Predator Missile

[commandersnoopy]

Hi, I am making a modern warfare kind of map and i was thinking of designing a predator missile, similar to the one in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Basically, when i buy a dummy unit/ability/item from a shop, it will give me the predator missile and then i can aim it at any point on the map, instantly destroying any unit. Does anyone know how I would approach to making something like this?

 

[InfernalTater]

You would simply change the camera angle so that you look straight down at the terrain, and probably you would want to increase the camera distance. Then, you would zoom in the camera steadily until, when the camera distance is very little, you would destroy units within a range of the center of the player's vision, with a boom, and set their camera back to normal.

 

[commandersnoopy]

How would i do that. Would i start off making a sellable skill at the shop. Then when the player uses the ability, the camera thingy happens. Then the ability will be removed so that it doesnt happen again until it is bought again from the shop? I am making a killstreak store in my map, so that u can only buy it using killstreak(in my map, it is lumber)

 

[InfernalTater]

I don't see why you asked me, considering that you just now stated exactly a good way to do it. Another method, however, would be to use mana. Gain 1 mana per kill, and the killstreak abilities cost mana to cast. This way, not only would you have able to efficiently use your killstreaks, but you would be able to use a weak one repeatedly, rather than save up for gunships. (Just an idea, you don't need to use this, as it is indeed your map)

 

[Berb]

It would be better if you used requirements than lumber. You could simply have a unit that gets created whenever the unit gets a kill-streak, which fulfills a tech-tree requirement which allows the ability to be used. Once the kill-streak ability is used, the unit would be removed until the next kill-streak is obtained.

You would also have the cool tool-tip of "- 3 kill-streak required.", or however many kills the streak is. Then players would know how many kills they need in a streak to use the ability.

Here I through together a little demo of how this works. The code is pretty preliminary, so don't pay much attention to it.

You start with a Paladin capable of learning all your basic spells. They are all disabled to begin with, labeled with tool-tips for how many kills in a row you have to obtain. You can obtain kills by killing the nearby Footmen.

When you die, your streak is reset. Once you obtain enough kills to use an ability, it will become available. Once you use the ability, the ability will become disabled again until you achieve the streak again. If you want to really test it out you could add some units to the test-map; currently there are only 7 and the 3-kill streak cannot really be tested since Devotion Aura cannot be used.

The only thing it doesn't allow for is stacking of multiple streak bonuses. For example, if you obtain a 5-kill streak twice you will still only be able to use Holy Light once - I was planning on fixing this up but tell me what you think of this concept.

~ Updated ~

Okay so I increased the amount of Footmen on the map and I made it work with a queue so that the game keeps track of abilities that you have not used. The idea here is that (let's use Call of Duty examples) if you get a spy-plane but forget to use it, you will not "lose" the spy-plane upon reaching another kill streak. Instead, you would be able to use 2 in a row.

I believe this is how it works in Call of Duty.

 

[commandersnoopy]

woah thats pretty crazy Berb. Thanks for the map and the advice.

Also thanks to inferno. I'll get started on thinking of which way to do it now since there are so many ways. I dont know about Berbs idea though, Autoindex is kinda complicated for me.

Thanks so much guys

Updates: I changed it from JASS to Autoindex from what i said to sound less ignorant

 

[Berb]

Actually the use of AutoIndex is unnecessary. The only unit that I really store data to is the Paladin which could be easily replicated using few variables.

If you're not comfortable using JASS I don't really mind - when I saw you were making a kill-streak based ability system I thought I'd fiddle around with the idea. It's there if you need to resort to it or anything, or if you have any questions [use this thread or message me].