Tank AoS Issues (Trigger Problems & Ability Questions)

If you've seen the thread TANK AOS PLAYING STYLE you'll know what I'm trying to work on, currently the game is in its second beta, (Seeing that I scrapped the original after it became too DOTAish), and I've run into a couple of problems in development of spells, triggers and other stuff. Anyone can help out?

1. SELFDESTRUCT TRIGGER:

* When I try to make the game give a message and remove some gold from the stockpile list, it doesn't seem to give a message or deduct gold.
* Does anybody have trigger instructions for this?
* I got that part "Unit finishes casting an ability" right, but I think I might have hit an error on the condition and action part.
* Since, originally it was giving the message for any ability cast but didn't deduct gold.

2. DEPLOYED WEAPONS:

* Imagine if you bought an item at a shop...
* When you use it, it summons a neutral passive glaive thrower that won't attack unless you connect to it...
* How do I make it come out neutral so that you can share it with allied users?

3. CONNECT ABILITY: (OPTIONAL)

* Instead of just changing weapons on field...
* You'd be forced to retreat to a garage or mobile garage to do your changes(customization area).
* If these garages were units, what ability should I use so you must use the ability to so that you can use the garage?
* The garage will switch back to its original owner when the caster stops.
* If all else fails, I'll just make a simple moving shop.


Misc Questions:
1. Is it possible for a move such as charm or possess to fail without any interference?

* Player attempts to hack(cast charm variant) a superweapon.

* Player fails(charm fails) and auto defenses open fire on player.

2. An airstrike ability should just use a trigger to create some bombers which drop bombs and fly off right?


For the convenience of people who have never seen the other thread:
Will feature:

WEAPON SYSTEM - A hero starts with only a main cannon slot, if the player has 1k gold to spare, he/she can buy a weapon port to add on additional weaponry. The slot types are :

* MAIN(360 aim)
* FRONT(aims straight in front of the hero)
* SIDE(same as front but fires two projectiles for both sides)
* SECONDARY(like main with 360 aim but longer range)
* CORE(depends on core weapon)


ADVANCED COMMANDS - A hero can use advanced commands to perform various tasks such as :

* HACKING(for hacking into neutral structures so you can use them)
* CONNECTING(to use garages as stated above)
* AIRSTRIKE(long delay before cast, deducts gold so players don't abuse it)
* SELFDESTRUCT(works manually and deducts gold so players don't blow up and wait for a respawn)

For question 1 try using "Unit starts the effect of an ability"

its under generic unit events, its failproof if u ask me.

For question 2 .
Give each team a computer player with which all players on that team share units with.
When your connect finishes, change the owner to that "dummy" player.

I dont get question 3...

I don't blame you if you don't understand the connect thing, so I removed the part about it with the garage. But I still don't understand how do I work out this part.

1. Hero gives item to garage.
2. Garage recieves item, trigger changes item into upgrade.
3. If hero buys upgrade, it gets an ability instead.
4. NOTE that the ability is not like a gen. unit's one which shows required etc.

There is a "Unit aquires item" event under generic unit events.

Set conditions to your item.

Next create a dummy item.
set all its stats and tooltip to your upgrade.
When the hero buys it give him/her the ability.

1. What do I type in the text box if I just want it to show the triggered player's name instead so I don't have to retype it 7 times?

2. (OPTIONAL) Anyone has any ideas on particularly strange weapons? I don't mind if they come from C&C or whatever just leave the weather-control device out.

3. How do I modify the (F9) map info page? I haven't bothered to find out till now.

4. If I want to change the Hero's main attack through item triggers. Should I get rid of its basic attack function and give it an ability instead?

1. There is a player name option in the pulldown menu.

1. Maybe I should use a more precise term, for text sections? For example:

* Display to all players matching condition ... (text).

* Variable
* Function
* Value - (name of player) has reached max level, say your prayers. < This one!

2. How do I make abilities cannot be manually aimed, for example:

* Hero wants to cast Breath of Fire...
* Rather than choose direction...
* Flame goes straight up whatever direction the Hero is facing.

Please give answers to the previous 3 and 4.

For a "uni-directional" Breath of Fire, make it a dummy ability based on Channel with no targets or anything (you CAN use Windwalk but that tends to clash once in a while).

Then what you do is...

1. Make a dummy unit (you CAN give it the ability if you want to)
2. Make a trigger that catches whenever Dummy Breath of Fire is cast
3. Make the dummy unit on the position of the caster
4. Make the dummy unit face the same direction as the caster
5. Make the dummy unit cast Breath of Fire in its facing direction with 50 or 100 offset

If the Ability is based on Breath of Fire and not the original spell?
Because the issue target point only has Blizzard spells.

Gimme a moment, I'll set up example triggers.



In that one, change the values to whatever you need. Also, the |cffffcc00 and |r stuff are just for highlighting colours, as you probably knew. Also, make sure BEFORE the comment you have at least ONE space otherwise it would look like this (example):

TideArcEphemerahas reached the maximum level, say your prayers!

as opposed to


TideArcEphemera has reached the maximum level, say your prayers!

One space is a useful difference. I put the |r before the space to make things clearer.

Yay, it should work now but the new problem... the channel doesn't show up in the interface.

Also, does that mean I have to modify the original Breath of Fire instead?

Oh shit, sorry. Okay, what you will need is a DUMMY ability which has no targets that does nothing (Wind Walk / Targetless Channel are probably best)

...and here is what a more specific version looks like...


This assumes you have in the object editor, a dummy unit with locust and all that jazz, a dummy ability that does nothing and a breath of fire ability for the dummy unit.

Use targetless channel.

Wind Walk isnt a good idea since it allows the hero to dodge "Projectiles" from abilities such as Storm Bolt, Acid Bomb etc. Even if the invis lasts 0.001 secs.

So now my only problems are... (Which still happen to be related to the unishot problem)

1. It shoots to the right of the caster.

2. It only shoots the projectile 15% of the time.

3. The projectile doesn't do anything.

4. There's this wierd twinkle on the left side of the casting Hero.

And back to the main question currently.

So if I want the dummycaster to cast my custom ability instead of a Blizzard ability... What do I change? Since the issue order only has Blizzard abilities.

Earlier I suggested against it (for other reasons) but it's basic for learning and can easily be interchanged. Channel, as basic as it is, can be a pain in the ass to learn how to configure for the first few times.