Help making a trade route mechanic

[Stefann]

Hello,

I'm working on a map and amongst other things I want to make trade routs in the sense that there is a merchant that patrols the map and when he passes nearby a player's market building that particular player earns gold.

I've been trying to make this happen with a response event to "notices a target in range", but I can't find the event response condition for that, just "targeted unit" and "acquired target".

Am I missing something? Is there an easier way I can make this mechanic happen?

thanks!

Stefan G.

 

[Stefann]

Managed in the end, here's how

Merchant

• Stefann
• Aug 16, 2016

Example of how I made a simple trade route income mechanic

 

[Dr Super Good]

120 is less than 1 tile (1 tile = 128 wc3 range). You will need to make sure the merchant will move close enough to the market to trigger it.

 

[Stefann]

yeah, I adjusted it, but overall it works for me. I hope it's of some use for others as well. The Merchant unit patrols the map and is invulnerable. The point is in placing markets along the trade route.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Might want to limit the rate it can fire for a single player. Otherwise tactical building/unit placement could force the merchant unit to oscillate in and out of the range rapidly for an infinite cash exploit.

 

[Stefann]

Good idea. Quick suggestion on how I might do that? Because I can only think of remaking the trigger for each player and the disabling it for a certain amount of time after the gold is given

 

[Dr Super Good]

You could use a timer array. Every time it gives player money it starts the timer for the player for some period. If the player's timer is running then no gold is given. When the timer expires you enumerate nearby markets and give gold and restart the timer if gold was given.

 

[Stefann]

Sounds great, will do that. What event, event response and action should I use?

 

[Dr Super Good]

You add a condition to your enter range of merchant trigger that tests that the triggering unit's owner's (array index from player id) timer has expired (remaining time 0). In the actions you start the triggering unit's owner's timer for some timeout period (maximum income rate).

You create another trigger for all the timers expiring. You resolve which player's timer expired by performing a linear search though the timer array. In the actions you search all nearby units (make sure to deal with any group leaks) and look for markets owned by the timer owner. If at least 1 is found you add more gold to the timer owner and restart the timer again.