SC2Mapster

Hello,

For the Tower Defense I've come across a problem: giving resources to the player. Since there is no PlayerSetResource() function yet, this is pretty hard. Here is a little recap of my findings.

MeleeInitResource

The function MeleeInitResource gives the amount of mineral and vespene you want but it does it only one time. This is really strange but works that way. So it can't really be used.

Mineral

A way to get mineral is to gather it from a mineral field. I haven't managed to build a MineralField from a building. The solution is to make a unit gatherable. This is done adding those 3 lines inside UnitData.xml

    <ResourceState value="Harvestable"/>
    <ResourceType value="Minerals"/>
    <BehaviorArray Link="MineralFieldMinerals"/>

You want to get the resources instantly:

<!-- BehaviorData.xml -->
    <CBehaviorResource id="MineralFieldMinerals">
        <Capacity value="10"/>
        <Contents value="10"/>
        <HarvestTime value="0"/>
        <HarvestAmount value="10"/>
        <Flags index="RemoveWhenEmpty" value="1"/>
        <ReturnDelay value="0"/>

Since you don't want your worker to get back and forth to the main building, you can set the worker to be a resource dropping site.

<ResourceDropOff index="Minerals" value="1"/>

Now, the unit will act like a coin. You click on it, the worker will collect it and get money.

Spawn the unit

You can now order any AI to train the harvestable unit using that Galaxy line:

// player, priority, town, unit, count
AITrain(2, 1, 0, "Larva", 1);

In the Tower Defense perspective, it would be nice to have the mineral pop when the unit dies. It is possible! We are going to use the Zerg Building. There are many layers of XML to get this working, this is kinda complicated to edit it without the editor.

<!-- UnitData.xml -->
    <BehaviorArray Link="ZergBuildingDies9"/>

<!-- BehaviorData.xml -->
    <CBehaviorBuff id="ZergBuildingDies9">
        <Modification>
            <DeathResponse Chance="1" Effect="ZergBuildingSpawnBroodling9Delay"/>

<!-- EffectData.xml -->
    <CEffectCreatePersistent id="ZergBuildingSpawnBroodling9Delay">
        <FinalEffect value="ZergBuildingSpawnBroodling9"/>

    <CEffectCreateUnit id="ZergBuildingSpawnBroodling9">
        <SpawnUnit value="Broodling"/>
        <SpawnCount value="9"/>

Can't harvest enemy units

There is a <RequiredAlliance value="Control"/> field. However, the only possible values are (Passive, Vision, Control, Spend, Trade, SeekHelp, GiveHelp, Chat, Defeat, Pushable). None of them include being enemy.

It is possible to set an alliance between an AI and a player. The bad thing is that it cannot be done inside the map, you have to do through the launcher. And at the moment there is no command line launcher that is able to do it. Also, we don't want to be dependant from a particular launcher.

A possible lead would be to use an ability to take control of the enemy unit. However it would require too much interaction and many layers of XML.

Solution

Arthas- just gave me a solution: In the <CEffectCreateUnit node we can add this magic line:

<SpawnOwner Value="Neutral"/>

This allow us to make a coin spawn on unit death. The unit will be neutral therefore harvestable. You can now give money to the player ! This involves many XML editing but it is possible and in an user friendly process.

Here is a little demonstration video:

You can test it adding the files attached inside the Tutorial

Look for the

<!-- !Change -->

That is awesome, i really like it :)

Add a line to a unit : <KillResource index="Minerals" value="1"/>

is a better way.

Yep, I can confirm that this works.

Really nice. Thanks for the tip