SC2Mapster

I tried to make a pun with "Mission Impossible" :p

Basically I made my first Missile ability following this wonderful tutorial (This wonderful, painful, unforgiving tutorial http://www.staredit.net/starcraft2/Creating_a_Missile_Ability). I am really bad with tutorials it seems.

My setup launches a missile in a straight line, is supposed to detect the first unit it comes across with and applies an effect to it.

My current demo setup uses:

1) Launch Missile_{,2) Missile has Behavior (Behavior fires a periodic Search Area Effect, excluding the caster)},3) Missile has a Throw Mover (That's the straight line right?)_{,4) The Search Effect (From the Missile Behavior) applies a Set Effect to the impact unit},5) The Set Effect currently only applies a Damage Effect which does 1000 acid damage.

What actually occurs ingame: 1) Missile appears for 0.1 seconds and then deals 1000 acid damage to a unit adjacent to my caster. (At this point I'm pulling my hair out)

I will my map to this post in the hopes somebody can point out what I did wrong in my setup. All the components of my Missile have the editor suffix "Bull Charge" (If you are curious about the name, I plan to later change this ability to order my caster to cast an ability against the impact unit).

The unit to which I added the ability to is called "Plunder Crab" (It is the Crab Beetle thing), map also has auto - respawn, so no need to worry about dying while checking the ability.

Well, your ability is Effect-Instant so the target it aims the missile at is the feet of the caster. When it actually manages to deal damage that's the missile functioning correctly for the short time it exists, impacting a nearby unit. If you only want to hit a single target you'll also need an effect to kill it once it hits something.

Going by the name of your ability you probably want it to cast a Persistent effect, using its Offset to launch the missile a set distance in front of the caster to set the maximum range. (or do you really want people hitting one spawn in the bottom "lane" while standing at the opposite one?)

To reiterate on what Photoloss said, this is what's going on:

Player uses Effect-Instant ability -> Effect: Launch missile launches missile from Caster Unit to Target Unit/Point, but what is target unit/point in this case? Since there is no logic to take target from, it takes source point(self) as target. The damage is from behavior on missile functioning properly.

If you want it to be targetable, make ability Effect-Target. If you want it to always shot in a specific direction (ex: in front of caster), use presistent effect with offset ( -Y is in front of caster). But there are also other things you need to be aware of such as killing missile on collision with unit, or if it's a piercing missile - making it not damage same unit multiple times.

What exactly you want it to do?

@DuckyTheDuck: Go

Thank you for the explanation guys, I THINK I am starting to understand how this is supposed to work.

What I wanted to accomplish was for the player to CAST the ability without the need to target anything (Since I want it to launch a missile directly in front of the caster, according to your post I need to create a persistent to achieve that). I thought the missile's target point was decided by its mover (Not the Launch Missile Effect).

Once the missile collides with a unit I want the missile to be destroyed (like you guys said, I don't want a penetrating round).

AFTER THAT instead of the acid damage effect I am currently using, I want to order the caster to cast a different ability which make the caster charge at the unit which the missile collided with (It is a "find target" missile).

Ingame you would see this, you press the ability hotkey, and the caster instantly launches a missile in a straight line in front of him, once that missile collides with a unit (If any) the caster automatically use a charge ability and deals damage to the target once the caster reaches it. (I haven't thought about how to do the charge ability yet, it will probably be equally as difficult to achieve).

@wisesquirrel: Go
So, collide-able projectile that gets target for other ability/action. Pretty doable.

First, inspect how colliding projectiles work. This is one of the best tutorials out there for it. Understand how fireball works, from that you can easily make your own single damage Effect-Instant ability.

Quote from wisesquirrel: Go

AFTER THAT instead of the acid damage effect I am currently using, I want to order the caster to cast a different ability which make the caster charge at the unit which the missile collided with (It is a "find target" missile).

In your alerted fireball, instead of damage use issue order from caster unit to target unit. Might use stuff like zealots charge. Though you can really just run any new effect/persistent instead. How you do it is also up to you. You can send unit as a missile, can push caster there via force effects, can do orders. The fun of decisions =D

I made progress, but still feel extremely lost (Oh me). I managed to make the missile fire in a straight line using offsets through an initial persistent effect (I think this is a non intuitive system blizzard made, not sure why missiles have this magical relationship with the persistent offset, but oh well now I know).

I followed the fireball section in the tutorial (The Test map was super fun), and replicated what I saw.

My new problem is that the missile doesn't take the caster's facing into account when deciding the direction. Instead of shooting in front of the caster, it shoots directly to the bottom of the map (I feel the author left something out of the tutorial or I missed some HUGE step, I even checked the test map to match my setup with his), how do I link the offsets to the unit?

@wisesquirrel: Go

Quote from wisesquirrel: Go

..not sure why missiles have this magical relationship with the persistent offset..

It's just that persistent effect, among other things, is handy for giving other effects alerted target points. Periodic effect for persistent is targeted to location of persistent (Source point) + periodic offset. So when you launch missile to target point, it takes it from there.

Quote from wisesquirrel: Go

My new problem is that the missile doesn't take the caster's facing into account when deciding the direction. Instead of shooting in front of the caster, it shoots directly to the bottom of the map (I feel the author left something out of the tutorial or I missed some HUGE step, I even checked the test map to match my setup with his), how do I link the offsets to the unit?

Dunno what got messed up, I went to test map, changed fireball to effect-instant, removed range, fixed command button lost during change and it all worked as it should >.>
Though if something goes to (0,0) you should probably double check your specified locations/targets, they may be referencing/targeting non-exsisting things.

I checked around 4 times, haven't seen any errors. So frustrating DX, I should be able to spot the error, but no luck so far.

@wisesquirrel: Go

Changed mover to punisher grenade and it worked as intended. I'm a noob at movers, but if I had to guess, comparing your mover to all other throw movers, it lacks a guidance phase.

Thanks duck, I tried changing my custom mover to a guidance type (No longer throw) and it works perfectly. Now I know movers decide how orientation works. I am only using one phase since it is hard to keep track of more than one phase on that tiny window inside the mover window.

You're welcome :D

Movers decide how and in what manner missile travels from launch to target point. But depending on how it's setup missile may never reach target point at all (what happened in your case). Here is a little something to expand your understanding on the topic. Have fun!