Spell Book + Tiny Buildings

I recently returned to WC3 and mapping a while back and I came up with an idea to have a unit with Spell Books filled with Tiny Buildings, but I ran in to a snag.

Quickly searching the forums I wasn't surprised to see that this idea has been done many times, but I didn't see anyone with the same problem I'm running in to:

All the Tiny Building abilities are building the same thing.

That is, no matter which one I click it always ghosts one of the other buildings and always builds it. Every time I give it a test run all the buttons end up building the same thing.

I tried messing with it every way I can think of but nothing changes it. Adding a cooldown to one seems to carry over an invisable cooldown to the rest (even with Spell Book's shared cooldown False).


I tried starting over and giving a Spell Book to a peasent with the direct item abilites for Tiny Buildings, and they all built the same thing again. (All I changed was what the Spell Book's spells were, nothing else.)


I tried making them all just Unit, just Item, just Hero abilities. With/out cooldowns/casttimes.

Everything I try all the abilities build the same and wrong thing.

I feel like I must be missing something stupid and obvious.

Any suggestions?

-Ant.

I reckon they probably all use the same order id.

Yep Captain is probably right.
But if he isn't, cant you upload a map so we can see with our own eyes?

That's what I thought at first, but nothing along of lines of "Data - Base Order ID (DataE1)" exists on the Object Editor for the Tiny Building abilities.

Edit: This map is a little big (use it for all my new/old spell ideas) but I can recreate it on a small map. Worth a test anyway.

Edit2: Uploaded a little test map. In this case all the Tiny Buildings made an Alter of Kings for me.

They are not on the data section, as you are not able to change that. Are you basing all your tiny building spells off the same one? If so, then base each of your tb spells off different ones (look at the many item abalities doing almost the same thing)

I am basing them all off of different Tiny Building spells.

In the test map I uploaded I didn't even change them, just gave the Spell Book Tiny Farm, Scout Tower, and Altar of Kings directly from the item abilities.

They all built Altar of Kings. :(

They all share the same order-id, thus its impossible for you to use more then one of them on the same unit. (even in spell books)

You can create a dummy channel-based spell for each building and then just have a trigger which would fire on casting that dummy ability and will create a dummy caster to cast the real tiny ability.

I was hoping that wasn't the case and I was just missing something.


That's possible.

Right now I'm leaning towards a dummy spell that gives you a Tiny Building item that you can then use normally.

Thanks to everyone!

-Ant.

Your second choice, giving an item, is probably better than dummy casters since the building placement cannot be handled correctly otherwise.

if its possible to bring up the target-selection of the tiny buildings, and detect cancels, you could make a nice system out of it. but yeah, that would be complicated if its even possible.

I've been told recently that if abilities that share an orderID are placed each in a seperate spellbook and the spellbooks are put onto the same unit, you don't get order conflicts, but I haven't tested it myself so don't quote me on that. It's worth a try though, even if having a spellbook for each ability is rather impractical.

For curiosity's sake I gave that a run.

Spell Book 1: Tiny Farm
Spell Book 2: Tiny Scout Tower

Each book came out with both abilites, however when I tried to build them it actualy built the right ones! No matter which one I tried to build from either book.

I did however show the wrong ghosted outline for picking the build spot.

Sorry I didn't just edit, but I thought this warented a new post.

I did some more playing around with mulitple Spell Books for each Tiny Building.

Try 1:
Spell Book 1: Tiny Tower
Spell Book 2: Tiny Altar
Spell Book 3: Tiny Farm

Each of the spellbooks gained all the Tiny Buildings and when clicked displayed the outline of the LAST added Tiny Building. So in this instance the outline was always of the Tiny Farm. However the building that was built was the correct one, it may have showed the Farm but the Tower/Altar built.

I can see the aplication for this working if all the structures were the same size, and for the outline you could add an unused structure added last that had a model of just the ground size. This would let you place any building propperly in the book and accurately place them using the dummy Tiny Building.


Try 2:
Spell Book 1: -NONE-
Spell Book 2: Tiny Tower
Spell Book 3: Tiny Altar
Spell Book 4: Tiny Farm

Same effect, the Tiny Buildings all appeared in Spell Book 1 with the last building as the ghost outline.


Try 3:
Spell Book 1: -NONE-
Spell Book 2: Tiny Tower, Tiny Altar, Tiny Farm

All the buttons only built the Farm.


So as far as I can tell, if all of the buildings are the same size and using a dummy final structure works, then option 2 (for organization's sake, one real Spell Book with the rest being invisable filler) will work.

You will obviously be limited to one of these Tiny Buildings menus.


On a side note: how do you modify if an ability is displayed on the unit's control pannel? I'm sure I remember there being a way...

native SetPlayerAbilityAvailable (player whichPlayer, integer abilid, boolean avail) returns nothing

Will hide spellbooks and allow passive abilities inside them to work. I don't know if that's what you're looking for though.