Ok, I have only a few issues left for the mod before I enter the mapping phase.

1-Broodling's energy death countdown sets at 0 from birth. I want it to be limited because I wanted it to be a powerful yet brief emergency base defense strain.

2- The Infested Ghost (defiler) has cloak now through the EXE edits that were suggested to me. However, the energy doesn't steadily decrease and it cannot decloak even though I have the button set for it and all the requirements I'm aware of. If there are any I'm missing, I could use the knowledge.

3- I still have no clue what was the problem with the Bomber I was trying to implement. I used a custom graphic and replaced the ragnasaur's with it, and edited the iscript using parts from the wraith and battlecruiser iscripts. I applied the graphic to the unit data for the Arcturus Mengsk hero and made it be built by the Starport. iInitially I had no problem until the second it was supposed to be finished building. Then I fixed it and it was able to be built but it couldn't move. Then I fixed the iscript and for some reason giving the order to build it caused it to freeze just by pressing the button to build it.

4- I haven't gotten to work yet on the zerg capital ship but I have been thinking... I want it big, and making it born from a larva is going to be ridiculous. Would I be able to make it from a drone? Also, would I be able to make it fire scourges as weapons and/or breed units for ground attack?

After this, I should be all ready. If you need to examine anything to be able to help, I'll be happy to please your requests.
So yeah, this is the final stretch before the mapping and story phase, so please help if you can. Thanks in advance.

i have to be terse as i am on my phone

1) Code it.

2) I don't know. Double check all EXE edits pertaining to cloaking, decloaking. Double check requirements and that the decloak button works similarly to other decloak buttons. There isn't much to say besides check every entry in all lists (exe edits, order requirements). I've made a Dropship cloak and decloak properly very recently so beyond doing it myself I don't know how to help. Double check it is marked cloakable in units.dat?

3) I have no idea what you are trying to say. "Fix" can mean literally anything. I don't understand why you might have troubles in the first place. Make sure flingy motion control is set. Double check image, sprite, and flingy information. Check AI orders in units.dat. Anything of these might be the problem.

4) No idea. Just try it. Shooting scourge isn't hard if you want them to behave like normal missiles. If you mean like how a Carrier launches interceptor, that's more complicated. Creating ground units works except that the units will span where they first started building.

for 1), I guess I'll have to abandon it. I haven't got a clue, I'm not sure who, if any of you, can write plugins and are willing to. I guess I'll just reduce the health a little more to make it a little more sacrificial as the attack power is right where I want it I think.
2) I've been scouring the EXE edits and the dat files. It wouldn't be covered in the Iscript would it? Is there an EXE edit dealing with DEcloaking? I've covered the cloaking exe edits and enabled the ones I figured are pertinent to allowing cloaking. The only one I'm confused about is that there's a cloaking energy reduction counter number and it says "10". Also, the Infested Ghost isn't reducing it's energy. It just ceases collecting energy and stays where it is. Interestingly enough, I think I had 50 energy on one and it refused to cloak even though I have it set at 25 energy as is standard. It's still a spellcaster, it's cloakable, It has both buttons, Cloaking was enabled in requirements, and I set cloaking as not requiring research and using Personnel cloaking as the stock one for the non-originally cloaking units. I dont know if I'm just using a slightly older version of Firegraft (It's 1.16.1) or what. If you are willing to help test, see if you can make a defiler cloak and dont forget to give it the grp for infested kerrigan, because that's just how I'm making the Infested Ghost.
3)I'm using fix very loosely. Initially it was crashing as it finished building. I edited the iscript and I think I managed to correct a problem there somewhere, I still am totally unaware of what the issue was. But when it built, it just stopped moving. I checked the IScript and I figured the pertinent area where it was supposed to move was drawing from a "GndAttkToIdle" command like the wraith does was the issue. It wouldn't move. I tried to edit further by just copypasting the battlecruiser iscript and applying it but then it just caused it to freeze from simply giving the order to build it at the starport. Even as I turned it back to the original Ragnasaur iscript and just used the Wraith movement iscript, it wouldn't work. If I can't do anything else with it later I am going to abandon the usage of a Terran anti-surface air unit as I figure artillery is what the siege tank is for. A little lame though as I feel without that, Terran wasn't manipulated a whole lot in the mod. Although I did give ghosts shields, same as the two battlecruiser heroes. As it stands now I only have two different units for Terran, and they're both anti-surface infantry. Although zerg wasn't manipulated too much. I digress.

4) I'll get to work on it soon I figure. So you're saying the first place it spawns a unit, is the place where all the units start to spawn when built from it? Would it be able to place structures? When I make the Iscript, I think I'm going to need some help developing an iscript for it.

5) Also, when you have the time, I'd like to have a tutorial on spell making. I know you posted a list in my other thread but I'm still confused especially as how to do the stuff with the orders. I'm a little afraid of messing with the orders but if I have a decent compendium on how to manipulate them I think I can do something with it.

1) I have the knowledge and experience to do it but I can't offer them at this time.

2) Sorry, I'm pretty clueless. It /might/ have something to do with cloaking and burrowing sharing some information or something and other hard-coded constraints.

3) What's freezing when the Starport is ordered to build it?

4) The unit trained will spawn at the location where it first began training.
So if there are three points, A, B, C, and a Factory F at A and a unit U that does not yet exist:
-1) F is ordered to move from A to C.
-2) F begins training U at B.
-3) F reaches C.
-4) F finishes training U. U spawns at B.

5) "when I have time" -> likely, never, I'm afraid. If I do something, I'll try to let you know.

1) Ok, can anyone else help?
2) ah, understood. Makes sense and is probably the reason why they didn't implement burrow with infested kerrigan in the first place.
3) the game is freezing when I tried to build the bomber I wanted to implement from the Starport, using the unit dat of the Arcturus Mengsk hero and custom graphics (that I think you examined in my prior thread) filling the spot of the ragnasaur sprite.
4)Understood. Any units that would be made would have to be instant train eh? I might refrain from that or apply spawn larvae as a full attack.
5) Ok, does anyone else know how to do it?

1) I have created a plugin that will cause Broodlings spawned through the unit training process to die after 240 frames (10 seconds on Fastest speed). I have attached it. Simply add it in Firegraft and it should work perfectly with your existing mod, so long as your mod provides a method to actually train them.

2) Maybe. It's just a guess. For now, it might be a good idea to use a different unit ID that isn't associated with burrowing.

3) Wild wild guess, but it /might/ have something to do with wireframes. Try using a different unit ID? I'm still thinking that the script has something to do with it, since I've had script-related issues that caused SC to crash on the beginning of unit-training (unless I'm simply failing to remember what actually caused the problem).

4) Yeah pretty much. I've been thinking if a plugin-based solution would work correctly by making the units spawn where the factory is at the moment it finishes training, but I never tested it.

Attachments:

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 19 2015, 8:56 am by Sand Wraith.

fascinating. 10 seconds on fastest? Would generate an interesting resource-based defense problem, would provide the option but would be a last ditch type based on how resource intensive it might be. Not to mention the units are weak to begin with.
That would be interesting. Isn't the wireframe attached to a different grp?

On Broodlings: I thought this was your original intention lol. But yeah in my test mod, a creep colony trains them on a very short time for 2 minerals. Indeed, the idea is short term unit-based defense. I'm not yet sure of how to automated the defense system but I have some ideas that involve detecting an attack made by the structure which triggers it to build the broodling.

On wireframe: forget what I said. It's garbage and surely not the issue. Have you tried training the Arcturus while it users is normal battlecruiser grp and script? And yes, wireframe are contained in another file iirc.

Yes, timed life was my intention but ten seconds is a dramatic reduction wouldn't you say?
I'll try out training Arcturus, although I'm pretty sure he wasn't the issue. If not I'll probably have to rely on protoss heroes or something. Like Mojo. Or even Artanis. I'm not sure he's going to be used in the campaign.

Ok, this time I opted for Ursadon. It's working except the non-movement issue is back.
If you can help tell me what'll bring him back moving, I'd be happy. Here's the modified ursadon iscript.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 20 2015, 12:46 am by SCRuler.

Well, ten seconds only applies to the Broodlings that are trained, not the normal ones. It's not like that number can't be changed though. As your mod approaches completion, just let me know if you have a different number that better fits your requirements and I'll compile the plugin with a different value.

EDIT: Yeah, hopefully arcturus isn't the problem! Once the normal Arcturus can be trained, try replacing the battlecruiser grp with your grp and we'll see if the grp is really at fault. What I expect is that your GRP can appear in-game just fine, but the scripting is what is doing something weird.

Now that I think of it, it might have to do with shadow spawning in the bomber's script. In which case, you'll need to go to the images.dat file and modify the rhino's shadow to use your bomber's grp file. (Or, alternatively, just replace the rhino shadow GRP with your bomber GRP, although this will cause the game to have a duplicate of your bomber GRP.)

Trained? as opposed to morphed from larvae? Naw, I'm fine.
Anyway, I edited my post above, with the iscript I need a little bit of help with. It's not crashin, but it's not moving.

I edited my previous post. I suppose it doesn't really apply though.

Morphed broodlings should also live only for 10 seconds because the detection method I used applies equally to morphing and trained units. I haven't tested this exact context yet, but this is the expected behaviour.

I think your script is fine. (You could probably replace UrsadonLocal00 with UrsadonGndAttkToIdle since they are the exact same.) Check the flingy that your bomber uses and make sure move control is set to "flingy.dat control", not "iscript.bin control".

Ok, I got it figured out. Bomber's almost completely implemented.

Now, to turn to the cloaking issue. I tried applying cloaking to the bomber. only worked with the EXE edit. Wouldn't decloak, energy wouldn't go down after the initial cost, and when the energy was 50 or below it wouldn't activate, saying "not enough energy". One down, four to go.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 20 2015, 2:14 am by SCRuler.

Ok, so I might implement the timed life plugin later. SO that's out of the way, and so is the bomber.

Now all I have left is the cloaking issue for the Infested Ghost, Spellmaking, and making that huge-ass zerg "capital ship".

I'll leave the last one for, well, last. I would like to know the steps you guys take to implement cloaking in non-previous cloaking units. Also, the step by step tutorial for spellmaking.

Is there anyone still able to teach me how to make spells?

Similar topic: http://www.staredit.net/topic/15708/0/

You're probably already more knowledgeable than I (seeing as I don't mod) but here's what I would say to creating (simple) spells:

1.) Copy the effects (dat and AIScript components) of the closest existing spell into a blank space
2.) Mix and match in components of other spells testing for incompatibilities along the way
3.) Tweak the effects as best you can
4.) Replace the graphics to give it the desired look

Alternatively with an exe you can hot-load graphics and manually change unit properties if you want more details on that.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 25 2015, 4:59 pm by jjf28.

Ok interesting. I'm interested in the exe edits for that.

I meant you can use an external exe/dll (perhaps made in the form of a plugin? I don't necessarily know the formats used for those)

---

Prolly a more mainstream/already mapped out/tool aided way of doing this... my approach would be

1.) Find the code that tics off 0x006509A0 (frames till next trigger cycle), redirect it to your own code using a dll (this way, your code will run once every frame just before or just after the trigger cycle.
2.) Now inside your own code...
    - inline assembly: push all the registers too the stack
    - traverse, read and edit units
    - allocate some space for your graphic/graphics, redirect pointers to there (mimic structures like CSprite and GRP) so your sprite is part of the list
    - next frame, if a graphic effect is over deallocate the space and fix up the pointers so your sprite is no longer part of the list
    - inline assembly: pop all the registers from the stack

This is the way GPTP works, roughly/exactly. https://code.google.com/p/gptp/

Still not sure if adding new graphics would work, however, given flingy, sprite, and images.dat constraints. I haven't tried the new (or if it uses the SC engine) draw and sound functions provided in newer versions of the GPTP.

somethingsomething codecaves somethingsomething

If you tell me what you want your spell to be, maybe I could do a version of that and document what I do. I make no promises as to when/if I'll get back to you.

Well, I suck at code.