This still has to do with the whole GT Capture The Flag that I'm working on... but I don't know what system I should use to cast my spells. Here are my thoughts of what I thought about using...

-First Choice-
Have a Dropship/Shuttle for each player that they can drop a certain spell number, then it will spawn a Wraith. The player then moves the Wraith to the place where the spell will be targeted and then the player will have to drop the Spell number agian and the spell will cast at the certain spot then. Seems complicated to some but I know how this will all work, but would be a bit complicated for people not use to this...

-Second Choice-
Have the same Shuttle/Dropship system but when the certain spell number is droped, they will get a death counter and then they will be able to use the Defiler's Dark Swarm to cast a Dark Swarm at the certain spot where the spell will be finished at... Problem is that will the Dark Swarm be able to be detected as being a certain players Dark Swarm so I do'nt have player 1 casting a spell for player 5 and will I have the ability to have 2 or more dark swarms up at once and will they interfere with each other? I not quite good at this one and I'm sure I could get some help with this one, but I think that this system would be much more easy for people that might be new to the map or simply arn't good with the first choice...

If anyone has any other suggestion on how I could make this any easier or give me their thoughts on which choice I should use in my map for people being able to cast spells, which I make the spells, in my map... Thanks in advance!

IMO, the Gateway system is the best spellcasting system, you can hit 2, hit z, then hit 1, and you've still got your main guy selected, your spell is cast, it's done in less than a second, and oyu can keep fighting.

Dropship you gotta go and click on them, wasting valuable seconds.

The Dark Swarm idea is good, I'm pretty sure that dark swarms have an owner, go test it out.

GL however you choose to do it!

Yes, dark swarms have an owner: P12.

But when you could determine who cast the spell by the owner of the defiler. That would mean however, that every spell will have to be delayed until the first player finished targetting. You would have to set a maximum aiming time.
That's not pretty, but the only way when dealing with dark swarms and heroes in the same location.

I recommend using the wraith, or better yet (blinded) observer for aiming.

If the target of the spell is a unit, then you could also use mind control

I thought about Mind Control... but then again, not all spell will be put onto units or buildings sadly enough...

Never herd of the Gateway system, but it does sound nice and quick. Problem still lies with the aiming part of over half of the spells I'm using.

I'm kinda leaning toward the Wraith unit for the aiming due to how fast it is and can be cloaked so the other player can't see where the foe is going to select. But your right when it comes to having to find the spell character to get out of the Dropship or something, or even the Gateway system would only have a max of 4 spells, unless I went with Zerg or something, eww... But that is also something to think about.
Couldn't I give the Dark Swarm however to a certain player once it is casted at some location? I am having like 3 locations go around each player and I was thinking that if the Dark Swarm would be casted within the location of the player then the Dark Swarm would be given to the player, or wouldn't that work?

To cast it, have an air unit. If the unit moves, the spell has been cast. Quick and easy, just press a hotkey and right-click.

For aiming, it depends..do you want the spell to go at a specific target, or in a general area?

I would like the spell to go in the spot where the target, in this case most likely a Wraith, would be sitting and everything for the spell would be activated there.

EDIT2: If you want your unit close first, you could set it so that you have a location the size of the unit's LOS and once the target enters the location, the another location is centered on the target so that when the spell is cast, it occurs there. Probably over-complicated but still an option.
EDIT: Post is old... Darn. Lemme revise

There should be several tutorials either in the new or old database on this.

And personally, I prefer...

Trigger

Conditions
"Player" brings 0 "insert unit here" to "location"
Actions
(Cast spell trigger)
Move "unit" to "original location"
Preserve Trigger

This allows you to hot-key different units and have one-click access to any spell. No real advantages over the gateway thing, but I guess it's slightly more user friendly. Unburrowing a zergling or other Zerg unit with similar triggers could also work, but with much less space used. But if you *need* hot-keys for other things, dropships are the way to go.

Have a hatchery Directional system....

You know how the hatchery can build 8 units?

Use each one for each direction (Up, Up left, Left, Down left....you get the point) and use the center for the Bottom right direction.

Hatchery's are the #1 thing on my mind right now really for the spells. I might even need like two things for all of the Mage spells I'm putting in, lol

That's a lengthy process, you have to select ONE larva out of the three it spawns or else it'll use three spells at once, possibly wait for the larva to spawn, and then select the unit. If you aren't fast with this, it could take about six seconds when quickness is needed.

Here's what you should do by the way:

Just have a barracks, and have a combo spell system like in We Are Friend, that way you'll have a ton of combinations for players to search for and stuff. Alternately, you could use a Starport which has five units instead of four.

Yeah, inferno says it, honestly a wraith or a obs as targeter is MUCH more intuitive and offers better playability than the hatch directional system.

Oh yes that is a given, but I meant I would use the hatchery system to do the spell casting, but that would lead to what if there are 3 larva there or something. I think I am going to have the wraith targetting system (duh on my part) and then for the casting system use both a barracks and starport if they both would be needed for like the Mage or something. I am planning on giving the mage like 7 or 8 spells to use, lol

If you need so many spells the most convient is to have a location where you line up a few units representing the spells. If you set it up correctly the delay between the click (to leave the location) and the spell execution is as little as building a unit in a factory.
2 spell buildings also is an alternative. You need to know the building hotkeys but you can cast every spell by keystrokes only.

Using a hatchery is NOT recommended, as you would either have to wait for larvae or have mutliple hatcheries which destroys its use.

I thought about the way of having a unit for each spell number, but then I fear I would run out of units. I think that hotkeying each spell for building the unit for casting the spell would be better. Plus with this way I could set the mineral cost for the unit to be the cost of the 'mana' needed to cast the spell which beats the normal way of having to detect the amount of 'mana' the player has.

hahahahah No... Hatches are Super fast. Its called a Spell Keycode.

Lets say a power is ... oh i dunno... Shoots a bullet to the upper left of the hero.
To Choose WHICH spell, you can use a building, like gateway.
For which spell, Lets go with a zealot. (Z)

Lets hotkey.
1-Hero
2-Gateway (Which spell to cast)
3-Hatchery (directional)

The Spell Key Code (SKC) simply goes like this.

(starting with hero selected)

2 z 3 s d

2 for the gateway
z for the zealot
3 for the hatchery
s for the Select larva
d for the drone (top left)

Now, try doing it as fast as you can. Of course, you can easily get this to be super mega ultra fast.

To avoid glitching with multiple spells at the same time, you need to have a trigger that goes as follows :



Of course, preserve trigger.

As for the Directions, you can have players use it uber fast, and even have different directions cost different amounts... (No idea why... maybe the hero is left handed?) hahaha

I know this would look ugly, but you could have a corsair over the player's unit that you could use to target the spell using disruption web after you activate it, though I'm not sure if you can detect individual players' dis webs, and with 7 to 8 spells for a mage, you could just use one barracks and combos such as marine marine, medic medic, etc.

You need the same amount of units for either systems. But I wouldn't care, as you can double use units when you place the spell activation areas out of the playing field.

You could only select a rough direction and not an exact area for the spell execution. Also, as I already said it wouldn't be very intuitive.

That's the same as the dark swarm casting system we already discussed. The problem is he can't easily detect the owner of the dark swarm. Same goes for web.

Why would I want a directional system by using a hatchery to move a location side to side and up and down. I don't see the point of that because the Wraith would be able to be controlled right from the player to where ever they would want it to be for the spell to cast.

larva isn't really an issue for the hatchery method of spell selection. you can just use triggers to make sure the player always has exactly 1 larva. just constantly remove the extras whenever it detects more than 1.

c: current player brings at least 2 larva to location.
a: remove 1 larva. preserve trigger.

c: current player brings at most 0 larva to location.
a: create 1 larva. preserve trigger.

also, for the gateway vs dropship method... yes, the building hotkeys are fast, but one nice thing about the dropship method is that you can use a combination of mouse and keyboard, thus eliminating the need for your fingers to move across the keyboard. you just hit the hotkey for the dropship (with your mouse already hovering over the wireframe display as you hit the hotkey), then immediately click the wireframe you want. this is especially useful when you want to cast a bunch of spells all at once.

another nice thing about the dropship method is that you can change the names of the units to the spell name, so that you will always be able to immediately tell which spell you're going to cast.

Well? Have several hatcheries?

Build an elaborate mobile grid around ur hero, with multiple hatcheries- each having a certain distance... like a radius?

ACTUALLY

Ive got it!!!!
Have an arb some place far away, over water. Tell it to recall where it is. I think you might be able to get away with Centering a location over the Recall Sprite. Give it a shot, it might work-


If it doesnt, you can Switch the Conditions for the dark swarms... so you can have more than 1 player casting spells-

Like, have a gateway for the spell caster, and the defiler be the swarmer for the location. Have the filer swarm the spot- center location and remove. then cast the spell. If you have hyper triggers, 2 different players wont conflict with eachother. (same thing for corsairs- i would use a sair instead of a defiler because the defiler is a ground unit, and it doesnt conflict with the hero:which i think is a ground unit?

-edit to razorsnail-

-dude... Buildings pwn dropships- Dropships have a delay... The mouse is too important to be clicking down at the bottom of the screen and unloading units. Its needed by where the hero is, but the Buildings only require a quick Tap of the finger on a key. As for dragging the mouse hand over, you only need one hand to choose spell and all of that.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Jan 27 2008, 12:04 pm by Pyro682.