SC2Mapster

Hi Folks

I've been running into quite a severe problem with my Mod Extension for quite some time now. Previously, I had been working on my mod with WoL since I did not own HotS. Now that I do and I have added the Dependencies for HotS assets, some rather frustrating issues have been appearing.

Upgrades appear to go "missing' for seemingly no reason even though they are perfectly correct in the Data Editor. For example, in WoL I had an upgrade I added to the Armory that worked perfectly fine. It had its own button added to the Armory command card. It linked to the research ability of the Armory. It had all the parameters for the upgrade itself. It worked. There was nothing wrong with it.

Now, in numerous instances, upgrades disappear or reappear between versions for seemingly no reason. I change the statistics of the Medic, and Vehicle Weapons 1 disappears at the Armory. I change the health of the Battlecruiser and Vehicle Weapons 1 reappears, but Marine Combat Shields at the Barracks Tech lab disappears.

Its utterly confusing.

Here is a Screenshot of the Tech Lab (Factory).

The top 3 upgrades seem to be influenced by HotS. The Flame upgrade remains unchanged. The top Siege-Tech button changes into the Widow Mine drilling claw upgrades and the 250mm Thor Cannons next to it change into the Hellbat Transformation Servos.

Ontop of this, the 250mm Thor Cannons (Transformation Servos) has disappeared as of the last version for utterly no reason.

Here is a Screenshot of the Oracle

The Oracle's Pulsar-Beam ability (The laser it uses) does not exist in the Editor. Anywhere. At all. I have looked everywhere. I have browsed each and every single entry in the Protoss Weapons, Upgrades, Abilities, Effects, Actors and Models. It simply does not exist.

Yet magically ingame, the Entomb ability (shown in the Screenshot) transforms itself into the Pulsar-Beam ability. What? Why?

Kerrigan's Crushing-Grip ability I added to the Oracle too also simply does not appear ingame. Its all there in the Editor. The ability. The button. The effects it links to. Its all there. But in-game the button simply is not there on the command card, yet I've checked it all a thousand times. Its all correct on my end.

Here is a Screenshot of the Infestation Pit

The top-row buttons are the usual 2 upgrades there. To the right of them, normally there is the Swarm Host (Life duration) upgrade. In-game, the upgrade is mysteriously there and it works as it should. However, in the Editor, its like the damn thing does not exist ANYWHERE AT ALL like I previously described with the Oracle's Pulsar laser.

Here is a Screenshot of the Tech Lab (Starport)

To the far right of the Command Card, shown in the picture, are 2 upgrades. One is a Cluster-Missile ability I have added way back in WoL and it works perfectly fine. The furthest-right button (the orange cloud / crosshair thingy) is an upgrade for Banshees that enables their Area-of-Effect missiles from the WoL campaign.

Between updating versions of my Mod (such as changing stuff on other units) these 2 upgrades seem to magically appear or disappear. In my previous version where I had changed absolutely nothing relating to the Starport or its units, the Cluster-Missiles upgrade has disappeared and the Banshee upgrade is now available. In earlier versions, the Banshee upgrade for some reason had disappeared, but the Cluster-Missiles were available.

Here is a Screenshot of the Armory

Huge issues here. In WoL, all of the upgrades worked 100% okay. However, as you may know, HotS combined Vehicle and Starship upgrades into the 1 upgrade, such as Vehicle Armor and Starship Armor becoming (Vehicle and Starship Armor 1).

In the Editor here, it all looks 100% okay. However, in-game, the Vehicle Weapons and Starship Armor disappears. Yet the Vehicle Armor and Starship Weapons remain available and work as they should. What?

The custom upgrades I have added on the right-side of the Command card also appear or disappear seemingly at random. I change the health for the Medic, for example, and update my Mod. One of these upgrades disappears from the Command card in-game. I change the damage of Marines and upload the new version. Now the previously missing upgrade from the Armory has reappeared, but another one has disappeared.

These issues are severely hampering my efforts and I do not understand why they are happening.

Some stuff, like the Pulsar Laser ability of the Oracle simply do not exist anywhere in the Editor whatsoever. Same thing with the Range-Upgrade for Phoenixes at the Fleet Beacon. In-game it is there, but in the Editor it simply does not exist.

Abilities, Upgrades or other stuff disappears or reappears at random, despite being 100% correct in the Editor. It worked in WoL and I havent changed it since. All I have done is add the HotS dependencies.

For those of you interested, here is a Screenshot of the Dependencies I have enabled.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated. I am seriously stuck and its screwing up so much of my stuff that previously used to work in WoL.

Simple advice: create your mod from scratch for HotS. There r a lot of changes between WoL and HotS. And i also recommend u: don't use Campaign dependencies for melee-related mods - these dependencies fukups a lot of melee data.

Considering this is 5 or so months worth of working, starting over from scratch is out of the question.

I have the Campaign dependencies enabled so that units like the Goliath and Medic are available.

If some of the Dependencies can be removed though without it impacting anything too severely, I'll do so.

The source of this problem seems to be that the Editor itself is reading between WoL and HotS, like either one exists or does not exist seemingly at random.

This still doesnt explain why some things (Such as the Oracle laser or Phoenix upgrade at the Fleet Beacon) do not exist whatsoever in the Editor. I had this issue even back in WoL times.

Make a backup copy, and try to experiment with dependencies. I dont know what exactly u have in your mod. And i don't know what dependencies u need and which order will be correct in your case.

Quote from Venrez: Go

This still doesnt explain why some things (Such as the Oracle laser or Phoenix upgrade at the Fleet Beacon) do not exist whatsoever in the Editor.

Dependencies bug explains it.

Still doesnt explain why the Phoenix Range upgrade at the Fleet Beacon for example simply does not exist in the Editor whatsoever. It never has. Not even back in WoL times with no other custom Dependencies added when editing a standard melee map or anything. Its not there in the Fleet Beacon command card. Or its research ability. Or upgrades. Anywhere whatsoever.

Doesnt explain what the Dependencies bug is. I cant read your mind.

Through the use of the Campaign dependencies, I've added Campaign units like the Goliath, the Terran Mercs and HotS evolutions (such as the different Hydralisks and Mutalisks, etc).

If some of the Dependencies in my listed screenshot can be removed, maybe that'd help.

Expect a lot of those issues. SC Expanded suffered so bad from these that most of my time was for fixing bugs after I added HotS dependency. A tip: in some cases its better to simply remove all mod changes and start from "HotS new zero". Try not to replace buttons, but actually create new ones then set the original ones to "undefined" instead of deleting them, this way the editor still counts them but they will never be used.

The exact dependency you choose means a lot too. Don't use Swarm (mod), go for SwarmMulti (mod), SwarmCampaign (mod) or both depending on what you need, because Swarm (mod)'s data is extremely incomplete for multiplayer and leads to several of these issues. This dependency is also redundant if you add any of the other two. The order of you dependencies does matter, from my experience having SwarmMulti as the first and Swarmcampaign as the second solves some of the issues. You can remove all Liberty ones from your mod, SwarmCampaign contains everything you need from LibertyCampaign, and LibertyMulti will only conflict badly with SwarmMulti.

Another reason to wait for game being finished with LotV. I remember how they did leap ability in left2die mod with dozens effects and behaviours. Just facepalm. Then they decided to use launch missile effect for this at last.

Hmm, well its an ongoing work and Im happy to keep fiddling with it over time until and after LotV is released. Its just hugely problematic when some stuff is missing altogether (like certain upgrades, such as the Phoenix range upgrade at the Fleet Beacon) or stuff seemingly changes on its own without any input from me. Its absolutely bizzare.

Another (minor) issue that seems to be along this tangent is that I've simply enabled the Camera to zoom out further than you can in normal SC2. But weirdly, on SOME maps, it doesnt let you. But for most, it works as intended.

So as Cacho said, there definitely seems to be something map-specific that is deliberately conflicting with the Mod Extension(s).

Starting over completely for HotS is out of the question at this point. I've sunk so much time into making my Mod as a sort of personal project that isnt available to the public and thus I see no real community-obligation to do so. Ontop of the fact that I am quite new to all this and most of what I've accomplished has been through learning as I go.

I might start over again for LotV, but until then I'll just keep banging at it until stuff half-works the way I want it to.

@ SoulFilcher I havent replaced any of the currently existing buttons in SC2. I may have changed the icon they use, but its still the same entry in the Data Editor and all that.

Im still completely baffled by some stuff missing altogether, like the Oracle laser or Phoenix upgrade as I keep mentioning. Even in WoL, the Phoenix range upgrade simply did not exist in any condition whatsoever at the Fleet Beacon. Wasnt in the command card. Nothing related to it in the research ability. No button for it. No effect. Nothing. Its bizzare.

I'll try fiddling with the Dependencies. The issue here though is its quite unclear as to what the Dependencies actually contain when there are multiple entries of seemingly the same thing, like Swarm (Mod) and SwarmMulti (Mod).

As I mentioned, all I want from adding such dependencies are the Campaign / Merc units, such as the Terran Mercs or Swarm Zerg evolutions.

Since the later missions in Swarm's campaign have the Terran Mercs as Korhal units, does that mean the WoL campaign dependencies can be removed entirely? But then again, I might lose other stuff related to it, such as the Sigma Relay, Bunker Turrets or other WoL campaign upgrades.

I know the order of Dependencies does have an effect, but Im really unclear as to what can be removed or reshuffled.

I've posted a screenie (the last one, first post of this thread) of the Dependencies I have enabled. Advice on what I might be able to remove or do there would be appreciated.

Some curious questions though, I am sorry if I seem to be repeating myself.

I know Soul mentioned that I could remove the WoL Dependencies. However, since I originally made the Mod with only WoL (and thus changed the Merc units stats and stuff), does that mean if I remove the WoL Dependencies, it will remove all the changes I've made to those Merc units? It just seems particularly confusing because as I said, HotS also has the same Merc units in the last Korhal missions, but they're seperate entities in the Editor.

Another point, is that I prefer some of the WoL equivalents of units. For example, the Void Ray in WoL had that passive charge-up-over-time ability to its weapon where it would do 1x, 2x then 4x damage. In HotS, it was changed to that annoyingly micromanagement temporary ability.

If I remove the WoL dependencies, am I still somehow able to revert the Void Ray to its WoL state? I've already tried doing so, but HotS seems to overwrite any and all changes I make to the unit.

All of these issues seem so straightforward, but then the Editor slaps me in the face by doing something seemingly completely unexpected and unfixable / illogical.

Thanks for the help thus far though. Its really nice to see some community assistance.

@Venrez: Go As I said, Swarm campaign has everything from Liberty campaign, so all your changes will be kept. Remove all Liberty dependencies, and keep SwarmMulti if you want to have multiplayer stats for units, as well as a few abilities such as Oracle's. If you decide to keep it, it should the one on top of the list.

About the Void Ray: Yes, you can still revert it. the Swarm campaign kept all data needed to revert these cases, like the Mothership's Vortex ability and it even has some of the abilities tested during HotS beta, like Mothership Core's Energize and Oracle's Entomb. Your problem is that you don't have SwarmMulti as the top one, so when you change a multiplayer unit/ability, it gets changed back when that dependency is applied by the server on top of what you change.

All I'm saying is from my personal experience. I had all the problems you have now. I can say you will have to manually fix some things, such as the queen unit, creep tumours, baneling's speed upgrade and the respective changes to the actor, and possibly others I don't remember right now. And the dependencies in my mod are in this order: Swarm Multi; Swarm campaign; Left 2 Die; An assets mod I use.

Hmm, I wish they'd make the tooltip info for the Dependencies a bit more clear.

Its really strange to see Swarm (Campaign) that describes : "Data and Assets for the Heart of the Swarm Singleplayer Campaign"

and

Swarm Story (Campaign) that describes : "Data and Assets specific to Story mode in the Heart of the Swarm Singleplayer Campaign".

Since Swarm (Campaign) seems to entail entities specific to the campaign and are otherwise not affecting the Swarm (Multi) Dependency, so that Blizz can change the Singleplayer or Online balance without one affecting the other - why make a third entry that seems to be the same, yet not, of the aforementioned Singleplayer one? Story = / = Campaign. Its weird.

Liberty has the same thing going for it. There's Liberty (Multi). Liberty (Mod), Liberty (Story Campaign) and Liberty (Campaign).

The last two for example, as far as the tooltips say, seem to be exactly the same thing.

- - -

Still, I've made a backup and Im going to try removing all the WoL Dependencies as suggested and rearrange stuff in the order of :

1. 1 Swarm Multi (Mod)
2. 2 Swarm (Campaign) and maybe... not sure...
3. 3 Swarm Story (Campaign)

(Important Edit) Hmm, Soul - you say you're using Swarm Multi, then Swarm Campaign? I've tried that and it warns they cant be used together else significant data problems may occur.

@Venrez: Go They aren't the exact same thing. "Story" means it includes things that happen outside missions, so it has a few things from the Leviathan, cinematics, dialogues and things like that. I also found that a few unit soundsets are only avaliable in Story, this is the case for Stukov, Zagara, and if I remember it right Dehaka too. But I never really compared Liberty campaign with Liberty Story, so I can't help with that.

That being said you can use Swarm campaign or Story in case you need those soundsets, but you don't need both.

Ignore the warning. In any case you have a backup. They added that warning because of all the issues you're experimenting. Before that they simply didn't allow us to add both. I think I was the first to cheat the system, make my mod use both, then asked Blizzard to put that warning instead because I made my mod work.

Hmm, well okay. It seems some of this fuss could've been avoided if the tooltips describing the contents of the Dependencies were a little better.

After enabling Swarm Multi (Mod) and Swarm (Campaign), in that order, the Oracle's Pulsar Laser ability has finally decided to appear in the Data Editor. Sheesh. Its such a strange coding bug that having two sets of Dependencies (WoL and HotS) somehow cause a completely unrelated ability to disappear.

Still, means I can finally fiddle with it and other things that have "disappeared", like how the Armory has decided all on its own to only have the Vehicle Weapons and Starship armor upgrades, as opposed to WoL having 4 choices (Vehicle Weps, Armor, Starship Weps, Armor) and HotS combining it into (Vehicle and Starship Weps, Armor).

Still yet to figure out why Mercs made from the Merc Garrison are not displaying their resource costs when you browse over the button. I know about setting the Unit cost, the ability, "displaying" resource costs and all that when its activated, etc. Done it for plenty of other new units and it worked perfectly fine in WoL. But now in HotS for example, if you summon 4 Elite Marines, it does so - but the button doesnt display the cost, even though it has everything set up correctly to do so.

It still costs 400 minerals (100 per Marine) but it doesnt list it. Weird.

Thanks for all the help thus far. Certainly has been a learning experience creating my mod from scratch over the past few months with no prior experience.

@Venrez: Go I think the Armory is something you will have to fix manually, but its not hard.

The merc cost is something I never discovered how to fix. I already reported it to Blizzard but never got an answer. I may not have tried enough though.

I just tested the dependency order thing as i was surprised reading this, about putting the the one you wanted on top. When i add dependencies, the LOWEST one determines which version is used by the editor. Ie., when i put swarm multi at the bottom, then check one of the regular units in the data editor, the "source" column says it uses swarm multi (rather than campaign and story that was also included ), if i put campaign at the bottom, it instead is stated as the source.

While the actual data used always seem to be that of swarm multi?

Except sometimes... After creating a number of mods with different dependency order, i´m now thoroughly confused, most of the time the order does not seem to make any real difference other than what source units are from(and those doesn´t seem to be predictable either)?

So my question here will have to be, what does the order change, and is there an order that should be used to avoid problems? Does it make a practical difference?