mine not invisible? More importantly, is there a way for it to go off when a friend steps on it too? I guess I could just change its player with a trigger to Neutral Hostile or something.
   
   
4. Is there any way (beyond triggers) to change a unit's vertex coloring as part of a spell? (For example, Chilled units are slightly blue) Or is that a hard-coded thing that's untouchable?

I think that's it. I've managed to figure a lot out just from articles already on this site. So glad Hive Workshop exists! Thanks in advance, everyone.

 

[darwin]

I'll see what I can do. Here is a trigger for #2. You'll need to make a point variable called "deathPoint".

• Untitled Trigger 001
  • Events
    • Unit - A unit Dies
  • Conditions
    • (Unit-type of (Triggering unit)) Equal to Mortar Team
  • Actions
    • Set deathPoint = (Position of (Triggering unit))
    • Unit - Hide (Triggering unit)
    • Special Effect - Create a special effect at deathPoint using Objects\Spawnmodels\Other\NeutralBuildingExplosion\NeutralBuildingExplosion.mdl
    • Special Effect - Destroy (Last created special effect)

You can pick a different model for the special effect if you want to. If you want blood and guts flying around you can add these two lines to the end:

• Special Effect - Create a special effect at deathPoint using Objects\Spawnmodels\Human\HumanLargeDeathExplode\HumanLargeDeathExplode.mdl
• Special Effect - Destroy (Last created special effect)

Can you explain how unholy armor works again?

 

[Cherrymage]

#7 Its hardcoded to have workers have different build styles based on their 'races'. You can change the building style by changing its race.

In WarCraft 2, Peasants and Peons are always building their buildings inside, and additional peasants and peons can speed up the construction by ordered to 'repair' the target structure.

It is possible to change the building style of Peasants into building a structure inside all the time. Change the peasant's race into 'Orc' or 'Naga'. Tada! Your peasant will build structures inside all the time. However, I'm not sure about additional peasants speed up the construction from outside.

 

[Tickles]

1. Use a space instead of a completely blank tooltip.

2. You set it like this?

• Events
  • Unit - A unit Finishes training a unit
• Conditions
  • (Unit-type of (Trained unit)) Equal to Mortar Team
• Actions
  • Unit - Make (Trained unit) Explode on death

That should work, and then you can set the explosion model under Art - Special in the Unit Editor. Triggering unit would refer to the structure that is training and not the unit being trained.

3. Art - Required Animation Names in the unit editor should have the swim string added. The turtles will always use their swimming animations.

8. Units with a ward classification have all of their ability and command buttons hidden. Try using the ability Burrow Detection (Fliers), and be sure to change Data - Detection Type to Both. This ability reveals invisible units and doesn't show up as an icon in the unit's interface.

 

[Abelhawk]

1. Well, it still adds an extra line when mousing over it, along with the tooltip and resource cost. I guess some neutral units just have to have that hard-wired into them. Oh well. Not a huge deal.

2. Yes, Tickles, that's the exact trigger I tried before, using the Unit - Special field, and it didn't work. However, I did some experimenting, and I realized that the problem is the Kaboom! ability. Apparently it's hard-wired to use the Goblin Sappers' death 2 animation, which is why it ignores the general explode animation. So I guess I'll have to do something similar to Darwin's suggestion except wire it to when they cast their ability or something.

3. That worked perfectly! Thanks! What else can you do with the Required Animation Names field? I've never really dabbled in it.
Another question about the turtles: is it at all possible to make the submarines and turtles still invisible when they're attacking (like the submarines on WarCraft 2)? Or will they always reveal themselves? I may just have to give them Evasion to even the scales there.

4. Unholy Armor targets a unit, halves their health, and gives them invulnerability for a time. I can't think of any ability on WC3 that does this, but is there one that gives a target unit armor? Maybe I could just make them mostly invulnerable.

7. Thanks, Directive! I got this to work very well too. In fact, it's just like WarCraft 2; the peasants stay inside because they and the buildings are of the Orc race, and other peasants can work on the building because their ability is still "Repair (Human)." So that worked out perfectly!

8. Thanks a ton for that info, Tickles! I never ever knew that ability existed, but it worked out perfectly in this case. Inconspicuous, and does what it's supposed to.

Rep for everyone! And let me know if you come up with answers to any others.

 

[Daffa]

3. That worked perfectly! Thanks! What else can you do with the Required Animation Names field? I've never really dabbled in it.
Another question about the turtles: is it at all possible to make the submarines and turtles still invisible when they're attacking (like the submarines on WarCraft 2)? Or will they always reveal themselves? I may just have to give them Evasion to even the scales there.

Use both of these abilities in the unit, and they're perfectly invisible even when attacking.
The abilities : Permanent Invisibility, Ghost
Not the Ghost (Visible) though, be careful.

 

[Necziaxxus]

For #2, you should be able to base the Demo Squad off of Goblin Sappers, and just change the model, icon and sound set back to the Mortar Squad. That should work, shouldn't it? No triggers needed =]

EDIT: Should've read the comments =], as it seems that you've fixed the issue.

#5: As far as I know, Warcraft II's building did not have armor, only its units.

 

[Daffa]

On WarCraft 2, if you had a lumber mill, you got a bonus 25 lumber added to each load brought in. Is there a way to make that possible on WC3? Or is the only way to make the peasants carry more with a technology?

A good, but yet seems difficult is using triggers to grant the bonus when the resources returns, and check if the said player has lumber mill. I don't recall any orderId that can be used to detect when a resources is dropped.

 

[Necziaxxus]

#5 CONFIRMED that Warcraft II buildings did indeed have armor. Here's a link to a page which details all of the building/unit statistics, and buildings include armor.

 

[darwin]

Unholy Armor:

You can trigger it this way. Pick any ability that puts a buff on someone and edit the buff fields so that it looks like Unholy Armor (however that is done). I'll pretend you used Faerie Fire since I don't think that's an ability you'll use in WC2.

• Unholy Armor Copy
  • Events
    • Unit - A unit Starts the effect of an ability
  • Conditions
    • (Ability being cast) Equal to Faerie Fire
  • Actions
    • Unit - Set life of (Target unit of ability being cast) to ((Percentage life of (Target unit of ability being cast)) / 2.00)%
    • Unit - Make (Target unit of ability being cast) Invulnerable
    • Unit Group - Add (Target unit of ability being cast) to UnholyUnits

That spell will put the unit at 1/2 health and add them to the unit group.

• Unholy Armor Repeater Copy
  • Events
    • Time - Every 0.25 seconds of game time
  • Conditions
  • Actions
    • Unit Group - Pick every unit in UnholyUnits and do (Actions)
      • Loop - Actions
        • If (All Conditions are True) then do (Then Actions) else do (Else Actions)
          • If - Conditions
            • ((Picked unit) has buff Faerie Fire) Equal to False
          • Then - Actions
            • -------- spell expired --------
            • Unit - Make (Picked unit) Vulnerable
          • Else - Actions

That spell will remove the invulnerability when the faerie fire expires. Set the duration of faerie fire to the duration of unholy armor. Make sure faerie fire can be cast on only friendly units (or whatever unholy armor is).

I tested it and it works fine, but obviously with faire fire you can see the unit. If you can only cast on your own units this is fine.

 

[Abelhawk]

@Necziaxxus: Thanks for the source! I've been looking at various other records of WarCraft 2 stats online, but this one filled in several holes I had been looking for; for example, how much upgrading weapons costs.

@Daffa the Mage: Thanks a ton for solving #3 completely! I had no idea that was possible. I'm learning a lot by making this unit set.

@Darwin: Thanks for the suggestion, I'm glad to know the trigger works. That's also a really useful format I can use for another project. However, if anyone can think of a normal ability that I could base it on instead, that'd be great. I'm going to be saving the unit settings to be used in a series of maps, so I'd rather they stand on their own as an ability so that I have to do as little triggering to make them work as possible. Is there a way to target Divine Shield, for instance? Anything like that at all?

-- NEW QUESTIONS ADDED --

 

[darwin]

There are spells that make the target invulnerable, but they wouldn't work as far as I know:

- cyclone, but that makes the target incapable of attacking...and it won't damage the unit by 50%
- banish (immune to non-magic damage), but that also prevents attacks

I would highly recommend that you resign yourself to the fact that you will need triggers for this project. Triggers, like object data, can be exported and imported with minimal trouble. Without them, I really don't think you'll be able to do a lot of what you'll have to do.

 

[Daffa]

I seem to have no other choice than to make the 'Runes' spell based on placing a fake Goblin Land mine... is there a way to make a Goblin Land mine not invisible? More importantly, is there a way for it to go off when a friend steps on it too? I guess I could just change its player with a trigger to Neutral Hostile or something.

AFAIR, the GLM (Goblin Land Mine) spell is related to a unit name GLM. It has something to do with the GLM unit spells, one which reacts on impact. I can't confirm this though, check the unit?

On WarCraft 2, if you had a lumber mill, you got a bonus 25 lumber added to each load brought in. Is there a way to make that possible on WC3? Or is the only way to make the peasants carry more with a technology?

It's possible with Upgrades (check the Peasant Lumber Mill Upgrade, what was it's name again?), but it will be permanent regardless of Lumber Mill's Presence.

 

[Abelhawk]

Okay, Darwin, that trigger works better than I expected. It'll be worth the minor inconvenience to export it along with the unit data.

As for the lumber upgrade, I think you misread the question, Daffa. I know how to make the Peasants carry more, but I was wondering if there was a way to make them just bring more without having to chop down more trees. I guess I could make a trigger add 25 health to trees on the entire map or something.

 

[Daffa]

Well, if only the return resources can be searched for, I think it's possible.

 

[Abelhawk]

Okay, two more questions and then I should be pretty much good to go:

1) Is there any way to make Shockwave affect friendly buildings?
2) Is there any way to modify the Wander ability that critters have so that they move constantly like on WC2? I tried giving them the Tornado Wander ability, which works okay, but they lose their collision and wander through buildings. I guess this is a pretty minor problem though.

 

[Abelhawk]

Okay, 3 more questions.

3) Can anyone tell me why this doesn't work? I never seem to have luck with "A unit Finishes casting an ability."

• Demo Team Copy Copy
  • Events
    • Unit - A unit Finishes casting an ability
  • Conditions
    • (Ability being cast) Equal to Kaboom! (Sapper and Demo Squad)
  • Actions
    • Special Effect - Create a special effect at (Position of (Casting unit)) using Objects\Spawnmodels\Human\HCancelDeath\HCancelDeath.mdl
    • Unit - Hide (Casting unit)

 

[LordDz]

Change "a unit finishes casting an ability" to "a unit starts the effect of an ability"
And destroy the special effect after you create it, as you leak a special effect.

And a point leak too.
http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/triggers-scripts-269/things-leak-35124/

 

[Abelhawk]

I swear I tried that and it didn't work before, but it's working now! Thanks! What's the difference between those two triggers? Does "finishes casting" even do anything?

 

[Alright]

> What's the difference between those two triggers? Does "finishes casting" even do anything?

Begins Casting an ability is when an unit explicitly uses the ability and the trigger will fire before mana/cooldown is used; the unit Begins the effect of an ability starts when an unit uses it and it uses up the mana/cooldown before the effect happens.

Finishes casting is when an unit actually finishes an ability to its full extent, but it can be interrupted (i.e casting Starfall and then getting stunned) and the trigger won't fire because it was interrupted so it never finished its full cast.

Generally you should be using 'an unit starts the effect of an ability', but there are special cases where you will want to use the latter, so it depends on how you want it to work.

 

[Daffa]

A report in my memory states that Hide unit keeps the unit's food being used by the player. I would rather recommend remove the unit instead, it's the same and it removes the food.