SC2Mapster

Btw about the random waves, just read the tutorials about wave creation and then with a bit of understanding on how to use random numbers inside of triggers I'm sure you'll be able to figure out the random part. Making the waves is much harder then picking a random base to do it in.

Just don't recreate Arc, that's mah engine to rip off :P

(spark-hq.net if you aren't aware of that epic little top-down game of ages past)

Weekend update! Been working on some new units :) The stalkers are going to be relegated to purely the reinforcements of each team as now Immortals and Goliaths are the player (and computer AI) controller units for the Protoss and Terran races. Still no luck coming up with a decent zerg unit for this sort of thing, if someone's willing to slice up a Queen to stuff a TurretZ bone somewhere between her torso and the main body beneath that'd seal the deal though and I'd be very appreciative.

Here's a short clip of the two new units in action along with a nifty almost fully functional turret tracking system I hammered out yesterday:

@essbee1337: Go

Glad you like the map & mod, stick with it I'm sure we'll get a good playerbase going soon enough :)

@tigerija: Go

Weren't you the one who posted that video in that thread showing off just such a method and then denying everyone how it was done because it "wasn't your thing to release" or some such? I found that thread btw where you were first asking about how one would do this sort of thing and Umbra gave you all that incredible useful information which I assume led to programmer's mouse detector along with several early attempts at turret manipulation. Umbra certainly seems to know his stuff so why do you still need this, didn't he already do this homework for you?

@frozenfire2: Go

Unfortunately you face a dilemma as you're right when you issue an order it cancels everything else going on so constantly doing an attack order on invisible units makes everything else very 'laggy' feeling. So the trick...think about how the diamondback's weapon works ;) I've got a working method that I just managed to get functional as of yesterday and eventually I'll release the content just right now much like everything else in it the code is quite ugly and undesirable to show to people. Here's a short demo clip, you'll notice my turret still follows the wrong dummy once or twice and that among other things (like those unrelated errors on the side) are stuff I still have to work out before considering it a complete system worthy of sharing:

To be more specific I'm relying on my units have dummy weapons with a gigantic range and a very specific scan-set of targets they're looking for (the invisible floating dummies that you can't see but are present) and so the weapons will be constantly firing at them (doing nothing, the effect is empty) and this drastically minimizes how often I have to send an attack order through to force them to target the right dummy (in the case of only one in play who cares, but when you have many of them in close quarters like this the weapons can get confused). There is only one dummy per actual unit and these dummies react to situations like clicks to teleport to that location or by default they quickly move over the battle field to try and be about 8 squares in front of the facing of their unit. So, keep the turrets constantly aiming at their specific dummy...and you get the illusion of proper turret activities for your abilities :)

I've done something similar using a two stage where a parabola bomb launches from the caster to a point and then upon impact detonates into a bunch of little missiles and yah I suppose the same sort of logic could apply here then. The trick to that is paying close attention to the target/origin/caster targeting concepts that these effects use, I'm still not 100% on how they all interact but I believe if you make the second round's launch point 'source' instead of caster they'll come out of the first round's impact spot and then with destination still being target they'll still head in the right direction after wards.

@progammer: Go

Man yah no worries you definitely add to the knowledge base and are a genuine credit to this community meanwhile all I've ever seen from progRammer are various iterations of jRape emulators.

@GKimsey: Go

A silver platter awaits in your PM.

@GKimsey: Go

Aye never really noticed that particular chunk of the video in that light before but yah the data one does seem to keep with the keys a little better, that could also just be me accidentally hitting up two keys at once as well. Was trying to avoid the SE/NE/SW/NW directions due to the data editor version being unable to cope with them. The map that first video comes from is the SCCAP - Infernal, it was in very early testing stages and I'm still tweaking that engine quite a bit but I intend to release the entire cabunk in soon as I'm satisfied with it all. Better details about the project are here:
http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/project-workplace/11622-release-sc-capture-assault-pwn-infernal/

Wish I'd kept that map from the comparison in one state or another, unfortunately while the thing is still in my published list on the NA region its private and likely I'd set it locked , it really wouldn't be that hard to reproduce it though, essentially take the map Programmer provided and import a trigger based wasd library and then disable the abilities of one of the units/config it to use the trigger one.

Interesting premise, I think your biggest hurdle is going to be how to get the data editor to recognize the half-way point between the caster and the target. I can think of a few hacks like have a behavior on the missile that has a countdown you hope is met roughly at the half point that triggers another series of effects, but yah what you're looking to do sounds like a tall order indeed. That or compliment the missile with a trigger that's constantly checking for these missiles and when it sees one it tries to figure out where it came from along with where its headed and then once the half point is reached it triggers its payload of eating the missile and making the payload portion of the missile's effects.

Check out its weapon's arc in the data editor, likely its got a very thin arc that requires the unit to turn and face enemies as needed. Your method of halting the unit is also preventing it from turning and that stops it from being able to put its target into that arc. One of those two things needs to change in order for it to still fire.

ED: Oh and btw welcome to the forum, you will find all kinds of great help and support here. I highly recommend checking out the tutorials section to get a handle on how to do some basic stuff.

Compare the player's controller, ie: if (controller of player[x] == human) etc

Could brute force it, you'll need another temp array[50] variable and sequentially pass through the first one pulling the values, set an int to a random value between 1 and max then brute force loop check the temp one to see if you've already added an entry at that random spot: if so re-randomize the int and do another check, if not input the value and move onto the next array value of your original. If its only 50 numbers the end few that'll have a lot of repeated loops to find the last remaining open slots won't be so bad, if you're talking in the thousands well you may want a better solution.

Pseudo code

int temp[50]
for n=1 to 50
(
    int val=original_array[n]
    int randy = randomnumberbetween1and50
    while (temp[randy] != 0)
          randy=randomnumberbetween1and50
    temp[randy]=val
)
for n=1 to 50
original[n] = temp[n]
return original

(this assumes that 0 is never a valid value in the array, you could just as easily use -1 or just any number that'd never appear in the array to indicate a free spot, just remember to first pass through the temp's array and set it all to that value you want to indicate as a free spot)

@RahnSCII: Go

http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/data/12096-proper-kill-credit-vs-targetless-missiles/

This method works for me and should work for you, never bothered to check if it influences xp gains but it certainly worked on keeping proper kill tracking. The central idea is how to tag your missiles with a 'killtocaster' behavior, I used a search effect but the trick was I believe to ensure there was a 0.01 time dif between the launch and the search so that the missile had time to be born.

Plus there are other considerations like what all they're doing. For instance my CPU/GPU can handle an extremely high number of units on screen...until one of them is the damned protoss mothership that's cloaking things beneath it, then all bets are off due to that effect just slaying my GPU in ultra settings.

That view out of the ship's side where you can see the front of the battlecruiser...that sold me, great work. and yah I spotted the unreal reference at the end too :)

Depending on your design, ensure the map has lots of water and then as a passive ability let these murlocs be the only ones that can survive in them, giving alternate tactical maneuvers that other units would lack. I think the ultimate should be the ability to move this thread to the misc development subforum though, personally. ;)