Hi, some of you may already be a bit familiar withe me, in a mod which is getting developed we need to know how we can get something like factions or simulate this in some way.
In this case specifically It's about the protoss, the purpose is splitting the Protoss into 2 factions, Khala and the Void.
Those having the following units and upgrades/spells in common: zealot, leg enhancements, Dragoon, High Templar, all High templar original upgrades/spells, a new low tier spell caster called sentry which would have the hallucination spell instead of the High templar, all original Robotics facility units and their upgrades, the scout and it's upgrades.
Following mentioned upgrades/abilities belong to the faction.
Void: New research for zealot called charge, having Feedback added to High templar, Dark Templar, Dark Archon and it's spells Feedback spell slot probably being replaced somehow, Corsair and related research, new unit Void Ray, new end game unit Twilight Archon.
Khala: An other research for zealot called rage (removes shields and increases attack speed while attacking over time), Archon, new unit Immortal, Carrier. The High templar probably having an other spell too to compensate for having a bit fewer units than the void.

Originally The thought was that the factions would be cosen trough either build a Monolith or the Citadel of Adun, there seemed to be no way to have these buildings lock each other up when built.
My second idea was having two new research each one being free and taking no time to complete, research being Path of the Khala or Path of the Void (maybe called legacy of Void instead).
Anyway any spell or unit or building directly related to a faction would require the proper faction research, both being located next to each other at the nexus under the Probe building button.
This would work but still how do you make these research to bllock each other?
I think plugins have to be involved and be soemthing like if the other research is done this research will be locked.

I'm just learning programming but the language I'm learning now is flash which wont be useful for this I assume.

You could just have small "mission" before the actual protoss missions in which you choose which race you want to be. Then, you can just make two versions of each map, one being for Khala, and the other for Void. Like how Blizzard did it with the Ground Zero and Birds of War during the Terran Campaign. You can have one mission be called like Protoss01a for Khala, and then the same mission but with different buildings/units/tech available called Protoss01b for Void.

Note this is not a campaign this is a mod and this has to be within the mod.
A campaign to this mod could make some thing unavailable like one of the faction researches and having the other one already researched.

It's not for a campaign? Then what are you making the mod for? I'm not gonna lie; most people don't even bother playing a mod nowadays if it's not linked to a campaign.

look it will most likely be I can almost promise it, what I'm saying is that the faction thing has to be within the mod itself, how do you do this?

You could make each research require a particular resource that the race only ever has 1 of.

You could make the research be units instead, and the units of each techpath require the "research unit". The "research unit" requires another food that the main Nexus provides only 1 of (1 control, 1 Psi, or 1 supply). And other, standard units require another food (normal).

That could work but it would be strange but could work.
Is it possible to make Pylons supply with something else than psi at the same time?
And having a research or a building to trigger the supply uses a part from psi.

This is supposed to be faction choosing and to be played as you would play Protoss in the normal way which is not building alternative supplies, it has to be automatic.

You could use two researches, A and B.

Every frame, when a player P has completed the research of A or B, scan for all Nexus owned by P and remove or disable the button for B or A (whichever was not researched) for the Nexus.

(Substitute Nexus for whatever starting building players use.)

Thanks, by the way is it possible to undo research somehow too?
Not that I'm going to get that feature in this mod but yet anyway but still, the reason I ask is because I want to limit the number of a certain unit you can have in the field at the time.
I guess it could be solved using other kind of suply but in this case, how do you make the race support with that supply already from the start without actually having any building which increases it?
I remember seeing a old mod which tried to replicate SC2 in SC1, for the Mothership they used Terran supply as well but that supply level was constant, it never changed and was not part of any building (If you mind controlled a SCV you could technically increase the limit), but what I means is that there should be a way to make a race automatically support with some kind of supply without relying on supply making buildings of the other race(s).

Any unit AFAIK can both provide and/or use supply for/from any race.

It is possible to undo researches through plugins. However, I have not investigated this yet, such as whether or not the research button reappears, if the effects of the research are researched, what happens if units using the tech have the tech reversed, and so on.

About supply I know that any unit can use or give any of the supply kinds, I know units can use several supply the question is if units can provide ith several supplies simultaneously?

Maybe. I've never tried. It it works, it would probably also take different supply simultaneously.

Test it out for yourself.

Could you somehow make a race to automatically generate a smalll amount of supply without the use of units or buildings?
I'm 100% sure it's possible because I'vce seen it somewhere long ago, just need you to confirm it because it might have been made in some other manner.
Still unrelated to units.

AFAIK: no.

Then is it possible to have a code which adds a certain number of an other race's supply if there are any Nexuses present?
The point of this i to limit the player to only be able to get a limited amount of a certain unit without having to build anything to get that supply.

Below is a solution.

Paths A and B are represented by no-cost units X and Y. They each take at least 2 frames to build (I would recommend something higher like 24 frames * 3 for 3 s to grant the player time to cancel choosing).

You can use an 8-length array of integers, possessing possible values of 0, 1, and 2.
0 would represent no path chosen. It is the initial value of each element of the array.
1 would represent path A chosen. The element is set to 1 when the plugin detects that the player (represented by the index of the array, where index 0 is player 1 and so on) owns a completed X.
2 would represent path B chosen. The element is set to 2 when the plugin detects that the player owns a completed Y.

Additionally, every frame, the plugin would check if the player owns an incomplete X or Y (as in the unit is still being trained).
If this is the case, then the plugin would perform another check to determine if the element corresponding to the player's index is not 0.
If it is not 0, then the plugin would force the building that trains X and Y to cancel training X or Y.

The end result would be that it is impossible for the player to possess more than 1 complete unit type of either X or Y, without resorting to either unique resources or supply usage.

You would only have to make sure to check for the nuances of complete or incomplete (training) unit.

That's very useful, thanks, the reason I don't reply is because that would be a Thanks and everyone would think it would be over.
By the way does it have to be no cost units?
I was thinking more like letting the units X and Y be two buildings and anything faction specific would require the appropriate building as well.

Still something somehwat related to factions in some manner, anyway I'm trying to find out a way to make a new kind of Archoin without replacing any current Archon.
This new kind of ARchon will be called "Twilight Archon" which would be like a much more powerful version of the Archon (the unit itself is not the problem).
Though some suggested GRPs or effects would be useful, as this unit should look bigger and more powerful.

Now the big question
Is it possible to make a new kind of Archon made out of a High Templar and a Dark Templar?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 28 2012, 9:22 am by Raygoza.

The "no-cost" attribute is optional - I just used the phrase because of an assumption I made.
You can use buildings instead. Faction-specific elements' pre-requisites can set normally using FireGraft.
A plugin specific issue is the cancellation of the building. Since this is a Protoss building being constructed, you will have to pass a specific Cancel order to the building itself to cancel its warp (and refund the player).

IIRC, Archon's are fairly hard-coded. You'll have to use a different, less intuitive method for merging the units. And chances are, you won't have a pretty loading bar for the Archon.

Graphics: SEN's DLDB can be used. You can also use Internet archives for scouring Infoceptor, Nottingham Systems, and Maplantis. You can also use Corbo's website.

I guess research could be used instead of buildings, by the way in this case will the other research be locked, look available or gone from sight?

In any case I suggest using research as it gives more flexibility, as soon as you build a Cybernetics core you want to be able to have Dragoons unlocked, let's say that Stalkers are added, this makes a problem.
In this case the faction buildings are the Citadel of Adun and a Void building (name yet to be decided), cannot wait until these are available and build one of them and then get a cybernetic walker. The Templar Archives requires the Citadel but could probably be made to have the Void building as an alternative unlocker.
The faction buildings themselves would require their faction research (the reason to have two faction buildings is to not get all the common things trough the same buildings).

Do you suggest that the research could be placed on the cybernetics core, if the players are given 3 sec for the research to allow cancel the cybernetics core warpin time could be reduced with 3 secs.
Because if the research A and B would be located at the Nexus they would interfere with Probe construction at the beginning
.
Now anything that is faction specific would require the proper faction research and the Protoss divided into two faction would now be done.

FireGraft supports using the "Or" opcode for requirements, so you can apply that to researches and/or buildings to let players use either unlocker to get the Templar Archives.

The fact that I used Nexus in my post was purely to help illustrate the solution and it is by no means necessary. (Feel free to use whatever building to research.)

I'm not certain what you're saying about the 3 sec, but it's probably fine.