Adding Researchable Hero Abilities

I'm working on a new map right now, and I'm having trouble.

I want it so when a unit buys an item it'll give him a researchable ability. Meaning it will just give him a Hero Ability, not a unit ability. I can do it other ways, but I think the most attractive and best way would be just to simply make the hero have the ability available, meaning they can spend skill points on it etc... I hope you guys understand what I'm asking, thanks.

As far as I know, it can't be done without simulating the whole skill point system with triggers, which would be a pain to do.

You could possibly do it by making a ton of different units with all different combinations of your Hero Abilities, then when a person buys a certain ability, replace his current hero with the hero fitting to the ability he just bought, set it to have the same xp, items, etc. It would definitely not be a great way of doing it but it could work if you have no other options. I certainly can't think of any.

Unless I miss interpret the issue, whats the harm in a simple trigger such as:


Simply set it when a unit purchases item X, give the unit that ability. If it is a hero ability, such as Avatar, it will be placed in the Avalible Spells portion, meaning you can use your skill points to choose whether or not to pick that ability. However, if you wish to give a unit a hero ability, but remove the part of choosing to use a skill point, just make a trigger to choose to use a skill point on that ability.

Yeah it's a pain in the ass, Tim suggested the way I was thinking about doing it, and I already thought about doing the every possible combination one. But every possible combination is big, a hero can have 5 abilities, and there's about 50. It'd be well over 200 heroes.

Well over. Definitely. With 50 abilities and 5 of them per hero, you would have 2118760 unique heroes.

Tim., I'm afraid it won't work that way. Abilities you add with the "unit - add ability" function are treated as unit abilities and are not added to the hero's skill menu if they are a hero ability. They are just put on the hero's command card at level 1.

Hmm, Really? I could have sworn that it operated that way when I was creating Battle for Hoth. Oh well, it wasnt the meathod he wished to use anyway.

Thanks for the correction, however.