I decided to start posting some WIP videos of stuff like this test drive of the monster allied AI. Can't balance this thing against the enemies yet because it's just very good at defending.
Also some background info of the QOL and visual/audial changes. Many are courtesy of Neiv's MTL and AICE plugins, of course.

- Weapon tooltips now indicate cooldown and damage type;
- Armor tooltips now indicate unit size;
- Firebats leave a corpse on death (same sprite as a dead Marine) in addition to exploding;
- Protoss Shield hit overlay is now directional;
- Civilian portrait has the talking animation reinstated;
- Civilian, Goliath, Arbiter and Archon unused death sounds reinstated;
- Death explosion sounds added to floor and wall turrets;
- Lockdown cast sound now occurs on impact, not on launch (it was tied to the Ghost/SK sprite which interfered with them using any other spells without getting the same telltale sound). Increased missile speed to partly offset that;
- EMP Shockwave unused casting sound reinstated;
- Zerg Queen unused casting sound reinstated;
- Stargate has a selection sound from an unused Protoss structure (pnawht00.wav);
- Broodling attack name changed to “Toxic Bite” which makes more sense;
- Changed rank values for many units of all races to have more balanced priority in mixed race parties (Zerg units no longer have very high rank values in comparison to the Terrans and Protoss);
- Added burn overlays for most Special Buildings;
- Mature Chrysalis has a selection sound from StarCraft II;
- Font size changed from large to normal for the Mission Objective screen. Now fits 12 lines, and each line can hold more characters.

- Idle workers (SCV, Probe, Drone) are now highlighted if they’re not doing anything meaningful (like moving, attacking, harvesting, returning goods, repairing...)
- Human player's SCVs autorepair damaged mechanical units and buildings within the range of 256 pixels (384 for heroes); which is 8/12 squares. Added to all missions in the campaign where the player controls Terrans but default algorithm / targeting is still a little wonky and the results are not 100% guaranteed; you may need to nudge your SCVs at times as they may get stuck on STOP order. Likewise Medics are told to auto-restore Irradiate (only on organic units), Plague, Lockdown, Maelstrom (in that order), although in practice they tend to prioritize trying to heal the irradiated / plagued unit, which is not great.
- Protoss units may auto-attempt to recharge shields when near a shield battery.
- Setting a rally point onto a unit/building now causes the constructed unit to perform the smart “right-click” action: say, Terran infantry units will enter bunkers if the rally point is set on one, and setting a town hall’s rally point on resource containers will cause the workers thus trained to start mining. Even works with transports and nydus canals: trained units will automatically enter the target if you set a rally point on one.
- Mod uses the Remastered Framework pack by UEDCommander, fixing certain issues with graphics inherent to SCR. More information about the Framework mod can be found here: http://www.staredit.net/topic/17830/

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Oct 24 2021, 1:18 pm by IlyaSnopchenko.

If only there was something like this for use in all campaigns...

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 24 2021, 7:15 pm by Zincoshine.

You can do this in all campaigns, with aice and aise both work on 1.16 as far as I know

Autorepair, autoharvest and other such things are done with AISE;
Idle worker highlighting is done with AICE;
Smart rally-point is done with MTL.

So yes, it's eminently possible to add to all campaigns including 1.16 (I take it all these plugins work there, though through Firegraft, not SAMASE?) However, autorepair and autoharvest require that a special AI Script is run in every mission, so it's not something that could be added wholesale to the entire project and work in every map you play under it, including melee. At least I have not found the way yet.

The features inherent to SAMASE would be exclusive to SCR, of course.

I also need to make an idle worker counter somehow. So far it requires a bit of a roundabout way but it's doable.

Nice QOL changes!



These are all possible in 1.16 through GPTP as well. If I remember correctly, there's even a standalone smart-rally plugin already.

Of course, any older campaigns will be out of luck.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Oct 25 2021, 11:59 am by Voyager7456.

There are almost no "older" campaigns anymore. I've successfully ported nearly everything to 1.16.1 the only exceptions are:
- newrand citadel (requires 1.10)
- gallantry (requires 1.08)
- vagrants (requires 1.10)
- fall of the gods (requires 1.10)
- tachyon (unknown version needed, this may be possible to port to 1.16.1 though)
- flame knives (requires 1.10)
- aeon of the hawk (requires 1.10)
- legacy of the confederation episode 2 (unknown version needed, possibly 1.12b)
- fallen angel (unknown version needed, possibly 1.12b)
- starcraft fusion (requires 1.15.1 It's playable on 1.16.1 now!)
- wicked reality (right now it works on 1.10, it can probably be ported to 1.16.1 but I'm not doing it..)

I've asked this before, but is there a repository of plugins somewhere?

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Oct 26 2021, 8:07 pm by Zincoshine.

There's a 1.16 version of flame knives (edit: probably also Aeon) that works completely fine floating around somewhere, I think Vorgozz may have it(he's on the SEN discord)

There is not as far as I know, your best bet is to go around and ask people I also have a list of all plugins used for my project on my discord, at least, and I'm sure Ilya has it in credits or somewhere on the drive as well. The ones Neiv made can be found on his github https://github.com/neivv

It's been a while but I've not been *entirely* idle. Mission 2-7, the final in Arc 2, is done, as in, has entered the final bugfixing/balancing/foolproofing phase. It's a big long micro map with inordinate amounts of wacky stuff (for the lack of better words) and it took a long time to properly flesh out.





I've also added new sections to mission 2-2, including a new bossbattle reenacting a well-known episode from Rebel Yell (and a cinematic from Wings of Liberty) from a different perspective.


Also map 2-5B is nearing completion, and with it, Arc 2 will be reasonably done. When that is done, there will be 4 missions and a cutscene map remaining to be done in arc 3. Most of these have already been started.
Also courtesy of Neiv, another QOL change has been made possible (and implemented): difficulty levels can be now selected with a dropdown list in the mission briefing like in SC2, believe it or not. This only appears for playable missions, not cutscene / service maps.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Feb 14 2022, 8:29 am by IlyaSnopchenko.

Hmm so how many maps in total are left to finish?

Five, only one of which has not been started at all. I know it isn't saying much, of course...

Oh it's saying a lot. We're getting closer!

Debugging a pretty obscure error in 2-7 (terran08.scx) now. The conflict I believed to cause it was not the true reason. This is the flip side of having so much capability at your fingertips... you end up lost in it.

Well, I'd rather have it that not. The capability... and can the Santa give me the hands that grow out of the right places.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Feb 15 2022, 6:37 am by IlyaSnopchenko.

Unfortunately Christmas is 10 months away so it may be some time before you get your extra hands...

Two more playable maps and one cutscene are now considered "finished". That includes the mission 3-8 which for the longest time was in doubt because it was too easy and without challenge (it's the one with the 3-race allied AI). Now, it has finally been made "interesting".
That leaves three maps to go, and one more still to be somehow amended before it can be considered finished.

Also been trying out the locales now made available in SAMASE coutresy of Neiv.










Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 20 2022, 3:47 pm by IlyaSnopchenko.

A khaydarin crystal formation with a build queue? What is it building?

A Khaydarin Crystal. :-)
Actually I made it this way because of the following issue. There are three KCFs on this map, which may be harvested simultaneously (if the player has the chops to try this, because the process makes the enemy try to destroy the formation - some of the AI's attacks are redirected towards the KCF(s) being harvested, and defending even one is pretty difficult), so using the good old fashioned Countdown Timer is not an option. Initially I just used the bog standard custom score timers but I wanted the player to have some sort of visual feedback of the progress.

Note that the building has no buttons to initiate the process, nor cancel it - it is started with an AI script. If you cancel it somehow (probably by clicking on the unit icon on the status bar), it will restart after a second or two, but you will naturally lose the progress already made. I considered it still reasonably smooth rather than cobbling some other sort of notification system. I admit I've done things in a pretty stoned way but I thought who cares as long as it works and isn't looking entirely as a kludge?

I've long wanted to do this and now... mission 2-1, already considered complete, was also expanded with the initial stealth action phase. I borrowed some ideas from SC2 (specifically, Nova Covert Ops), which is fitting, since mission 2-1 is Nova's personal show of sorts. It's not very long but adds something to a mission which is already loaded with cutscenes, and sure could use some more action.

This is the indication of a unit's sight range. Not as slick as in SC2 - it's actually just a circle with the required radius - but somehow works.

Like many things, it looks pretty iffy in SD but does the trick.

I also did something long envisioned and created the icons for the "resource" powerups out of their own sprites. Turned out a little bit easier than I thought. Maybe some other BLANK units might benefit from something like that, too.

I'm participating in Maporino this year again, with the map 3-7 "Soldiers of Misfortune" being the entry # 32. Maybe it'll be showcased in a few weeks' time.

Meanwhile, another QOL fix comes to the project: in certain maps, you will be able to push allied units out of a hero's way by right-clicking on them. Think Fallout 1 vs. Fallout 2: in the former, there were cases when NPCs would box the player character in, or block doorways, hence the addition of "Push" command in Fallout 2 to prevent such embarrassment. It is done entirely in iscript without the need for AI Script or trigger additions.

One more map almost down.
Some new and weird stuff added, for example:
- "salvaging" bunkers aka condemning them to demolition but getting back 75% of the cost - not sure if it does add any value to the campaign but when I came up with the idea it was an easy enough thing to implement, and later Nekron solved the one issue that made it unviable initially. Thank you Nekron.
- consume that restores shields and health to the (melee) unit using it, rather than mana.

The new map I'm working on will have a bunch of slightly odd mechanics but is again heavily inspired by Nekron's own efforts. Nekron is da man.
Few more screenies (including from the infamous Maporino '22 entry, Soldiers of Misfortune):

Another new little QOL improvement: unpowered Protoss buildings (those that require power, anyway) turn tinted.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/17vVJm4zVZJYMAL_O4ouRvWXLIpYv58CU/view?usp=sharing
Because why not? I was also frustrated of having to look for unpowered buildings in AI bases while the AI would get crazy building pylons randomly all over the place (except where they would need them, LOL).

Also, mission 2-5B is reasonably complete, so that leaves just 3 maps in arc 3. I just need to push through this... it's been 4 years of work after all (I remember starting out in early July but the exact date eludes me. July 17th, 2018, was the day I sent the first completed map to Pete aka Warchief, the author of the story, to show my work. July 9th - TODAY - is the datestamp on the earliest screenshots. So let's consider this a little anniversary.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 9 2022, 3:37 pm by IlyaSnopchenko.