Transport with fire points

[Hatta]

I am thinking about making a special type of transport.
It should take passengers like a goblin airship, but it will be moving by ground and all units inside should be able to shoot while being invincible. So when they get in this truck, it moves and all units inside are automatically shooting while being on a move. When the truck is destroyed, they are outside and vulnerable to enemy attacks again. Should work like a moving starcraft bunker. Will be nice if they'll have access to their spells from the inside too, but I dont really think it's possible if there are two heroes with a lot of spells sitting in truck.
The whole idea may be balanced according to how trigger will work. So if shooting on a move is not possible to make then it's ok.
Can someone please advice me on how do I make it?

 

[Kyrbi0]

This will be tricky. Posting to subscribe.

 

[Jampion]

This might be useful to detect loading/unloading, if you want to use it: GUI Unit Event v2.3.0.0

Some questions:
only units owned by the truck owner can be loaded into it?
can units use items while they are loaded?
can heroes be loaded?
can you give loaded units orders (selecting the target to attack), are they selectable

First of all units that are loaded in a normal warcraft 3 transport unit can't do anything, so you probably can't use it.
I think you can just move the loaded units to the trucks position and prevent them from moving. You probably need to add an ability to the units, that is used to unload them. Alternatively you could say if a loaded unit is ordered right-click (smart) on the truck it will be unloaded.
Invulnerability and similar things are no problem.

 

[A]mun]

A rough guess:

Units are not actually entering cargo, they are just made completely transparent, become invulnerable and get the locust ability when smart moving onto your desired cargo unit (also need to be close enough).
That would require indexing the cargo unit and how much space it has left and loaded units + how much space they take.
Also the use of getunitx+y (of the cargo) + setunitx+y (to the loaded units) to move them without stopping their autoattacks.
One should probably disable melee attackers, but spellcasting/autocasting could work if automated.
Not sure how to display current cargo hold to be honest. Moving floating text perhaps, although that might look odd.

It's an interesting idea, but requires quite the workarounds.

 

[Kyrbi0]

Doesn't giving regular units Locust create issues?

 

[Jampion]

I tested it quickly and it did not work. I could not remove Locust anymore.

 

[Hatta]

Some questions:
1)only units owned by the truck owner can be loaded into it?
2)can units use items while they are loaded?
3)can heroes be loaded?
4)can you give loaded units orders (selecting the target to attack), are they selectable

First of all units that are loaded in a normal warcraft 3 transport unit can't do anything, so you probably can't use it.
I think you can just move the loaded units to the trucks position and prevent them from moving. You probably need to add an ability to the units, that is used to unload them. Alternatively you could say if a loaded unit is ordered right-click (smart) on the truck it will be unloaded.
Invulnerability and similar things are no problem.

1)Yes, no allies and others.
2)No.
3)Well, if possible only.
4)I think they should not be selectable (and I have no idea how do you chose them when they are inside anyway), just choosing a truck would work. Visually the player should understand that there is someone shooting only by effects and sounds.
I thought that seeing a transport GUI (like the icons of units inside) would be convenient for a player.

A rough guess:

Units are not actually entering cargo, they are just made completely transparent, become invulnerable and get the locust ability when smart moving onto your desired cargo unit (also need to be close enough).
That would require indexing the cargo unit and how much space it has left and loaded units + how much space they take.
Also the use of getunitx+y (of the cargo) + setunitx+y (to the loaded units) to move them without stopping their autoattacks.
One should probably disable melee attackers, but spellcasting/autocasting could work if automated.
Not sure how to display current cargo hold to be honest. Moving floating text perhaps, although that might look odd.

It's an interesting idea, but requires quite the workarounds.

I guess setting coordinates can be done like this?

• Unit - Move (Triggering unit) instantly to (Position of Truck 0175 <gen>)

I may have an idea: unit is actually entering truck via warcraft transport and is, like, just sitting inside, when you copy this exact unit, somehow make it invisible and put it on truck coordinates and remove it if the truck is destroyed or if the unit it copies disembarks. As I understood it is not possible to remove locust ability, but if you just delete the whole invisible copy unit - this problem with locust won't really be a problem I guess.

 

[Jampion]

4)I think they should not be selectable (and I have no idea how do you chose them when they are inside anyway), just choosing a truck would work. Visually the player should understand that there is someone shooting only by effects and sounds.
I thought that seeing a transport GUI (like the icons of units inside) would be convenient for a player.

If you want the normal transport UI, the units loaded are not able to attack. You could make it similar to orb burrows, that loaded units just modify the attack, but don't attack by themselves. If you actually want every loaded unit to be able to attack just like if it wasn't loaded, you need some kind of unit that will perform the attacks (like the copy of a unit).

I guess setting coordinates can be done like this?

Also the use of getunitx+y (of the cargo) + setunitx+y (to the loaded units) to move them without stopping their autoattacks.

As A]mum said SetUnitX won't stop the current orders of the unit, whereas Unit - Move... would and so it would also stop attacks. Unfortunately there is no GUI action for SetUnitX/Y, so you need to use custom script or JASS. Another difference is, that SetUnitX/Y will ignore kind of antyhing: you can move buildings even ignoring the grid and pathing is completely ignored
To be able to move units with SetUnitX/Y the unit needs to have >0 movement speed.

I may have an idea: unit is actually entering truck via warcraft transport and is, like, just sitting inside, when you copy this exact unit, somehow make it invisible and put it on truck coordinates and remove it if the truck is destroyed or if the unit it copies disembarks. As I understood it is not possible to remove locust ability, but if you just delete the whole invisible copy unit - this problem with locust won't really be a problem I guess.

I think it's a good idea. One problem here is (that's why I asked, if heroes can be loaded), that heroes will show up in the top left of the screen. You can of course use units as copies, but this will need a lot of work to get the right attack damage/speed, because they depend on attributes.