Engineering Upgrade does some weird stuff

[Rogue Kessler]

This is less a question or request for help, and more I wanted to describe some weird behavior I've seen related to Engineering Upgrade.

On my map, I have a hero who can swap between different auras, and the aura that's currently active modifies all their other abilities. I do this with Engineering Upgrade (as a unit ability) with a trigger that changes the current level of Engineering Upgrade when the player picks the option to select a new aura. For one of the abilities, I was switching between a single-target spell that stuns (based on Storm Bolt) and one that doesn't (based on Shadow Strike). Both abilities were meant to do 75 base damage, which one version applying the stun and the other dealing damage over time.

I saw some other threads saying using Engineering Upgrade to replace spells with different base abilities can cause weird stuff to happen, and true enough: When I had this set up as described above, using the upgraded ability was insta-killing every unit I used it on. I made up a 2,500,000 HP hero unit to test and tried the ability against it, and it dropped that hero to around 800,000 HP - almost 2 million damage from my supposedly 75 damage spell!

I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but I was able to work around it by re-making the abilities to all use Shadow Strike as their underlying spell (with the duration short enough that the DOT damage is never applied), and just using dummy casters to apply secondary effects such as the stun.

Weird stuff! Lesson learned - Always use the same underlying ability when swapping abilities using Engineering Upgrade!

 

[DracoL1ch]

EU keeps old data in place, if new skill doesn't provide anything to replace it. So I believe your Bolt had no proper value set in the field where Shadow strike has "time between secondary damage ticks" value. And when it is zero, it eecutes as many times as possible, every game tick.

 

[Rogue Kessler]

EU keeps old data in place, if new skill doesn't provide anything to replace it. So I believe your Bolt had no proper value set in the field where Shadow strike has "time between secondary damage ticks" value. And when it is zero, it eecutes as many times as possible, every game tick.

lmao, amazing

 

[Kyrbi0]

Boy, you are just getting into quite a known issue in Modding; it's a real breadtangle of pizza down there.

Engineering Upgrade is one of the most interesting & complex abilities; if you did some more testing, wrote a tutorial or something, you would be a hero. Nobody has really messed or tested with extensively to my knowledge.

 

[Rogue Kessler]

Boy, you are just getting into quite a known issue in Modding; it's a real breadtangle of pizza down there.

Engineering Upgrade is one of the most interesting & complex abilities; if you did some more testing, wrote a tutorial or something, you would be a hero. Nobody has really messed or tested with extensively to my knowledge.

Yeah, I couldn't find one when I looked. I don't have much experience writing tutorials (at least on this site), but I'll think about taking a crack at it. Hopefully whoever searches Hive for Engineering Upgrade next after me will find this thread at least, lol.

 

[Tal'Rarity]

Boy, you are just getting into quite a known issue in Modding; it's a real breadtangle of pizza down there.

Engineering Upgrade is one of the most interesting & complex abilities; if you did some more testing, wrote a tutorial or something, you would be a hero. Nobody has really messed or tested with extensively to my knowledge.

Lots have though only a bit was posted, some of it is even in the lab on hive. Can find more on the helper and wc3c.net.

 

[Rogue Kessler]

I might start by writing a brief tutorial for how to use EU in a couple of simple situations, and then I can always expand it with new info later if I learn more.

Some kind of basic explainer being on the website in any form is probably a good thing.

 

[HappyTauren]

I honestly think engineering update should be avoided in most use cases (and triggered through a nice system) because the spell will undoubtedly produce weird bugs that are impossible to debug due to the hard coded nature of the spell itself. It works great on the original hero, and it will work great in certain circumstances, but more often than not I've seen people complaining about weird bugs than I've seen them praising the ability for its possibilities.

That being said, a basic tutorial that explains some caveats of this ability would be a welcome addition.

 

[Rogue Kessler]

I honestly think engineering update should be avoided in most use cases (and triggered through a nice system) because the spell will undoubtedly produce weird bugs that are impossible to debug due to the hard coded nature of the spell itself. It works great on the original hero, and it will work great in certain circumstances, but more often than not I've seen people complaining about weird bugs than I've seen them praising the ability for its possibilities.

That being said, a basic tutorial that explains some caveats of this ability would be a welcome addition.

For what I'm using it for I think it's the best option. I'll see about spinning up a short tutorial over the weekend.

 

[Rogue Kessler]

I was able to write up a short tutorial this morning, but I still need to format it and take screenshots. As soon as I get around to that I'll post it.

 

[DracoL1ch]

EU more than fine, its perfect. Just a simple rule - DO NOT turn one ability into another, both should be based on the same skill.

 

[Rogue Kessler]

EU more than fine, its perfect. Just a simple rule - DO NOT turn one ability into another, both should be based on the same skill.

Yeah, I'm definitely mentioning that in the tutorial.

 

[Kyrbi0]

EU more than fine, its perfect. Just a simple rule - DO NOT turn one ability into another, both should be based on the same skill.

Well no, that's the whole point. Of course if you use it as it's supposed to be used, it'll work the way it's supposed to.

What I'm saying is that very few have sat & exhaustively tested the multitudinous variety that comes from mixing & combining different kinds of abilities, and that it may have the potential for some really ground-breaking new exploits & advances in OE ability-making. Imagine, a mix of Siphon Mana & Divine Shield creating a channeling, targeted Invulnerability spell! Or a mix of Shadow Strike & Thorns Aura, making a spell which Heals a target over time & reflects damage back at it's attackers! Who knows?

 

[Rogue Kessler]

Well no, that's the whole point. Of course if you use it as it's supposed to be used, it'll work the way it's supposed to.

What I'm saying is that very few have sat & exhaustively tested the multitudinous variety that comes from mixing & combining different kinds of abilities, and that it may have the potential for some really ground-breaking new exploits & advances in OE ability-making. Imagine, a mix of Siphon Mana & Divine Shield creating a channeling, targeted Invulnerability spell! Or a mix of Shadow Strike & Thorns Aura, making a spell which Heals a target over time & reflects damage back at it's attackers! Who knows?

Yeah I can see how that would be useful. I'm not getting into that right now though, lol.

 

[DracoL1ch]

Well no, that's the whole point. Of course if you use it as it's supposed to be used, it'll work the way it's supposed to.

What I'm saying is that very few have sat & exhaustively tested the multitudinous variety that comes from mixing & combining different kinds of abilities, and that it may have the potential for some really ground-breaking new exploits & advances in OE ability-making. Imagine, a mix of Siphon Mana & Divine Shield creating a channeling, targeted Invulnerability spell! Or a mix of Shadow Strike & Thorns Aura, making a spell which Heals a target over time & reflects damage back at it's attackers! Who knows?

... and any kind of new patch may ruin it, making ur work worthless. Nothing of those worth a simple learning jass to do the same effect by yourself with much less efforts. Goddamit, ppl are still afraid of using 0,-11 button pos! And you're talking about that kind of messing.

 

[Kyrbi0]

... and any kind of new patch may ruin it, making ur work worthless. Nothing of those worth a simple learning jass to do the same effect by yourself with much less efforts. Goddamit, ppl are still afraid of using 0,-11 button pos! And you're talking about that kind of messing.

I suppose it could be changed in a future patch. But what's the likelihood of that?

Yeah I can see how that would be useful. I'm not getting into that right now though, lol.

That's fine, doesn't have to be all at once. Like I said, even just a curated thread would be a great resource. It doesn't just have to be you, either.

 

[Rogue Kessler]

Tutorial is up. =)

 

[doom_sheep]

this is one interdasting spell

I managed to get barrage to return damage to a (ranged!) hero on attack by combining it with thorns aura

 

[Kyrbi0]

this is one interdasting spell

I managed to get barrage to return damage to a (ranged!) hero on attack by combining it with thorns aura

Seriously? What did I tell you guys!

Test map plox?

 

[HappyTauren]

a new age of insanity begins

 

[doom_sheep]

Seriously? What did I tell you guys!

Test map plox?

just do like this

dunno what the damage is based on but it seems to be roughly the attack damage of the hero. it's also dealt when he launches the projectile, not when it hits.

----

welp, on further testing that seems to just be from modified "targets allowed" field and barrage is able to do this on its own. the hero is launching a barrage attack on himself.

 

[Kyrbi0]

just do like this

dunno what the damage is based on but it seems to be roughly the attack damage of the hero. it's also dealt when he launches the projectile, not when it hits.

----

welp, on further testing that seems to just be from modified "targets allowed" field and barrage is able to do this on its own. the hero is launching a barrage attack on himself.

Wait, ok, I get transforming Barrage into Thorns Aura.

What I mean is, "how exactly does it work?" I.e. is it "Unit with 'barrage Aura' is attacked, attacking unit takes damage equal to Barrage damage field?" Or "unit with 'barrage Aura' attacks, deals damage to themselves"? Or something else...

 

[doom_sheep]

it seems to be a kind of barrage with fields from thorns aura, the important one being targets allowed that contains "self"

 

[Kyrbi0]

... I get that. But can you describe to be, explicitly, the results of the union in-game?

(I'm at work so I can't check it out but I'm very curious)