Lurker attack unit ability

[TorontoRock]

Anyone know if there is a unit ability like the Lurker in starcraft? That would be unit burrowing and attacking any unit in AOE range while staying burrowed. No duration, always active while burrowed. The closest thing I found was vexorians burrow with tentacle but it only works for heros and I could use one for units. Anyone feel like makin a spell like this? Just wondering.

 

[Eusira]

...It's freaking easy. Just have the unit burrow, and give the burrowed version an ability based off heal, which heals no hitpoints, has no effect, no mana cost, can target enemies, and has a cooldown equal to the desired attack. Also give the lurker an ability based off impale with a cooldown slightly shorter than the heal

Events
Unit starts the effect of an ability
Conditions
Ability being cast equal to Lurker Attack (heal)
Actions
Order casting unit to Crypt Lord- Impale Position of target unit of ability being cast

This doesn't require much of a spell anyway to do

 

[Xeridanus]

Question: why would you need the heal thing that just complecates things you can change hero spells to unit spells and vice-versa. I think it is in Stats just have a good look, you'll also have to change levels to one which is just above or below. Can't remember.

 

[TorontoRock]

Eusira, I tried what you suggested and it doesn't seem to work. Here's what I did step by step.

1-Made a copy of a Huntress and made this the "burrowed" unit. Changed speed to 0, disabled all attacks and changed its model to burrowed carrion beetle.
2-Gave both the huntress and burrowed huntress the burrow ability using the undead burrow(crypt fiend) ability.
3-Copied the heal ability, changed hit points gained, mana cost to 0, cooldown to 3, Cast Range to 500 and target to enemy and ground.
4-Copied Impale, made it unit ability, changed AOE and cast range to 500 and targets to enemy and ground. Cooldown set to 1.
5-Gave the burrowed huntress the new "heal" and "impale" abilities
6- trigger same as you suggested.
Event - unit begins the effect of an ability
Condition - Ability equal to Lurker Attack (name of new heal spell)
Action - Order casting unt to Crypt lord - Impale target unit of ability being cast

Did I miss something?

 

[TorontoRock]

By the way, I don't know if this is significant or not but the only icon that shows up when the huntress is burrowed is the unburrow icon. the heal and impale icon do not. Don't know if that means anything. Also, I tried giving those abilities to a regular unburrowed huntress and it didn't do anything either.

 

[Eusira]

Test it with a burrowed crypt fiend. Also, impale isn't a unit-targeted ability. It is a point-target ability. So it is under the function Unit- Issue order targetting a POINT--Crypt Lord - Impale POSITION of target unit of ability being cast

Also, you have to tweak the impale so it doesn't make them fly, and set stun to .01

 

[TorontoRock]

Hmmm........still doesn't wanna work.

1-Copied heal spell, changed name to Lurker attack
2-Removed art target
3-set hit points to 0
4-Removed buff
5-cast range 500
6-cooldown 4 seconds
7-mana cost 0
8-targets = enemy,ground
9-gave this ability to burrowed crypt fiend, and put it as default active ability as well

10-copied impale ability, named it lurker spikes, hero ability false, 1 level
11-air time seconds set to 0
12-AOE set to 200
13-cast range set to 500
14-cooldown set to 1.5
15-durations set to 0.01
16-mana cost set to 0
17-targets = enemy,ground
18-gave burrowed crypt fiend Lurker spikes ability

19-disabled tech-tree requirement for burrow ability so i could burrow right away on my test map.

TRIGGER
EVENTS - Unit - a unit starts the effect of an ability
CONDITIONS - (ability being cast) equal to lurker attack
ACTIONS - unit - order (casting unit) to undead crypy lord - impale (position of(target unit of ability being cast))

What do you think?

 

[Eusira]

Something is really bugged with this then...

 

[aarkshark]

If my idea works, you dont need triggers
Its simple, give the lurker a version of Bearfrom (druid Spell) and make it so the original unit is the Lurker (no attack), and the alternate form is a burrowed lurker (just a burrowed modle) (no attack), and give the burrowed form a spell called Burrowed attack, which is just an altered version of impale, that should work.

 

[Eusira]

He wants to have it like auto-acquire

 

[Drain Pipe]

1) Ok well you don't need the heal ability. Just set it so that every x seconds while he's burrowed, to pick a random unit within X range of the lurker and create a dummy unit (don't need to specify, just add an expire timer to clean it up) to cast a moddified impale. Order the dummy to cast at the position of the enemy unit.


2)If you want to be able to target a unit just give him an attack of 1 and give him the impale ability and simply order him to impale the position of the attacked unit. This allows you to also select a single target for only 1 attackif you wish.


3)To make things even easier, just give him the slow orb item ability with imaple as the casted spell and give him an attack (enabl;e his attack). Whenever he attacks a unit, he'll cast the impale spell.

In my opinon, #3 is the easiest and most space conservative way to do it. If they are just units then that's the way to go.


Many ways of making this spell.

 

[aarkshark]

Eusira:If yours is a point target ability, wont you still have to click the button?

I think Drain Pipe's ideas work the best so far.

 

[Eusira]

The third one works best

 

[Drain Pipe]

supprising how it's also the easiest to do.

 

[TorontoRock]

Well i got it to work almsot the way i wanted thanks to you boys. Here's what I did:
1-copied the impale ability named it impale A
2-set air time to 1.5, damage to 100, AOE to 150, Range 600, duration 0, hero ability false, targets enemy-ground-organic.
3-copied rifleman unit, named it dummy(lurker), gave it the impale A ability, Has water shadow false, Model file- none, Shadow image (unit)- false, attacks enabled none, movement 0, food 0.
4-trigger
EVENTS-every 4 seconds game time
ACTIONS-Unit Group - Pick every unit in.....and do actions
LOOP ACTIONS-IF\THEN\ELSE
IF-CONDITIONS
(Unit type of(picked unit)) equal to burrowed crypt fiend
THEN-ACTIONS
Unit- create 1 dummy(lurker) for (owner of picked unit) at (position of (picked unit)) facing default building facing degrees.
Unit - add 0.5 second generic expiration timer to (Last created unit)
Unit - Order (last created unit) to Undead crypt lord impale (random unit from (Units within 600 of (position of(last created unit))matching ((((Matching unit) is alive) equal to true) and (((owner of (matching unit)) is an enemy of (owner of(picked unit))) equal to true
ELSE ACTIONS
do nothing

Originally i had a wierd bug where the lurker targets would sometimes be turned invulnerable if the lurkers were to close. I noticed that when the targets are flying in the air, they are turned invulnerable so i figured that it had something to do with the creation of the dummy units and them interfering with the landing of the lurker targets so I seemed to have gotten rid of that problem by extending the air time, increasing the interval between computer checks in the events line of the trigger (from 3.5 seconds to 4) and decreasing the length of the expiration timer for the dummy (lurker) from 2 seconds to .5. I also couldn't get the lurker to actually do damage to buildings. It would attack buildings but wouldn't damage them. I noticed that damage to regular units only occured after they had landed, and that when i set the air time to zero, they wouldn't get damaged at all so I figured that unless the buildings would get throw up in the air, they would never get damaged. I also played around withDrain Pipes third suggestion of using the slow orb ability but I found that his second suggestion (the one used above) seemed to work better. I've now got it to a point where it works pretty good with issues minor enough that it won't prevent me from using it (lurkers attack invisible units even if they're not detected and they still attack buildings but don't damage them). Thanks alot for your help boys and happy new year (my new years hangover is finally gone ).

 

[Drain Pipe]

you could fix the whole thing if you just gave the burrowed lucker the impale ability with the slow orb. This way, there would not be any problems, mostly because you're reallying on the games checking system which has way fewer bugs than triggers do. Like i said, just give him that and you'll not need anything else; no triggers or anything.

 

[TorontoRock]

I remember that I couldn't get it to work the first time I tried using the slow orb system but you know more than me about this stuff so I tried again. The burrowed crypt fiends don't seem to want to attack. I'll tell you exactly what I did and you can analyze it and tell me how I managed to screw it up.

1-copied the impale ability, made it unit ability, damage dealt 80, AOE 150, cast range 600, cooldown and duration 0, levels 1, mana cost 0, targets allowed enemy-ground-structure. Named it impale A

2-copied slow orb ability, changed it to unit ability, Named it lurker attack, chance to hit hero's-summoned-units 100%, damage bonus 10, effect ability impale A, attack index enabled 0, cast range 600, targets allowed enemy-ground-structure.

3-Gave the burrowed crypt fiend the lurker attack ability, aquisition range 600, cooldown 4, damage base 10, projectile arc 0, projectile art none, projectile homing enabled true, range 600, targets allowed enemy-ground-structure, attacks enabled attack 1 only.

What do you think?

 

[Eusira]

Err... did you even give the things an acquisition range?

 

[TorontoRock]

Yes, burrowed crypt fiend aquisition range 600 and set the cast range for the lurker attack and the impale A ability to 600 as well.

 

[Eusira]

Maybe just give the lurker the ability itself

 

[TorontoRock]

I would like the lurker to auto-aquire (auto-cast) so that you can just burrow it and forget about it. If i just gave it the ability, you'd have to click on that damn button everytime you wanted to cast it. To much maintenance, especially if there is a big battle going on in the area, with hero's and spellcasters involved.

 

[Angelusz]

How about a locust swarm ability when burrowed, give it one locust with an attack using the impale model.
That will automatically attack. If you set the range to 1, it will stay on top of the casting unit.

Then when a unit burrows, enable the spell.
could work aswel.

 

[Drain Pipe]

i believe i know what you did wrong. I'm not 100% sure, but try to enable the attack index 1 instead of 2 (attack index 2 doesn't work as a non item ability to actiave the second attack index and since yours is still set to 2, i'd assume that's why it isn't firing as it's set to work with their 2nd attack index)

 

[TorontoRock]

Ahhh I think we got it now boss!!! I did what you suggested and changed it to attack index 1 and this is what happened. It originally didn't work when the crypt fiends burrowed so i decided to give the lurker attack ability to them when they were unburrowed to see if it would work then and it worked nicely. I figured that the reason it didn't work when they were burrowed had to do something with the nature of the burrow ability itself so I did it a little different next time. I used the bear form ability and converted the crypt fiend into a copy of the regular crypt fiend. I gave the copy the lurker attack, ghost ability (I just found out what that does , collision 0, movement 0 and enabled 1 attack. That pretty much made it the same as a burrowed unit and low and behold, it worked beutifully !!!!! It still doesn't attack buildings but like i said in an earlier post, Damage with impale seems to be done only when units land back on the ground after being thrown up and buildings don't get thrown up in the air. No biggy though, I like the way it's working now and I can get rid of the trigger.

Thanks alot for your suggestions dude. Being a relative noob to map making, I really appreciate help from the guys who know what they're doing.

 

[Eusira]

The lil 0 collision is giving a bad sign because this can allow stack abuse