Carrier + Interceptor System?

[Spellbound]

How hard would a Carrier/Interceptor system be to make? It's something that I've been curious to see happen in Wc3. I imagine it would need it's own movement system to simulate that Locust Swarm movement and a DDS to catch attack and damage.

 

[kike]

Wouldn't Locust swarm work just fine?

Ok, I tried removing the Locust ability from the locusts and it broke the skill, then I swapped the locusts with murlocs with Locust and I've made the funniest skill I've ever seen XDD

 

[Zunariel]

"Orrroollllorrrollloorrroolllloo" yeah I also think that the Locust Swarm skill does just fine. I dont see any sense in controlling these guys, except you want to make them killable etc. One could trigger it with a lot of effort but... yeah...

 

[Spellbound]

I dont see any sense in controlling these guys

To have a carrier/interceptor system???? I'm talking about replacing a unit's basic attack, or supplementing it. Plus gaining full control of your inteceptors would allow you to do things like restore the carrier's mana per hit, or control the duration of the swarm. That's not to mention that Locust Swarm needs Aloc to work, meaning the Interceptors are forced to be invulnerable.

 

[water_Knight]

What about triggering it so it spawns the units you want to work as interceptors makes them move around randomly but within 600 or so of your carrier and give the interceptors pheonix fire that shoot 1 shot every 1 second or how ever often youy want them to shoot. This way they can die.

 

[Spellbound]

That's kinda the idea, but you'd need to refine the controls better. It'll need a custom movement system that can handle curved motion (like aircrafts do in Command and Conquer games). It'll need checks to see how many interceptors are out, whether it's been X seconds since the carrier last attacked to know when to pull them back in. It'll also need to be able to attack on it's own so you can actually target the unit the carrier is attacking and not just fire at random stuff.

 

[Ardenian]

I would say the difficulty is average. I myself thought about creating such a system, too.
I think the only challenging part would be the pseudo-random movement of the interceptors, to make it as well appropriate and look good.
Beside that, it is rather easy, isn't it ?

 

[Spellbound]

Well that random movement is the most important part, so... has anyone made a custom movement system? xD

 

[Ardenian]

Well that random movement is the most important part, so... has anyone made a custom movement system? xD

I dont't think you need a whole movement system for it. If you look on the sc2 carrier, you see that they are not as random as you might expect.
That being said, you 'only' have to create a formula, considering the position of the attacked unit, creating new movement destination locations around that unit ( on a circle, e.g.) and ordering the interceptors to move there. If you use an index, then you can order the interceptors to attack the target every three locations, for example, creating an order in which all interceptors attack.

 

[Spellbound]

The way I would think of doing it would be to have the interceptors move towards the target and once they've attacked, have them move into a circle, either to their left or right. Then you randomise the angle they have to travel until they have to either move into a straight line, or perform another almost-circle. Continue this until it's time for them to attack again, then angle their trajectory towards the target, and order them to attack again. If the distance from the target and the interceptor becomes too great, have them swerve back towards the target.

I don't know how to do things without overcomplicating everything. That's why I asked if anyone already made something like that

 

[Ardenian]

The way I would think of doing it would be to have the interceptors move towards the target and once they've attacked, have them move into a circle, either to their left or right. Then you randomise the angle they have to travel until they have to either move into a straight line, or perform another almost-circle. Continue this until it's time for them to attack again, then angle their trajectory towards the target, and order them to attack again. If the distance from the target and the interceptor becomes too great, have them swerve back towards the target.

Hm, yes, might be a solution. However, myself sucking at math, your last sentence of my quote would be the easiest solution.
If you order them to a random point on a circle around the target, then you don't have to check if they left a certain range. I vaguely remember the mathematical formulae for circles and I think that range can be easily modified for needs, so that would be no problem.

I don't know how to do things without overcomplicating everything.

^This.

 

[TKF]

I was thinking on making a similar system earlier, but I haven't. I have a slightly different approach how to make it.


The way interceptor works is to attack, (normal attack with short range), then it kinda get paused/stunned with triggers in 1-2 sec after it attacks (depending on attack cd and speed), before resuming attack and it will turn by itself if its attacking the same target and give it low turn rate (0.12-0.10). Stun/Pause it and the movement engine will move it, then it will acquire its target it was attacking before right after the Stun/Pause and then it look like to is doing a flyby after attack. Using SetUnitX/Y is a must.

The unit turn rate will make a circle for you and using its normal attack, movement to 1, let the engine move the interceptor at all times. (You can also add a small randomization in turns if you want to.) You need only unit group and simple straight forward movement system and a few variables. This is how I would have approached it. It's simple, but maybe good enough.

 

[Spellbound]

If a movement engine will move the interceptor, then why bother changing it's turn rate? Also I think you'd have better succes adding/removing Cargo Hold to disable the interceptor's attack.

 

[Ardenian]

About carrier damage, I think using a damage system to nullify its damage is fine, although it creates a dependency. The damage dealt by interceptors is either going to be unit dependent or via trigger, I would say. If an interceptor kills a unit, then, using the damage system, the killer is set to the related carrier.

 

[Spellbound]

Yeah, that's why a DDS is required, so you can make the Carrier itself deal the damage. That way, if the Carrier gets an attack boost, the Interceptor will relay that damage. The only thing this requires is to calculate the Carrier's DPS and use an average as the Interceptor's damage, divided between the maximum number of Interceptors. All initial damage dealt by the Interceptor is nullified.

 

[Daffa]

I recall Fingolfin in his map (not World in Flames, but the other one, can't remember the name atm) has a movement system for Aircraft (and he did upload it in vJass). Combined with some summoning it should be possible to archive.

 

[Spellbound]

Interesting. Will have to investigate, thanks.

 

[Acutesharpness]

I do know how to curve toward a point, just make the +angle or -angle every .1 second as a limiter and using the normal dash mechanic (being periodic event 0.03 second) you can easily achieve that realism by using leftorRight boolean and randomizing it (True or False) everytime the aircraft is trying to make a movement.

 

[Spellbound]

I know how to do it, but the question out there is whether there isn't a more efficient way to do it.